Aniskin and Fantomas

Aniskin and Fantomas (1973) is a two-part Soviet detective comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Mikhail Zharov plays Aniskin, a rural beat cop who looks like a slow, easygoing country fellow and turns out to crack every case that lands in his village.

This time someone robs the local cashier in a Siberian backwater, the raiders working in black stocking masks like the villain from the fashionable French Fantomas movies. Aniskin's first guess is that the local kids got carried away playing at the screen bad guy. But someone is behind the boys, and the lieutenant has to work out who planned the heist and talked youngsters into it in a place where everyone has known everyone since childhood. Tatyana Peltzer, Lidia Smirnova, Roman Tkachuk and Valery Nosik round out the cast.

It's adapted from the prose of Vil Lipatov and continues the story begun in The Village Detective. Zharov co-directed with Vladimir Rapoport as well as starring. The charm is in the unhurried village life and in Aniskin himself, who solves crimes the neighborly way. Stream Aniskin and Fantomas (1973) online on iFILM.