The Scarlet Flower (Russian: Аленький цветочек) is a 1977 film adaptation of Sergey Aksakov's fairytale of the same name.
Tropes featured in the adaptation:
- Adaptation Expansion: The film includes many details that weren't there in the original, in particular, actually featuring the enchantress as a character.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Unlike in the fairytale, where the Beast was completely innocent, here he was cursed by the enchantress after laughing at her humble gift.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- In the fairytale, the youngest daughter asks for the most beautiful scarlet flower without explaining why she needs such a gift. Like her 1952 counterpart, Alyona explains she saw it in a dream.
- The nastiness of Alyona's sisters is downplayed, and they are at least partially motivated by their fear of the Beast rather than jealousy of Alyona.
- Adaptational Ugliness: Rather than the breathtakingly beautiful realm from the fairytale, the Beast's palace looks outright creepy with eerie lighting inside, and the surrounding park is nice but fairly ordinary-looking.
- Adaptation Origin Connection: In the fairytale, the elder sisters' gifts have nothing to do with the rest of the plot. Here, they are both provided by the old servant.
- Affably Evil: Sure, the enchantress turned the prince into the Beast after he spurned her gift... but otherwise, she is a pretty decent lady, warning the merchant against plucking the scarlet flower and later being kind (in her own, very aloof and detached way) towards Alyona. Unlike her Disney counterpart, she also makes it clear that the former prince's servants are free to leave — and, indeed, only one of them remains in the castle by the time of the plot, and that's his own decision.
- Ambiguously Evil: The enchantress turns the prince into the Beast, but, apart from that, how evil she is remains a mystery thanks to her highly aloof nature and ever-vague manner of speech. Does she stay in the palace in the hopes of seeing the prince repent, to stay close to him, or to watch his psychological torment? Is she actually kind to Alyona or is it a mind game of hers? Does she, for that matter, encourage Alyona to flee because she pities her or because she doesn't want her to lift the curse? Does she even regret cursing the prince? We never get any definite answers.
- Ascended Extra: The enchantress who was only briefly mentioned in the fairytale is a major character here
- Easily Forgiven: The prince bears no grudge towards the enchantress, even inviting her to the wedding.
- Emotionless Girl: For the majority of the movie, the enchantress's demeanour is icy and emotionless.
- Lost in Imitation: Alyona first sees the scarlet flower in a dream, just like Nastenka in the 1952 adaptation did... and the merchant's daughter from the original did not.
- Named by the Adaptation: Here, the nameless merchant's daughter is named Alyona.
- Not So Stoic: The usually-calm enchantress loses her cool twice — breaking into a long laugh (albeit her usual mirthless one) after she sees Alyona has grown fond of the Beast and then breaking into tears after the curse gets broken.
- Obviously Not Fine: The enchantress insists she isn't crying when she can barely speak through tears.
- Old Retainer: The old servant stays in the palace, even though he is miserable there and nothing stops him from leaving, because he feels the Beast needs him. In the end, when the curse is broken, he leaves with the enchantress, realizing that now she needs him more.
- Pet the Dog: The enchantress offers to teach Alyona magic. It could be just a ploy to distract Alyona from the Beast, but when Alyona insists she needs to see the latter, the enchantress laughs mirthlessly and says she will — and does nothing else to stop Alyona's interactions with the Beast, so probably the magic-teaching offer was genuine.
