Markov changed to Dagineau.
I was wondering if anyone knew why the 1966 version of the movie changed his name to Dagineau? I know the character's name in the book is different, LeJeaune I believe. It always confused me.
shareThey changed it to Markoff in the 1939 version because Russians were feared in the 1930s because of the menace of communism.
In the original novel (published in 1924 but happening in the period of about 1900 to 1905) the sergeant LeJeaune was rumored to have been an officer in the Belgium Congo who was fired for being too cruel, which his long suffering subordinates would have considered a sick joke upon them. In this movie Markoff is rumored to have been an officer in the Tsarist prisons in Siberia or in Stalin's gulag - the fictional date is not clear - who was fired for being too cruel, since in 1939 Russian prison camp atrocities were more in the contemporary news than the Belgium Congo atrocities.