Heart of a Dog (1988 TV Movie)

Evgeniy Evstigneev: Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky

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Quotes 

• Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov : You are wrong here. I didn't ask you to perform the operation, did I? A fine business! You go and grab hold of an animal, slice his head open... and now you're sick of him! I didn't give permission to operate on me, did I? Neither did my relatives. I guess I have the right to sue you.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : So you object to having been turned into a human being, do you? Maybe you'd prefer to be sniffing around garbage cans again? Or freezing under gateways?

  Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov : Why do you keep on at me? Garbage cans, garbage cans! Perhaps I was making my living there. And what if I'd died under your knife? What d'you say to that, comrade?

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : My name is Philip Philipovich. I'm no comrade of yours!

  Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov : Oh sure, I know. Of course, how else, we're not your comrades! How could we? We understand, sir! We didn't go to universities. We never had a flat of fifteen rooms and a bathroom. Only now it is time to forget about all that.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Mind you, Ivan Arnoldovitch, that the only people... who take vodka with cold collations and soup are a few remaining landlords whom the Bolsheviks didn't have time to murder. Anybody with a spark of self-respect takes his hors d'oeuvres hot.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Oh well, so it's started. This is the end of this house. Now they'll get things rolling. First of all, there'll be community singing every evening, then the pipes will freeze in the lavatories... then the steam-heating pipes will blow up, and so on.

  Dr. Bormenthal : You paint too grim a picture, Philip Philipovich. They're very different now.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : And I won't mention the boiler, my dear... Let them! When there's a social revolution going on, one does without central heating.

• Dr. Bormenthal : You sound like a counterrevolutionary, Philip Philipovitch.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Nothing dangerous. Nothing counterrevolutionary. Incidentally that's another word I simply can't stand. What the devil is it supposed to mean, anyway? Nobody knows. So, there's nothing counterrevolutionary in what I am saying. It's full of sound sense and a lifetime of experience.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Nobody must be beaten. Never. Remember that once and for all. Animals and humans can only be dealt with by persuasion.

• Shwonder : Write a certificate, citizen Professor. You know the sort of thing... This is to certify that the bearer is really Poligraph Poligraphovich Sharikov. Who was born in this flat.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Goddammit, I've never heard anything so idiotic in my life. He wasn't born at all, he simply... well, he sort of...

  Shwonder : That's your problem. It's up to you to decide whether he was born or not. All in all you were conducting an experiment, Professor. And you are the creator of citizen Sharikov.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : What does your precious House Committee say, then?

  Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov : There's no call to brand it 'precious'. It protects people's interests.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Whose interests, may I ask?

  Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov : Everyone knows. The working class element's.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Are you a worker then?

  Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov : That's obvious, I am not a capitalist.

• Dr. Bormenthal : How ever did you manage to lure such a nervous dog, Philip Philipovich?

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : By kindness. The only way to deal with a living being. Terror will get you nowhere. That I have maintained, do maintain, and always will maintain. They believe, terror will help them. Well, it won't. No matter which one it is: white, red or even brown.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Why can't the proletariat leave... his dirty galoshes downstairs instead of dirtying the marble?

  Dr. Bormenthal : But the proletarians don't have any galoshes at all, Philip Philipovich.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Nothing of the sort. They do have galoshes now and those galoshes are mine! The very same galoshes that disappeared in 1918.

• Dr. Bormenthal : How do you find time for everything, Philip Philipovitch?

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : One can find time for everything if one is never in a hurry.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Vodka should be at least 40 proof, not 30, that's number one.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Zina! I bought this good-for-nothing some Cracowian sausage. Take the trouble to feed him when he gets over his nausea.

  Zinochka Bunina : Cracowian sausage? I'd rather eat the Cracowian salami myself.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Just you try! Poison to the human stomach, that's what it is. You are a grown-up girl, but you go on putting all sorts of nasty things into your mouth, like a child. Remember: neither me, nor doctor Bormenthal will bother ourselves with you... when you go down with a stomach ache.

• Vyazemskaya : You know, Professor, if you were not a luminary known throughout Europe... if you hadn't been interceded for by certain people in the most disgraceful way... you should be arrested.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : What for?

  Vyazemskaya : You don't like the proletariat.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : No, I don't like the proletariat.

• Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Food, Ivan Arnoldovich, is a subtle thing. One must know how to eat. And yet, just think of it, that most people don't know how to eat at all. One must not only know what to eat, but when and how, and what to say while eating. If you care about your digestion, my advice is: don't talk about Bolshevism or medicine at table. And God forbid: never read Soviet newspapers before dinner.

  Dr. Bormenthal : But there are no other newspapers.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : So don't read any at all. I once made thirty tests in my clinic. And guess what? Those of my patients whom I forced to read Pravda... lost weight. And to top it off they had retarded knee reflexes, lost appetite... and exhibited symptoms of general depression.

• Shwonder : Excuse me, Professor, but the general meeting of the tenants of this block requests you... as a matter of labor discipline... to give up your dining room voluntarily. No one in Moscow has dining rooms.

  Vyazemskaya : Not even Isadora Duncan.

  Shwonder : And also that you should give up the consulting room. Your study can double perfectly well as a consulting room. Quite so. Isn't that right, comrades?

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Where am I supposed to partake of food?

  Shwonder : In the bedroom.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : I expect that is what Isadora Duncan does. Perhaps she dines in her study and dissects rabbits in her bathroom. Perhaps. But I am not Isadora Duncan. I will dine in the dining room and operate in the operating theatre. Pray inform the general meeting of this. And meanwhile kindly allow me... to take supper where all normal people do so. And not in the hall and not in the nursery!

  Shwonder : In that case, Professor, in view of your stubborn resistance... we shall complain about you to higher authorities.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Just a moment. Please, wait a minute. Put me through to Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Professor Preobrazhensky. Pyotr Alexandrovitch? I am glad I was able to reach you. Thank you, I am well. Pyotr Alexandrovitch, your operation is canceled. And so are all my other operations. I am giving up my practice in Moscow and in Russia in general. Four people have just come in to see me. One of whom is a woman dressed as a man. Two men are armed with revolvers. They are terrorizing me!

  Shwonder : Pardon... Professor...

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : I cannot work under such conditions and have no right to. So I shall cease my activities, lock up my flat, and go to Sochi. I can leave the keys with Shvonder. Let him operate. But on one condition. I don't care who, where or what... provided it's the sort of paper that would keep Shvonder... or whoever from even approaching the door of my apartment! The ultimate in certificates. Factual! Real! A true protection! I don't want my name even mentioned! As far as they are concerned, I am dead.

  Pyotr Aleksandrovich : Hand the receiver to Shvonder.

  Professor Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky : Would you mind, you're wanted on the telephone.

  Shwonder : Hello. Yes, I'm Shvonder, the chairman of the House Management Committee... Yes. We were only acting according to the regulations. I understand. The Professor has quite exceptional privileges anyway. We know about his work. We were going to leave him no less than five rooms...