Greedy Kuzya (1969)

Original Title: Zhadnyy Kuzya

Directed by: Mikhail Kamenetskiy, Ivan Ufimtsev

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: Characters from a book come to life after a greedy hungry cat steals their birthday cake in this Russian short film which combines live action and animation.

Featured Feline: The cat in this film named Kuzya (or Kuzma or Kuzya, depending upon the translation) is a typical hungry feline, raiding the family refrigerator for food.

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya coming out of refrigerator

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya close

Next Kuzya gets on the kitchen table and laps up some spilled milk and then dips into a cream container.

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya lapping spilled milk from table

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya placing paw in cream

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya dipping paw into cream container and licking it animated gif

Not yet satisfied, Kuzya spots a drawing of a birthday cake on the cover of a book. The cat rips off the picture of the cake and carries it away.

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya on table looking at book

The characters from the book, a frog, a hedgehog, a squirrel and a bunny, leave the pages and become real as they search for the stolen cake. Oblivious to this at first, Kuzya is lying in another room trying to sleep.

Greedy Kuzya - frog, hedgehog, squirrel and bunny looking at sleeping brown and white tabby cat Kuzya

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya sleeping

The frog attempts to steal back the cake picture but is chased into the refrigerator. The door shuts and the frog is trapped inside until his friends rescue him.

Greedy Kuzya - frog trying to steal birthday cake photo from brown and white tabby cat Kuzya

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya reaching into refrigerator

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya trying to reach frog in refrigerator

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya trying to reach frog in refrigerator animated gif

Having obtained a sausage from inside the fridge, the frog suggests to the others to have a relay race and lead the cat away as the hedgehog gets the cake back. Kuzya is again lying down as the frog starts the relay.

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya lying down

Greedy Kuzya - brown and white tabby cat Kuzya lying down then chasing after frog animated gif

The squirrel climbs to the top of the drapes and Kuzya climbs up after her (a clever bit of trick photography with the cat actually lying on a curtain and filmed from an angle that makes it looks as if the cat is climbing.)