The Fairytale Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit (TV)

"The Fabulous Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit" was a 1985 Soviet film adaption of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 book The Hobbit by Vladimir Latyshev. The children's film featured Zinovy Gerdt as "the professor" (a narrator stand-in for Tolkien), Mikhail Danilov as Bilbo Baggins, Anatoly Ravikovich as Thorin Oakenshield and Igor Dmitriev as Gollum. Smaug and the Mirkwood spiders were portrayed by puppets. Missing in this version are the trolls, Elrond, Beorn and the wood-elves. The goblins are human-like with little makeup, and were portrayed by dancers from the Leningrad State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, as are the inhabitants of Lake Town. The film was shot in 1984 as a teleplay and produced in the framework of the children's TV series Tale after Tale aired at the Leningrad TV Channel in the 1980s and the 1990s.