Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession
Entry updated 18 August 2025. Tagged: Film.
Russian film (1973; original title Ivan Vasilyevich menyaet professiyu; vt Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future). Mosfilm. Directed by Leonid Gaidai. Written by Vladlen Bakhnov and Leonid Gaidai, based on the 1935 play Ivan Vasilievich by Mikhail Bulgakov. Cast includes Aleksandr Demyanenko, Leonid Kuravlyov and Yuriy Yakovlev. 88 minutes. Mainly colour.
Engineer Aleksandr "Shurik" Timofeyev (Demyanenko) is on leave, occupying himself by building a "Time Machine" in his flat; this makes him unpopular with other tenants due to power cuts and blown fuses. At one point, during testing, there is an explosion and he is knocked unconscious. Up to this point the film has been in black and white; it now shifts to colour. When the building's superintendent Ivan Vasilievich (Yakovlev) reprimands him, Shurik demonstrates his Invention: one of the room's walls temporarily disappears, revealing burglar George Miloslavsky (Kuravlyov) in the next flat. Miloslavsky is professionally interested by the device's ability to make walls vanish, but Shurik dismisses this and demonstrates its intended purpose: now, where the adjoining flat had been, appears a room containing Ivan the Terrible (Yakovlev) and a scribe.
The scribe assumes they are demons and guards are called for; in the resulting melee a halberd ends up in the time machine, breaking the connection between the eras – Ivan the Terrible finds himself in Shurik's twentieth-century flat, whilst Vasilievich and Miloslavsky (the latter having been examining sixteenth-century valuables) are stranded in the past. After a prolonged chase scene Miloslavsky exploits Vasilievich's close resemblance to the Tsar, having him dress in Ivan the Terrible's clothes: their pursuers duly fall to their knees, and Miloslavsky passes himself off as a prince. The pair enjoy their new-found authority, until found out and chased again. Meanwhile, in the present, Shurik goes to buy some replacement parts, leaving Ivan the Terrible in his flat to experience some mild culture shock; then to be dragged into a sub-plot involving Shurik's actress wife and a film director, ending up dressed as Vasilievich and becoming furious at people approaching him with complaints or insisting he is their husband. Eventually the time machine is repaired and everyone returns to their own time. Then Shurik wakes up with a lump on his forehead, with the film reverting to black and white, followed by the inevitable "It was all a dream – or was it?" moment (see Clichés).
Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession is a farce (see Humour) – Benny Hill comes to mind, though the Sex content is mild – and a self-declared "non-science fiction, not quite realistic and not strictly historical film". It is patchy: there are some funny moments, which occasionally lean into the surreal (see Absurdist SF) – such as the interview with the Swedish ambassador – but there is too much reliance on speeded-up footage, whilst the storyline involving Shurik's wife and her director drags. There are also undistinguished songs. The quick-witted Miloslavsky is the most likeable character and he (and others) regularly talk to camera. The "time machine" itself – strictly speaking, a Time Gate – has a memorable design, seemingly involving more chemistry than is usual for such devices. The shift from black and white to colour and back is presumably a nod to The Wizard of Oz (1939) (see L Frank Baum). The film also holds some interest as an unromantic, not obviously propagandistic look at middle-class life in Moscow during the 1970s, with a little Satire. It was one of the Soviet Union's most popular films in 1973, with a reported 60 million tickets sold; it is still fondly remembered. Needless to say, the later re-titling for the US market is a nod to Back to the Future (1985). Some sources give Ivan the Terrible: Back to the Future as another title used. [SP]
links
previous versions of this entry