How 1939 Soviet filmmakers turned a human actress into a tiny wooden puppet

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 · Updated 25 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In the 1939 Soviet film The Golden Key, the lead character Buratino was not a doll, but a woman in a rigid plywood suit. To shrink her to a puppet's size, director Aleksandr Ptushko used oversized props and clever optical tricks to create a seamless, magical illusion on screen.

The Golden Key, directed by Aleksandr Ptushko, reimagined the classic Pinocchio story through a distinctly Soviet lens. While the film features puppet characters brought to life through frame-by-frame animation, the protagonist Buratino was portrayed by actress Olga Shaganova-Obraztsova. To transform a 1.75-meter-tall woman into a character barely 50 centimeters high, the production team employed extreme physical and optical measures. Shaganova-Obraztsova wore a papier-mâché head mask, a restrictive plywood corset, and wooden-patterned tights, effectively encasing her in a shell that made movement both painful and difficult.

The illusion of scale relied on environmental manipulation. Because the audience perceives height relative to surrounding objects, the crew built oversized furniture, including tables, stools, and stairs, to make the actress appear small. When Buratino interacted with human characters like Papa Carlo or Karabas-Barabas, Ptushko utilized perspective matching—a technique where actors stood at different distances from the camera to align their perceived sizes. This allowed the production to blend live-action performance with the constraints of puppet-like proportions, a feat that required the actress to move with the stiff, deliberate cadence of a doll.

The film’s legacy evolved long after its 1939 release. In 1959, the movie underwent a significant re-dubbing process under conductor Algis Žiuraitis. This version introduced a new musical track, altered dialogue, and replaced the original voice of Buratino with that of Georgy Vitsin, whose performance was accelerated to achieve a specific timbre. While the original film concluded with Buratino joining Soviet polar explorers in a utopian land, these later technical adjustments reflect the shifting standards of Soviet cinema, ensuring the story remained accessible to new generations while preserving the technical ingenuity of its original production.

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