In this film adaptation of the work of Cˇechov, the story of a lost little dog is told as well as the experiences of a lost child: Fedjuška. The two parallel narratives were intended to reinforce each other, but in fact produce the opposite effect. In the original story, Kaštanka is a little dog that gets lost following the trail of his drunken owner, the carpenter Luka. In the film he is stolen and then sold, and ultimately tossed out into the street. The lost boy ends up in a squalid boarding house – and its atmosphere and aspect recall Gor’kij (his drama The Lower Depths) more than Cˇechov. The organist Mazamet exploits the boy, compelling him to rove from house to house to make money, while the carpenter wanders through the streets with his lantern in search of his lost child, exactly in the way that the boy had looked for his lost dog. The similarities between people and animals were highlighted by the deliberate animal like features given to some of the characters (for instance, the nose of the organist resembles the beak of a parrot). The collection of manuscripts at Gosfilmofond has preserved different versions of the screenplay. In one, the boy finds himself amid vagabonds, becomes the apprentice to a shoemaker and ultimately obtains the money that in the beginning of the story was stolen from his father by a petty thief. The changes made regarding the nature of obstacles faced by the protagonist seem to be tied to the choice of genre: the version with the petty thief is more oriented toward adventure film, while the version chosen by the filmmakers aimed more at melodrama with a focus on social issues. Critics accused the film of over-sentimentalism, thought that its distancing from Kaštanka 220 the original cˇhekhovian narrative was ill founded, namely the vision of the world through the eyes of a dog, but praised the work of the actors (especially Rogožin and Panov) and of the cameraman. The dog playing Kaštanka was found essentially by accident, and was trained during the course of the shooting, but Jackie came to be seen by the public as greater than the famous Rin-Tin-Tin and became a full fledged film star. In 1926 the film was approved by the censors and in 1927 it received the authorization for international distribution (thanks to which a copy with Czech intertitles has been found by Mariann Lewinsky at the NFA in Prague). Until now in Russia Kaštanka had been thought to be lost entirely, following the decision by the Central Committee in charge of film censorship to ban the film for minors in 1932 for its lack of pedagogical value (“the underclass is portrayed as evil, lacking in class consciousness and social awareness”).

                                                                                                                                   Natal’ja Nusinova