Heart of a Dog
Country
Production
Genre
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Director
Actors
Evgeniy Evstigneev, Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Tolokonnikov, Nina Ruslanova, Olga Melikhova, Aleksei Mironov, Roman Kartsev, Anzhelika Nevolina, Natalya Fomenko, Evgeniy Kuznetsov
All actors and roles (10)
All actors and roles (10)
Scenario
Producer
Operator
Yuriy Shaygardanov
Composer
Vladimir Dashkevich
Artist
Vladimir Svetozarov
Audition
Editing
Leda Semyonova
All team (27)
All team (27)
Short description
In 1920s Moscow, shortly after the October Revolution, a stray dog named Sharik is taken in by Professor Preobrazhensky, a wealthy and respected surgeon. The professor performs a daring medical experiment on the dog that changes him into a human being. As the newly transformed Sharikov begins to navigate life in the professor’s apartment, his crude behavior and revolutionary ideas turn the household upside down.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was shot on black-and-white film and then printed on a color positive to achieve a sepia tone. This color choice was made to stylize the movie after films of the 1920s. However, the main theatrical release of the film was entirely black-and-white, as black-and-white positives were cheaper than color ones.
- The consultant was A.S. Efimov, an academician of the AMN USSR and head of the diabetes clinic at the Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism of the USSR Ministry of Health (Kyiv).
- Specifically for the filming, a passenger car was built on a GAZ truck chassis, which Preobrazhensky, Bormenthal, and Sharikov use to drive to the university.
- Vladimir Simonov auditioned for the role of Bormenthal.
- Actor Semyon Farada auditioned for the role of Shvonder.
- Leonid Bronevoy, Yuri Yakovlev, Mikhail Ulyanov, Vladislav Strzhelchik, and Kirill Lavrov auditioned for the role of Professor Preobrazhensky.
- A dog named Karay was filmed in the role of Sharik; the owner and trainer was Elena Nikiforova.
- The film that Bormenthal watches at the cinema is "The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks," directed by Lev Kuleshov.
- When Shvonder and his company prepare to leave during their visit to Preobrazhensky, they put on their hats, but the professor asks them to wait and makes a phone call. When Shvonder and his company are shown again, they are no longer wearing their hats.
- Professor Preobrazhensky invites his colleagues to examine Sharikov. One of them, Professor Persikov, is a character from another of Bulgakov's novellas, "The Fatal Eggs." The line spoken by the well-read street sweeper is a line from a character in the story "The Gem-like Life." The fortune teller at the circus, Mademoiselle Jeanne, is a character from the story "Mademoiselle Jeanne." The story regarding the christenings of babies Clara and Rosa is borrowed from the feuilleton "The Golden Correspondences of Ferapont Ferapontovich Kaportsev," and the scene with the medium is from the story "The Spirit Session."
- The bard Yuliy Kim wrote the song "The Harsh Years Are Passing," as well as the chastushkas and the Red Army march performed by Sharikov.
- Filming took place in Leningrad.
- There were eight candidates for the role of Sharikov, including Nikolai Karachentsov, Valery Nosik, and Alexei Zharkov. However, Tolokonnikov performed so well during the screen tests that director Vladimir Bortko decided to cast him.
- The shots that are purportedly documentary footage featuring a tram are not actually archival footage.
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Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
