Nina Ruslanova Movies

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

The students and teachers of a small-town school are changed forever as the storm clouds of World War II gather on the horizon in this tragic drama. As the Russian people attempt to resist the fascist oppression of Stalin, a daughter commits suicide rather than betray her father by testifying against him. With political restrictions in the Soviet Union being gradually lifted in the 1980s, this was one of the first films to mention the previously taboo subject of the nighttime raids by the KGB, in which innocent people were dragged from their homes and jailed. Over 13 million people saw this feature in the USSR alone. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story about the 1942 bombing of a Red Cross ship carrying wounded men, this gripping interpretation by Arkady Sirenko focuses on the three days when the only survivor of the wreckage fought for his existence trekking through snow and ice to reach a town and safety. When Andrei Bouliguin (Viatchelav Baranov) sets off across the wasteland ahead of him carrying a sack of mail the men on the ship gave him as a last gesture, he is plagued each morning by a Nazi fighter plane that is out to strafe him and his mail bag -- but circumstances contrive to save the soldier each time. The harsh cold, even during this spring season, and the arduous journey, as well as the tension of facing the Nazi plane each day, would have defeated the soldier if he were not inspired by the many letters he must deliver, and the thought of his mother and home. His stubborn persistence in the face of nearly impossible odds epitomizes the persistence of the Soviet people in fighting the Nazi's, and as the soldier comes closer to reaching his goal, parallels with World War II continue. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide