Näköradiomiehen ihmeelliset siekailut

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Näköradiomiehen ihmeelliset siekailut
DVD cover
Directed by	Ere Kokkonen
Produced by	Spede Pasanen
Written by	Spede Pasanen, Jukka Virtanen, Ere Kokkonen
Starring	Spede Pasanen, Vesa-Matti Loiri, Simo Salminen, Juha Jokela
Distributed by	Filmituotanto Spede Pasanen Ky
Release date(s)	1969
Running time	1h 27min
Country	Finland
Language	Finnish
IMDb profile

Näköradiomiehen ihmeelliset siekailut is a 1969 Finnish comedy by Spede Pasanen. It features one of the most famous appearances by Vesa-Matti Loiri outside his Uuno Turhapuro persona also created by Pasanen. The film also features a famous cameo of the Finnish pop-star Danny.

The film is often considered as one of Spede's greatest, due to its human-story. It also features plenty of his zany comedy most of which takes place in Pasanen's character's fantasies (reflected off the sets at which he is working).

[edit] Plot

The plot concerns the character of Mikko Syvärivi (Pasanen) who works as a night-watchman and also becomes an assistant at a Finnish Television Company. His first day at work starts out quite humorously as he is mistaken as a minister in the Finnish parliament by an urging reporter Antti Vasa (Loiri) who takes him to a live TV-interview. Unfortunately due to the incident Vasa is demoted in to reporting on indifferent news-items with a minimal news-crew and often allowed to ask one question.

Mikko on the other hand is also an urging writer who tries his luck comprising a comedy-show and even a police-drama. After catching Vasa breaking in to a store in the middle of the night (in the hopes of covering the actions of the local police) he decides to help Vasa with his reports eventually getting him back on the show where started out.

Mikko also tries to impress a girl at the cafeteria and is even offered to stay at her (all girl) dormitory.

At the latter half of the movie Vasa turns Mikko's bumbling in to a hit comedy-act which comprises him of injuring himself on various types of doors. The fame naturally gets to him in the end and ruins his relationship with the cafeteria girl. He also sabotages his own success by going on stage with a new gag which is met with a chilling silence as the audience leaves. Mikko then goes back to being just an assistant but seems content with the outcome by the end of the film.

[edit] The name

Correctly translated the title of the film should be The Amazing Hesitations of the TV-man. Näköradio (vision radio) is an outdated expression for television. Siekailut comes from siekailla, an old word meaning to hesitate and which sounds a lot like seikkailu, meaning adventure.

This is one of many examples of bizarre naming conventions practiced with most of Spede's films.

[edit] Trivia

Danny is the second actor credited in the film, despite the fact that he only appears in a few scenes.
Simo Salminen plays himself in the role of a popular TV-comedian, parodying Spede. He has his own comedy-show called Simovisio, an obvious reference to Spede's own show Spedevisio.
Jukka Virtanen wrote the lyrics for the soundtrack. He also appears in the film's fictional live-broadcast play Rohkea Roomalainen (The Brave Roman) as Brutus.
A poster for Pähkähullu Suomi, another Spede-film which Virtanen directed, is visible in Päreistöniemi's office.
The announcer mentions that the live-broadcast play, Rohkea Roomalainen, is directed by Ere Kokkonen, who actually directed the entire film. Kokkonen also appears as a TV-director in the middle of the film alongside Danny.
In Mikko's casino-fantasy all the dialogue is in English with the sole-exception of the line "Der Fussboden". The parody in the scene is obviously lifted from James Bond movies. The dialogue, largely comprising of non-sequators, seems to be lifted from language-education tapes as hinted by the lines "Lesson One" and "Repeat after me".