I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen
Entry updated 13 February 2024. Tagged: Film.
Czech film (1970); original title Zabil jsem Einsteina, pánové. Directed by Oldřich Lipský. Written by Oldřich Lipský and Miloš Macourek, based on a story by Josef Nesvadba. Cast includes Jana Brejchová, Radoslav Brzobohatý, Petr Čepek, Iva Janžurová, Lubomír Lipský and Jiří Sovák. 95 mins. Colour.
In 1999, women suddenly start to grow beards and are unable to have children. Blaming fanatics releasing radiation into the atmosphere, the UN decides to send Scientists and a historian back to 1911 via Time Machine to kill Albert Einstein (Čepek), assuming that with the death of this Icon-figure atomic Physics will take a different course. Of course, not all goes to plan: one character meets his own father as a child, another falls in love with Einstein and determines to save him while altering the future by persuading him to give up physics to concentrate on the violin. More assaults on the past are made.
One of a number of sf comedies made in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, this predates the somewhat similar Zítra Vstanu a Opařím Se Čajem (1977; vt Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea) by several years. The relatively complex use of Time Travel themes mixes with broad, mostly lowbrow Humour. As well as the typical fish-out-of-water jokes for this type of film, there is much slapstick and farce. It is likable but not very funny. [CWa]
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