1962 - THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN, an impressive fantasy film

You should just sit back and enjoy the amazing visual and special effects that filmmaker Karel Zeman poured into his version of the Baron Munchausen legend.

Zeman takes the famous incidents in the Baron's legend and gives them their own spin starting with the visit to the Sultan, riding the cannonball, and being swallowed up by a huge fish, all very amusing stuff.

 Zeman and his team created one impressive image after another.  As has been remarked his special effects are like woodcarvings coming to life and all created in camera.

 

As usual in a Zeman film the actors are essentially puppets in the hands of Zeman's fantasy storytelling.

 

Written by Karel Zeman, Josef Kainar, and Jiri Brdecka, the running time is 85 minutes.

1970 - ON THE COMET, another delightful film from Karel Zeman

A comet touches the earth and scoops up a French outpost and an Arab army along with some dinosaurs, pirates and a pretty girl.  This is another charming fantasy adventure  from Karel Zeman who combines his animated and live action technique for a unique visual look.

Zeman adapts another Jules Verne story and mixes in some amusing satire of the traditional military mindset with a sweet love story.  It doesn't add up to a whole lot but it is fun to watch.

Zeman can't compete technically with the slick Hollywood special effect loaded film, but he doesn't have to.  He has more than enough talent and imagination to pull off a film like this.

73 minutes, written by Karel Zeman and Jan Procházka.

1966 - JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME or, CESTA DU PRAVEKU or TRIP INTO PREHISTORY

Karel Zeman's film was actually finished in 1955 and was called Trip into Prehistory.  Some American distributor got a hold of it and reworked it shooting a new opening in New York City.

Journey to the Beginning of time was printed on cheap film stock ruining Zeman's careful color and stop motion effects. 

You can watch clips of both versions on Youtube.  The differences are very striking.

93 minutes.

1967 - THE STOLEN AIRSHIP, Zeman's got a fun technique, but no story to hang it on.

Karel Zeman's The Stolen Airship, features his really amazing old fashioned special effects, but he sure could have worked a little harder on the story.

The film is a mash up of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Swiss Family Robinson, maybe The Mysterious Island, and some sort of half baked comedy about a spy trying to steal a secret formula.  It's a fairly hard film to track what's happening while you're watching it.

 

Zeman's got a quirky understated sense of humor and he's great with visual gags.  He's particularly good at mixing his incredible special effects with his sense of humor,  there is some very funny stuff in this film.  The airships and balloons not only look cool but Zeman has designed them to be odd Rube Goldberg contraptions that can fly.

 

This film really could have been a classic film fantasy, it's unfortunate that attention wasn't paid to a more coherent story line.

The Stolen Airship is under 90 minutes and in spite of it's flaws it's still visually a cool film to watch.

1958 - INVENTION FOR DESTRUCTION aka "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne"

Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman's science fiction film is based on at least three different Jules Verne books by my count and maybe even a fourth. Zeman doesn't use any of the stories from the books but takes some general concepts and ideas for this film which is about an inventor who is kidnapped and made to perfect a high explosive he has been working on. 

 

 

 

 An interesting looking film. Zeman mixes it all up. He has sequences of animation, which he blends with live performers and he superimposes ocean scenes over animations of a submarine moving underwater. The black and white photography also contributes to the look of the film. 

 

A lot of time and effort must have been put into the look of the film, the Victorian sets and illustrations are very charming, there is always something interesting to look at throughout the film. The performances are also fun, the villains aren't really horribly villainous and the hero is a stalwart soul who always acts in the proper and dignified manner of a gentleman. 

 

 

 

 Zeman apparently claimed that he only made his films for children, but the mood that he creates throughout the film would indicate possibly more of an interest in recreating a period in human history when technology was beginning to assert itself.

 

Running time 83 minutes, written by Karel Zeman, Frantisek Hrubin, Jiri Brdecka and Milan Vacha.