by Linda Kay

Original Title: Brilliantovaya ruka

Directed by: Leonid Gaidai

This review contains a mild Kitty Carnage Warning!

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: This hilarious comedy involves a Soviet everyman named Semyon Gorbunkov (Yuriy Nikulin) who goes on a cruise and comes back with his arm in a cast filled with diamonds with some unsavory fellow passengers who were the intended smugglers on his tail.

Purr Blur: Semyon tours Istanbul with a man named Gesha (Andrey Mironov) who is actually one of the smugglers. They become separated and Gesha runs around town looking for the place where he is supposed to “break” his arm and pick up the diamonds. As he darts down a side street an orange and white tabby cat is just visible behind him.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): When they return to Russia, Gesha and his partner Lyolik (Anatoliy Papanov) have to try to recover the jewels from Semyon. Gesha has a bizarre dream in which he breaks into Semyon’s apartment in order to cut off his cast. The scene turns red and a black cat watches his actions in a judgmental way.

Gesha is horrified when Semyon’s arm comes off in his hands and starts attacking him. In a very funny moment the footage of the cat meowing is run quickly back and forth and dubbed over with a human laugh.

Gesha wakes up with a black eye in his apartment and looks at his black cat, who is sleeping on a nearby chair.

The black cat is seen again when Lyolik visits Gesha and they discuss what to do. The cat is standing on top of the television set.

A moment later the cat is trying to chew at the top of a champagne bottle from which Lyolik had been drinking (never mind the fact that Lyolik had set the bottle down on the table on the other side of the room).

The crooks enlist the help of a beautiful woman named Svetlana (Anna Sergeevna) so that she can seduce Semyon and lure him into their clutches. When she enters the apartment, the cat sidles up next to her.

Mild Kitty Carnage Warning: Gesha flirts with Svetlana and then kicks the poor cat aside (the actor actually employs a kind of lift kick, where the cat actor is tossed more than actually kicked.) A poor cat screech accompanies the action to make it harsher than it is. Lyolik also flirts with Svetlana as they are sitting on the bed. The cat screeches at him angrily from offscreen. The kitty is not actually seen again.

Final Mewsings: You have some major insecurities if cats are laughing at you in your dreams.

Many thanks to Jack for letting us know about the cat in this film.

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