I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970) in Movie of the Day Forum

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I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970)

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Dave Sindelar	I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970)	Lead	[-]
Apr 22 12 10:09 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970) aka Zabil jsem Einsteina, panove #3905 Viewing Date: 4-13-2012 Posting Date: 4-23-2012 Directed by Oldrich Lipsky Featuring Jiri Sovak, Jana Brejchova, Lubomir Lipsky Country: Czechoslovakia What it is: Science fiction comedy When a new bomb causes women to grow beards, a desperate government decides to fix the problem by having the inventor of a time machine go back into time and assassinate Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics, thus preventing the development of the bomb. However, meddling with history isn't always easy, and has its side effects... What we have here is a variation on the old idea of going back in time and assassinating Hitler before he became a dictator, and the movie does give the original concept some lip service in a rather amusing scene. The movie opens with a scene which looks for all the world like two men kissing, but you'll quickly find that that's not what you're really seeing. However, it is a great way to catch your attention and it drew me into a movie that, at least for the first half, is one of the funniest comedies I've seen in a long time; I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times during this part. It loses a bit of steam in the second half, mostly due to the fact that the addition of a resistance group that is trying to prevent the assassination of Einstein complicates the plot enough that you're distracted from the humor by trying to figure out who everybody is and what is going on. Still, there's a few clever moments in the second half as well, and the style of direction makes me wonder if Terry Gilliam might have seen this movie. Despite the weaker second half, I still think the movie is a creative and interesting comedy overall, and I highly recommend it . Oh, Benson, dear Benson, you are so mercifully free from the ravages of intelligence!
doctor kiss		#1	[-]
Apr 23 12 9:22 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Oldrich Lipsky's adaptation of Jules Verne, THE MYSTERIOUS CASTLE IN THE CARPATHIANS (1981), looks even more like a movie which Terry Gilliam might have directed. Both directors throw around so many original and genuinely amusing ideas in each of their films that it's hard to come away without having enjoyed something (and more likely multiple somethings), even if not every single idea hits the mark. Lipsky's sci-fi western LEMONADE JOE (1964), his gangster comedy FOUR MURDERS ARE ENOUGH, HONEY (1970) and his sci-fi detective thriller NICK CARTER IN PRAGUE (1977) are probably yet better movies than I KILLED EINSTEIN, GENTLEMEN; but even his lesser sci-fi flicks such as MAN IN OUTER SPACE (1961) or HEARTY GREETINGS FROM THE GLOBE (1982) are good enough that they'd represent the pinnacle of countless other directors' careers. My personal favorite among Lipsky's features, however, has to be HAPPY END (1966), which was filmed backwards in its entirety (in the manner of the celebrated sequence in 1984's TOP SECRET!) and which manages to sustain a sense of originality, weirdness and sheer audacity for every minute of its running time.
Andrew Kidd		#2	[-]
Jun 6 12 11:16 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I also loved this movie, which features what is probably one of the best cinematic depictions of Albert Einstein to date (it also helps that this is one of the few films to recognize that he made most of his great scientific acheivments while still a young man). The Overlook Science Fiction Encyclopedia panned the film, being aghast at the idea of blaming Einstein for the atomic bomb, although they were missing the whole point. The movie is a political satire very much in the vein of other Czech directors of the time such as Milos Forman and Vera Chytilova, and is satirizing both the anti-intellectualism of totalitarian societies (numerous communist governments had banned the teaching of relativity and quantum physics for going against Marxist principles), and the absurdity of government solutions.

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