The Stolen Airship

Summary

Director Karel Zeman rediscovered the adventurous, imaginative world of French author Jules Verne for Czechoslovak audiences on a number of occasions: after Vynález zkázy (An Invention for Destruction, 1958) he undertook a loose adaptation of the novel Dva roky prázdnin (Two Years’ Vacation, 1888). Despite initially planning to have it fall within a five-part series Tajuplný svět Julia Verna (The Mysterious World of Jules Verne), the legendary director would only go on to make one further picture, namely Na kometě (On the Comet, 1970), the highly melancholic tone of which differentiates it from the character of the series, framed for young audiences. However, his previous effort, Ukradená vzducholoď (The Stolen Airship, 1966), is very much in the earlier spirit. Its main protagonists – similarly to Zeman’s live-action feature film debut Cesta do pravěku (A Journey into the Primeval Times, 1955) – are a group of inquisitive young boys. Five friends set out for Prague’s Výstaviště exhibition hall to attend the 1891 Jubilee Exhibition. By chance, they find themselves aboard the airship of entrepreneur Findejs (Čestmír Řanda) – now a far-off trip awaits the boys. The voyage commences but results in the airship crashing on an exotic island in the middle of the ocean. The Robinson Crusoe-esque adventure features skirmishes with pirates and a meeting with the mysterious Captain Nemo. Fortunately, the lads meet a happy end when they are found and returned home by a rescue ship. The script, co-written by Zeman and Radovan Krátký, brings forth a playful atmosphere for young audiences, and also reflects the powerful imagination of its director. As with Vynález zkázy (An Invention for Destruction), Ukradená vzducholoď (The Stolen Airship) once again inventively combines live-action and animated sequences, with a production design based around the original illustrations of Verne’s novels. The film is also brought to life with a crucial ironic and kind-hearted tone, which enables Verne’s technological wizardry to be retroactively transformed into a nostalgic technological spectacle. Zeman’s world is full of bizarre inventions, but its playful tones also have an ironic undercurrent critical of bourgeois hypocrisy, while it also underscores the director’s beloved anti-war and anti-militarisation stance (attuned to the ideological trends of the time). Adult actors František Filipovský, Josef Větrovec and Eduard Kohout appear alongside the film’s young stars.

Synopsis

Note

Karel Zeman was inspired in his visual process by Edouard Riou's and Léon Benett's engravings which illustrated the original edition of Verne's novels. With the exception of the main theme from the novel Deux ans de vacances, he used elements from other Verne's novels in his script. One error of the script occured in the course of filming: the son of the public prosecutor Dufek is addressed as Tomáš by his friends, but his mother mentions him as Jaroušek. The opening animated part of the film captures several historical periods in abbreviated form; what all the events have in common is that adults are angry with little boys.