Dinner for Adele

Dinner for Adele
Directed by Oldřich Lipský
Produced by Barrandov Studios
Written by Jiří Brdečka
Starring Michal Dočolomanský
Rudolf Hrušínský
Miloš Kopecký
Ladislav Pešek
Naďa Konvalinková
Květa Fialová
Music by Luboš Fišer
Cinematography Jaroslav Kucera
Distributed by Dimension Pictures
Release dates
1977
Running time
102 minutes
Language Czech

Dinner for Adele (Czech: Adéla ještě nevečeřela) is a 1977 Czechoslovak comedy detective film directed by Oldřich Lipský. Alternative titles were Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet, Nick Carter in Prague and Adele Hasn't Had Her Supper Yet.

Background

It combines the major idea of The Little Shop of Horrors by Roger Corman with the adventures of the literary character Nick Carter. It was directed by Oldřich Lipský with Rudolf Hrušínský, Michal Dočolomanský, and Miloš Kopecký in the leading roles. The bizarre gadgets were created by Jan Švankmajer, a famous Czech artist. The film was created in the style of a melodrama from the silent movie era including the beautifully animated intertitles between the real sequences.

Plot

It is the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The Prague police commissar Ledvina asked the famous New York detective Nick Carter, who is on a visit to Prague, for assistance to solve the strange case of a missing dog. Mysterious murder cases happenen during the investigations, done by the malicious botanist Baron von Kratzmar and his carnivorous plant Adele. Von Kratzmar kidnapped his victims, bound them and whenever he played a gramophone with the melody "Schlafe, mein Prinzchen"[1] (a lullaby by Bernhard Flies but previously associated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) it is the time for Adele to awaken and eat her victims for dinner. Baron von Kratzmar considered himself a misjudged genius and wanted to take revenge on one of his former professors. He called himself "the Gardener" a notorious criminal, who Nick Carter thought had died in the swamps years ago. With the help of bizarre inventions, Ledvina and Carter succeed in catching von Kratzmar and delivering him to the legal authorities.

Awards and nominations

The film was also selected as the Czechoslovakian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 51st Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.[2]

See also

References

  1. Princi můj malinký spi - ukolébavka (Czech)
  2. Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

External links