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Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Deaf Crocodile Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (17th April 2025). |
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The Film
 Saturn Award (Best Fantasy Film - nominee) and Best Foreign Film (nominee)- Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, 1980 Medalla Sitges en Plata de Ley (Best Cinematography): Jaroslav Kucera (winner) - Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival, 1978 Gold Hugo (Best Feature): Oldrich Lipský (nominee) - Chicago International Film Festival, 1978 "America's Greatest Detective" Nick Carter (The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians' Michal Docolomanský) - who counts Sherlock Holmes among his admirers – fights crime with a deductive mind, ingenious disguises, the latest technology, and a state of "constant vigilance." His triumphs are chronicled in print and known the world over so he is in constant demand for consulting abroad. When he receives a request from the vague police force in Prague, the phrase "no expenses spared" proves attractive enough. Carter arrives in traditional Czech dress determined to blend in, but not only is his costume centuries behind early twentieth century Czech fashions but Commissioner Franz von Kaunitz (All My Good Countryman's Martin Ruzek) was not under the impression his arrival was a matter of secrecy so he is swarmed by fans in the streets. Kaunitz pairs him with local inspector Ledvina (The Cremator's Rudolf Hrusínský) and the pay a visit to the Countess Thun (Closely Watched Trains' Kveta Fialová) whose dear Gert has mysteriously vanished from a locked room. Upon learning that Gert is a doberman, Carter is less interested until a large plant in the room gobbles up Ledvina's lunch sausage and spits out the wrapping. Carter can only think of one villain capable of engineering such a plant, but The Gardener is long dead, his defeat and demise in an African swamp chronicled in one of the best selling of Carter's adventures. As Carter dodges attempts on his life by various murderers at every corner – as well as the amorous advances of the Countess' companion Karin (The Vengeance of She's Olga Schoberová) – he makes the acquaintance of Maria (I Served the King of England's Nada Konvalinková), granddaughter of botonist Professor Albin Bocek (Ladislav Pesek) who promises to introduce him to his own most recent acquaintance the Baron Rupert von Kratzmar (The Fabulous Baron Munchausen's Milos Kopecký) who has developed a carnivorous plant capable of feeding itself. Based on the nineteenth century dime novel detective Nick Carter, Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet is more of a parody than an adaptation, lampooning Carter's speedy and flawed acquisition of knowledge about subjects related to his cases and his fantastic inventions that are sometimes wildly impractical. Ledvina, on the other hand, proves more pragmatic but is also clumsy, sometimes slow on the take, and rushes to judgment. The Baron, for all of his brilliance as explained by Carter with illustration via an animated filmstrip by the film's writer Jirí Brdecka (Prague Nights) – also a director of several award-winning animated shorts – is driven by the most petty of motives and hindered along the way by both his own ego and the bumbling of his majordomo (The Ninth Heart's Václav Lohniský). Directed by comedy specialist Oldrich Lipský (Happy End) and beautifully-photographed by Czech New Wave mainstay Jaroslav Kucera (Morgiana), the film features some impressively yet charmingly naive special effects including split-screen composites, stop motion – presumably the work of credited animator Jan Svankmajer (Alice), the close-up shots of the carnivorous plant's mouth are as disturbing as the stop motion finger flowers in Hellbound: Hellraiser II – models, puppetry, and even the camera turned on its side for a Batman: The Series-like scaling of a building's exterior wall by Carter, as well as more romantic touches like the frame taking on a pink tint at each of Carter's and Maria's interrupted kisses. Although the playful score was composed by Lubos Fiser (Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) and Frantisek Belfín (Valley of the Bees) conducted the Filmový Symfonický Orchestr, the film is bookended by sequences of composer Milivoj Uzelac (Journey to the Beginning of Time) conducting the orchestra. 
Video
Picked up stateside as a subtitled release by Dimension Pictures – the Lawrence Woolner company that like Roger Corman's New World Pictures occasionally picked up art house pictures – Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet has been hard to see stateside with the region free Czech DVD not English-friendly – unlike some of its contemporaries – while the subsequent region free Czech Blu-ray took advantage of a 2015 high definition restoration and included English subtitles. Deaf Crocodile's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from the same restoration preceded by restoration text that not only confirms that the aspect ratio of exhibition in 1978 was 1.66:1 (the earlier DVDs were in 1.33:1 with references citing 1.37:1 as the aspect ratio) but also notes that while the master has been cleaned up, certain defects associated with the processing and printing of the time have been left in the restoration. These appear to be the square reel change hole punches while the slight greenish lean to the some of the color Czech restorations of films form this period seems to be absent or has been timed out here. In spite of this, the image remains colorful and crisp, with a few optical effects and animation inserts looking slightly coarser, and a possible deliberate attempt to degrade the image during a few effects shots to hide the wire during Carter's helicopter body suit sequence where the wire is nevertheless visible in the upper part of the frame where a graduated filter has been applied in front of the lens. 
Audio
The post-dubbed dialogue is always clear in the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track with Fiser's score richly represented along with some odd noises from the carnivorous plant's digestive system. Although Carter is American, he speaks Czech without an accent fluently with the rest of the cast, which is all the more obvious when the same actor turns up in the end sequence as an actual Czech-American character speaking Czech with an odd accent. Optional English subtitles are free of errors, and very useful in noting some of the pop culture figures of the late 1890's and early 1900s lampooned in the dialogue (like "Barah Senidict"). 
Extras
The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Czech film expert Irena Kovarova of Comeback Company and Czech film critic and screenwriter Tereza Brdečková, the latter also the daughter of screenwriter/animator Brdečka. The pair discuss the career of Lipský as a comedy film specialist and how his not being considered part of the Czech New Wave and being a bankable filmmaker of popular cinema worked to his advantage during with the censors and the government. They also discuss the working relationship between Lipský and Brdečka – the latter suffering more as a filmmaker under the regime throughout his career – and their trilogy of comedies including the immensely popular Lemonade Joe and the later The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians, as well as Brdečka's admiration of the Nick Carter stories and how the source provided more of a plot to the film than the previous film's "string of gags" as well as a more romantic and dramatic element. When the commentators do disagree, it ends up being quite informative with Kovarova suggesting that the film is apolitical and Brdečka arguing that the ridiculing of the protagonist illustrates the "bloody provincialism" of Czech society under communism compared to the more pro-American stance before the war.  The disc also includes four Brdečka animated shorts illustrative of his style as seen in the film: "Badly Drawn Hen (Špatně namalovaná slepice/Gallina Vogelbirdae)" (13:40), "Forester's Song/To the Forest (Do lesíčka na čekanou)" (9:35), "The Miner's Rose (Horníkova růže)" (8:05), and "What Did I Not Tell the Prince (Co jsem princi neřekla)" (9:33). Not included in the stanadard edition is the deluxe limited edition – available exclusively from Deaf Crocodile which had a slipcase and a 60-page booklet featuring essays from film historian and expert on Central & Eastern European cinema Jonathan Owen and film critic Walter Chaw (Film Freak Central), as well as excerpts from the book "Jiří Brdečka: Life-Animation-Magic". 
Overall
Oldrich Lipský's detective parody Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet is as whimsical and visually-inventive as expected from Czech cinema's comedy specialist.
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