The first full-length Soviet movie I watched in the original language was the 1973 comedy «Иван Васильевич меняет профессию» — Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Careers — which my 2nd-year college Russian instructor screened for the class on a grainy VHS tape with English subtitles. Later, it would be the first Russian-language movie I bought on DVD, and after all these years and countless viewings it still holds its charm.

Этот фильм не возможно не любить (“One can’t help adoring this movie”)!

It’s by the legendary director Leonid Gaidai with a cast of equally legendary stars (several of whom were Gaidai regulars). The Brezhnev-era production is packed with satirical in-jokes about life in the USSR — and Russian крылатые выражения (“catchphrases”) galore — yet much of the humor is universal. It added some enduring hits to the repertoire of Soviet pop-music. And on top of all this, it boasts an impeccable literary pedigree, being an adaptation of a 1935 play by Mikhail Bulgakov of Master and Margarita fame.

Like I said, what’s not to love?

Warning: The rest of this post is intended to help students who might want to watch the full movie on DVD or online — so there are tons of plot-spoilers!

The movie opens with a brief black-and-white segment that introduces Шурик, a geeky изобретатель (“inventor”) who’s working on a complicated machine in his living room (actor Александр Демьяненко had played a similar-but-not-identical “Shurik” in two previous Gaidai films). The guy is a classic absent-minded professor whose attention is easily distracted by a mischievous black cat. The machine overheats and пережигает все пробки в доме (“blows out all the building’s fuses”) — and not for the first time, either!

As Shurik hurries downstairs to replace the fuses, he’s intercepted by Иван Васильевич Бунша, the управдом (“building manager”; “super”). The Bunsha character (one of two roles played by Юрий Яковлев) is meant to satirize a “peculiarly Soviet” stereotype — the bureaucratic, conformist sort that Bulgakov always treated mercilessly. (Nowadays, though maybe not in the 1970s, the pejorative slang совок might be used for such a person.)

However, English speakers will instantly recognize Bunsha as a kindred spirit of such characters as Basil Fawlty; and Maj. Frank Burns from M*A*S*H; and every “Principal McDouchebag” in practically every high-school comedy ever made by Hollywood. Which is to say, Bunsha is a педантичный (“nit-picking”), лишённый чувства юмора (“devoid of humor”), ограниченный (“straitlaced”), and надутый (“pompous”) человек. Above all else, he’s proudly incapable of doing the smallest thing «без санкции соответствущих органов» (“without the sanction of the proper state agencies”).

Of course, the inventor is undiscouraged by Bunsha’s scolding, and he hurries back to test the machine again. This time around, there’s a huge shower of sparks, Шурика ударяет током (“Shurik gets an electric shock”), he falls unconscious to the floor…

…and suddenly everything switches from B&W to “glorious Technicolor” as we go to an on-location киносъёмка на море (“movie-shoot by the seashore”). A beautiful redheaded actress явно флиртует с режиссёром (“blatantly flirts with the director”) as she belts out the first of the film’s hit songs, «Звенит январская вьюга» (“Your ears ring from the January blizzard”). Or, rather, she (badly) lip-synchs it, because the vocals were actually recorded by pop-star Nina Brodskaya:

[Look closely in the video and you’ll spot director Леонид Гайдай himself in a cameo as the lighting technician!]

Anyway, we soon learn that the redhead (Наталья Селезнёва) is Shurik’s fickle wife Зина, who returns home just long enough to tell Shurik that he’s about to become the latest in her string of ex-husbands.

Shurik пассивно вздыхает «так, так, так…» (“passively sighs, ‘Oh, well — so that’s that.”) In turn, Zina gripes that it’s «как-то невежливо» (“somewhat ill-mannered”) if a husband «не устраивает скандал» (“doesn’t make a big fuss”) after his wife announces that she’s dumping him for her movie director!

With Zina gone, we meet a few more modern Muscovites. First, there’s the super’s Gorgonish wife Uliana (Наталья Крачковская) — a shrieking сплетница (“gossipy woman”) who wears a different-colored парик (“wig”) in every scene, and naturally offers her opinion on Shurik’s domestic troubles:

Ульяна: Будь я вашей женой, я бы тоже уехала!
Шурик: Если бы ВЫ были моей женой, я бы повесился.

Uliana: If I were your wife, I’d run off, too!
Shurik: If you were my wife, I’d hang myself.

We’re also introduced to Жорж Милославский (Леонид Куравлёв), a notorious professional вор (“thief”). Suave, handsome, остроумный (“witty”), and extremely находчивый (“resourceful”), George is the полная противоположность Ивану Бунше (“complete opposite of Ivan Bunsha”) — so, by the inexorable laws of film comedy, they’re fated to spend a great deal of time together.

If Bunsha lives by the motto Всё, что не разрешено — запрещено (“Everything not [expressly] permitted is forbidden”), George’s philosophy is something closer to Закон существует, чтобы мы могли его нарушать (“The law exists so that we can break it”). And today his scheme is to взломать квартиру (“break-and-enter the flat”) of Shurik’s next-door neighbor, an affluent dental surgeon who can afford Italian suede jackets and imported cameras.

Inside the dentist’s apartment, George soon finds a huge pile of rubles — plus bottles of scotch, and one of those novelty ballpoint pens with a sexy woman who loses her swimsuit when you turn it upside down.

Pocketing the cash — and the pen, which we’ll see again later — George offers the audience a bit of financial advice that parodies a real-life Soviet slogan:

And right next door, the super has dropped by Shurik’s place to nag him that too many divorces per year make the whole country look bad: “Wait at least until the next calendar-quarter,” he urges — «А потом разводитесь сколько вашей душе угодно». (“And then get divorced as many times as the spirit moves you.”) Furthermore, Bunsha is still wary of that подозрительный аппарат (“suspicious-looking device”) in the living room, so the inventor attempts to explain that it’s all in the name of science:

Шурик: Я изобрёл машину времени! Словом, я могу уйти в прошлое!
Бунша: Уйти в прошлое?!? Такие опыты нужно делать только с разрешением соответстующих органов!

Shurik: “I’ve invented a time machine! In a word, I can go into the past!”
Bunsha: “Time-travel experiments should only be done with permission from the bureaus in charge of such matters!”

With or without official permission, Shurik is determined to prove that his machine works, so he cranks up the voltage and opens a time-portal to the reign of царь Иоанн Грозный (“Tsar Ivan the Terrible” — also played by Юрий Яковлев).

Incidentally, Shurik never mentions the precise year to which he sets the machine, но зоркие зрители могут разобраться в этом (“but sharp-eyed viewers can figure this out”) based on hints given later in the film…

Needless to say, the unexpected arrival of “demons” из будущего (“from the future”) terrifies the Tsar and the palace guards, resulting in a slapstick погоня (“chase; pursuit”) в кадрах с убыстрённой скоростью (“done with sped-up footage”), à la The Benny Hill Show. Amid all this chaos, the Tsar путешествует во времени (“travels in time”) into modern Moscow, while the управдом and взломщик (“burglar”) wind up in the 16th century — and Shurik’s machine is badly damaged, thereby closing the time-portal.