Les aventures fantastiques du Baron Munchhausen

Original title: Münchhausen

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Les aventures fantastiques du Baron Munchhausen (1943)

This lavish, impudent, adult fairy tale takes the viewer from 18th-century Braunschweig to St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice, and then to the moon using ingenious special effects, stunn... Read allThis lavish, impudent, adult fairy tale takes the viewer from 18th-century Braunschweig to St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice, and then to the moon using ingenious special effects, stunning location shooting.This lavish, impudent, adult fairy tale takes the viewer from 18th-century Braunschweig to St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice, and then to the moon using ingenious special effects, stunning location shooting.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

2.3K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination total

User reviews30

Featured review

8/10

Magic with a dark side

A much more interesting variation on the Münchhausen theme than Terry Gilliam would offer more than four decades later.

It is filmed in colour and - despite being produced during WWII - no expense had been spared on the lavish sets and costumes. But this is not what this film is all about. As in Gilliam's film, this Münchhausen is a magical character, but it is not the magic you find in a modern animated Walt Disney spectacle, it is a magic with a dark side, a magic that can threaten and seduce and corrupt. Münchhausen himself comes across as an ambiguous character, charismatic and heroic, but by no means cuddly and lovable.

As a result this is more a fairy tale for adults than one for children, and the full original version with nude harem girls, sexual innuendo, etc. wouldn't have passed the American censors of its day and probably still get an R rating today.

SMK-4
Dec 13, 1998
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Trivia
Writer Erich Kästner is widely reported to be billed as "Berthold Bürger" on this film, but there is in fact no writing credit at all. Kästner was a banned author in Nazi Germany and his books were among those burnt in 1933, which was the reason for the lack of writing credit here. Joseph Goebbels gave Kästner only a special permission to write a script, on which the author was actually named as Berthold Bürger. However he also give instruction to the German press never to mention the real author of the script nor to mention the name Berthold Bürger. Therefore no writing credits in the movie was used.

Goofs
Sophia's "beauty spots" disappear and reappear during the opening scenes of the film.

Quotes
Doge: I'm glad the balloon is to launch in Venice -- it will advance the cause of science, and provide entertainment for the people. The art of the statesman is, by doing one thing, to achieve two goals.
François Blanchard: I serve only science, your Excellency.
Doge: Of course, it's best for you to believe that. Let no one convince you otherwise.

Alternate versions
The length of this film when submitted to the Film Review Office in March 1943, according to the Deutsches Filminstitut, was originally 134 minutes (or 3662 meters). This version was used for the premiere of the film at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo. Three months later, a second version (the general release version) was submitted, cut down to 118 minutes (3225 meters). After the war, the next version (December 1949) was 105 minutes, the 1954 version 101 minutes, the version for general audiences (shown that year) 88 minutes. In 1995, a first restoration was assembled by the F.W. Murnau Foundation, clocking in at 114 minutes. In 2017, a 35mm Agfacolor print was discovered at the Gosfilmofond of Russia. That print, which runs 131m (3590m), was restored and used for the 2019 Blu-ray release.