Modern Cosmonaut Tonik (Rudolf Jelinek) is walking on the moon when he encounters Cyrano de Bergerac (Karel Hoger), Barbicane (Richard Zahorsky), Captain Nicholl (Zdenek Hodr), Michel Ardan (Otto Simank) and Baron Munchausen (Milos Kopecky). The five explorers believe that Tonik is a Moonman. The Baron decides to take the Moonman to Earth to experience Earth life. They fly to Earth on a ship carried by Pegasus horses. Tonik tries to tell the Baron that he is not from the moon but is from Earth. The Baron says that’s impossible because he’s never seen him there.
They land on Earth in eighteenth century Turkey, outside the sultan’s palace. The Sultan (Rudolf Hrusinsky) is not impressed with Tonik. Watching from a balcony is Princess Bianca di Castello Nero (Jana Brejchova). She sends him a letter pleading for his aid. She says her ship was lost in a storm and captured by pirates. The pirates sold her to the Sultan. She believes he is not afraid of the sultan and asks him to rescue her. That night Tonik and the Baron invade the palace. The Baron slays 10,000 Turkish bashi-bazouks and Tonik gets the girl. They are chased on horseback by the Turks.
When they get to the sea they jump off a cliff and are picked up by a Dutch ship carrying Turkish tobacco headed for Venice. The Captain (Jan Werich) welcomes them. The Dutch ship is attacked by the Turkish Navy. There are 1,427 guns aimed at them. The Baron has the crew smoke the tobacco. The resulting smoke hides the ship and the Navy ends up shooting each other. The Dutch boat sinks but everyone gets into the lifeboats. The Baron ends up in the same boat as Bianca. They are swallowed by a giant fish and end up on a pirate ship in its belly. Eventually the fish is harpooned and dies on a shoreline. Everyone escapes. Bianca and Tonik are reunited, but their adventures are not done, and neither is the Baron's tale.
“The Fabulous Baron Munchausen” was released in 1962 and was directed by Karel Zeman. It is a Czechoslovakian fantasy adventure comedy. The film is based on the Baron Munchausen tales by Rudolf Erich Raspe. A complete restoration of the film was done by the Karel Zeman Museum in Prague.
The movie is a combination of live action and animation. The animation is a combination of stop-motion, miniatures, cutout animation, models, matte paintings, forced perspective, trick sets, live action location photography, and optical matting, all layered on top of each other. It was filmed in black and white and then heavily tinted. The result is a wonderland of brilliant colors that aid in telling the story.
If you’re only going to watch one Baron Munchausen movie, it should be this one. Along with the spectacular photography are some subtly moments of dry wit among the tall tales. It is one of several extraordinary films that Zeman created. His best known films include “Journey to the Beginning of Time” 1955, “The Fabulous World of Jules Verne” 1958 and “On the Comet” 1970.
In the beginning of the film Tonik meets several characters on the moon. Impey Barbicane, Michel Ardan and Captain Nicholl are characters from Jules Verne’s 1865 novel “From the Earth to the Moon”. Cyrano de Bergerac was a French novelist, playwright and poet from the 1600’s.