I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970, Oldrich Lipsky)

Another sci-fi time-travel political-conspiracy comedy from 1970’s Czechoslovakia. How many could there be? Unsurprisingly, this shares its writers (and some actors) with Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea.

In the future year of 1999, a group of terrorist physicists drop “G-bombs” that make all women grow beards and become infertile. Instead of falling into chaos like the stupid civilization in Children of Men, they do what any reasonable person would do – invent a time machine to travel to 1911 and kill Einstein before he can invent the bomb. A historian tells them Einstein will be at a party where a chandelier will fall and narrowly miss him, so they plot to see that his chair is underneath it when it falls. This from scientists who have guns that can kill, work as jetpacks, tie someone up in toilet paper, nullify gravity and make nifty ‘ptoo ptoo’ sound effects – they’re gonna use a chandelier. One guy meets his own father (aged 10-ish) in the past. There are hijinks (film is sped up, slapstick is achieved) and the kid is killed by mistake.

Back in 1999 they explain what happened and try again – but this time things get stupid complicated because at least one other group (incl. the terrorist physicists) go back in time as well. Lots of people are tied up and some cops are confused. Things happen in the dark that I could not make out. Einstein is shot and our guys return home happy – but the historian has fallen in love with Einstein, so she had him fake his death, and she convinces him to follow his other passion and be a violinist instead of a physicist.

Problem solved – the bomb never existed – but back in 1999, a group of terrorist chemists has caused all the men to become effeminate and afraid of women, so the future of the human race is still at risk! Luckily, our hero who invented the time machine now “invents” the atomic bomb and they blow the evil chemists to bits. Einstein (who would be 120 years old in ’99 – I’m guessing they did their plot calculations from 1970 and only added the year 1999 at the last minute) shows up with the historian to play violin.

It’s hardly a hilarious movie, but entertaining enough – and nice widescreen picture. I’m glad someone is out there taking good care of cult Czech films. 25 years later, the guy who played Einstein would star in Svankmajer’s Faust. Lipsky followed up with a kids movie called Six Bears and a Clown, which actually played on CBS.