Themes: Doctors and Patients, Totalitarian States, Experiments Gone Awry
Main Cast: Yevgeni Yevstigneyev, Vladimir Tolokonnikov, Boris Plotnikov, Roman Kartsev, Nina Ruslanova
Release Year: 1988
Country: SU
Run Time: 130 minutes
Plot
This Soviet film tells the story of Preobrazhensky (Yevgeni Yevstigneyev), a surgeon, who is a professor of medicine in Moscow. After the Russian revolution is thoroughly in place, he is visited by the housing committee, who feels that he should share the spaciousness his "big" five-room apartment with several others. Meanwhile, in an experiment he implants a dog with the heart and brain of a tramp. The dog gradually transforms into a man (Vladimir Tolokonnikov), but still has some doggy attitudes: for instance, he chooses to call himself Sharikov. Since Sharik is a common Russian dog name, just as "Rex" might be in the West, it is clear where the man-dog's sympathies lie. Sharikov becomes associated with the local Party officialdom, and begins to terrorize the professor and his assistant, Dr. Bormental (Boris Plotnikov). After he becomes a member of the housing committee, he wangles a room in the professor's apartment. Also, after being appointed a member of a state committee to deal with stray animals, Sharikov refuses to allow dogs to be killed, only cats. The movie is based on the 1925 story by Mikhail Bulgakov, which was very hard to find in Russia up until the perestroika. After people began reading it for the first time, they were amazed to discover how daringly he had criticized the emerging Soviet system. This Russian made-for-TV movie is perhaps the most successful adaptation of the story; an Italian version was made in 1975. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Cast
Yevgeni Yevstigneyev - Prof. Preobrazhensky
Vladimir Tolokonnikov - Sharikov
Boris Plotnikov - Dr. Bormental
Roman Kartsev - Shvonder
Nina Ruslanova
Yevgeny Kuznetsov; Olga Melikhova; Alexei Mironov; Anzhelika Nevolina; Natalya Fomenko; Ivan Ganzha; Valentina Kovel; Sergei Filippov; Roman Tkachuk; Nat. Lapina
Credit
Vladimir Bortko - Director, Mikhail Bulgakov - Short Story Author
The film is set in Moscow not long after the October Revolution. A well-off surgeon Filip Filippovich Preobrazhensky implants a pituitary gland and testicles of a recently deceased alcoholic and petty criminal Klim Chugunkin into a stray dog named Sharik. Sharik proceeds to become more and more human during the next days. After his transition to human is complete, it turns out that he inherited all the negative traits of the donor - bad manners, aggressiveness, use of profanity, heavy drinking. He picks for himself an absurd name Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov, starts working at the "Moscow Cleansing Department responsible for eliminating vagrant quadrupeds (cats, etc.)" and associating with revolutionaries, who plot to drive Preobrazhensky out of his big apartment. Eventually he turns the life in the professor's house into a nightmare, and the professor with his assistant are urged to reverse the procedure. Sharikov turns back into a dog. As Sharik he doesn't remember anything that happened and is left to life in the professor's apartment.
