in fact, I liked the movie - Steven Spielberg at his best - and its screening in UK promted me to ask the question. may be I liked the movie because I forgot the book (I red it 10 years ago) or because of the translation, where the wordplay was inevitably lost

I think Faldage had a brilliant idea that in Russian the translation of slang words should have been in a third language. I am not sure what exactly mid to late 20th century Russia did for the Westbut I would have used German, probably