Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet

And now for something Completely Different. 

One almost hesitates to rave about this exotic item, a comical fantasy from The Czech Republic that steers in a different direction from U.S.-centric screen entertainment. Made in 1978, the Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (Adéla jêstê neveĉeřela) was given a bit of American distribution in 1980, but we can’t see it attracting the crowds that mobbed the then current blockbuster The Empire Strikes Back. Yet film addicts willing to take the plunge may find something new and exciting in the adventures of an American super-detective in Prague.

Adéla is a mix of comedy both lowbrow and highbrow, broad and refined. Its hero is Nick Carter, a dime-novel detective character that predates Sherlock Holmes. Although no longer well known, Carter was played in various movies by Walter Pidgeon, William Powell, Robert Conrad and Eddie Constantine.  Adéla’s Nick Carter is ‘that marvelous American who can do anything,’ but director Oldrich Lipský likely pushed his project through the production pipeline by emphasizing a critical attitude toward the West. In 1978 the Prague movie industry was state-run and highly politicized; its moviemakers sometimes turned to period stories and fantasies to avoid censorship complications. Adéla takes place when Prague was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Cold War politics far in the future.

There’s this carniverous plant, see… 

Deaf Crocodile describes Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet as a cross between Roger Corman’s  The Little Shop of Horrors and The Pink Panther Strikes Back. We see its hero Nick Carter as resembling Tony Curtis’s ‘The Great Leslie’ from Blake Edwards’  The Great Race, combined with the absurd inventiveness of  Inspector Gadget or  Maxwell Smart. There are elements of Feuillade’s silent  Judex and comic books, but despite being photographed in color, it’s not at all like Bava’s  Danger: Diabolik. We see some of the humor of TV’s  The Avengers.  The Assassination Bureau makes a similar attempt at a period spy fantasy, combining pulp intrigues with ornate period décor.

Aloof and unflappable consulting detective Nick Carter (Michal Dočolomanský) effortlessly foils three assassins right in his New York office. He takes an assignment to find a missing person in Prague, because the high fee is ‘interesting.’ Accompanying him in his town tour is police Commisar Ledvina (Rudolf Hrusínský), a lover of beer and sausage. Nick’s aristocratic client is Countess Thun (Kveta Fialová), and her missing ‘Gert’ is actually a Great Dane dog. When Ledvina’s sausages disappear, Carter and Ledvina deduce that a carniverous plant is the culprit. Little do they know that they’re up against Carter’s arch-enemy, the Baron Rupert von Kratzmar, aka ‘The Gardener’ (Miloš Kopecký). Kratzmar escaped from jungle quicksand in their last adventure, and has used horticultural secrets from the Amazon to create Adéla, a voracious plant that, when it hears a specific classical lullabye, eats any kind of flesh at hand.

Rupert von Kratzmar’s first intended victim is Professor Boček (Ladislav Pesek), the kindly botany teacher who flunked him years ago. Nick Carter falls in love with Boček’s lovely and innocent daughter Květuše (Naďa Konvalinková). Kratzmar’s corps of scurvy henchmen continue with murder attempts, but Carter has the most to fear from the slinky cabaret entertainer Irma (Olga Schoberová). As Kratzmar’s number one operative, Irma has secured a job as Countess Thun’s day companion, under a false name.

Imagine ‘Dudley Do-Right,’ filmed with exquisite taste. 

The genre caricatures of Adéla are played with great affection. Handsome Michal Dočolomanský is both vain and greedy as Nick Carter. His impeccable manners can’t hide his Yankee ignorance; he thinks Czechs still dress as they did in 1820, and shows up ‘incognito’ in an outfit suitable for an operetta. Nick is continually pulling odd inventions out of his steamer trunk, that solve difficult problems perfectly. The local cop Ledvina doesn’t let his thirst for Pilsner beer keep him from becoming Carter’s avid aide, investigating strange rooms and exchanging gunfire with the Baron’s Henchman. Rudolf Hrusínský’s Kratzmar is a manic, mustache-twirling type, but with a fine sense of irony. He too, is a master of scientific magic. A clever animated sequence shows him obtaining his Amazonian horticultural secrets. The kindly professor Boček and his gloriously delicate daughter Květuše are a strong contrast to the scheming, dastardly Baron.

Hollywood would not consider the quaint, ‘precious’ film a good match for American audiences.  Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties is kiddie fare in America, but Adéla was conceived for adults. Kratzmar’s idea of fun is to let his personal lackey (Víclav Lohniský) ‘defile’ the demure Květuše, then sell her ‘to a Peruvian whorehouse.’  Most everything else in the show is suitable for a 6 year-old.

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet runs counter to expectations in other ways too. The pacing can be leisurely, taking time for the niceties of fin de siècle etiquette. The titles look like illustrations from the 1890s. Soft color bathes everything in delicate hues — the art deco windows, the elegant costumes and the grand streets of old Prague. Carter and Ledvina’s tour of Prague begins with a shot confected to open up like a storybook frame. The art direction is arresting throughout, from the lavish interiors of hotels and restaurants to the cat-head cabaret costume of the seductive Irma.

Nick and Květuše’s chaste romance — heavy breathing, kisses that keep getting interrupted — is capped with a beautiful visual effect. When their shared ardor heats up, the screen glows bright pink, as if the world were transformed into a Valentine. Bryan Forbes attempted this kind of precious sentiment in his Victorian comedy  The Wrong Box, with less success.

The most arresting design elements on view are said to be the work of the experimental filmmaker Jan Švankmajer. On this Czech fantasy he served as a combination Paul Blaisdell and Carlo Rambaldi, fabricating ingenious props and a fascinating title monster. In keeping with the vintage tech theme, Nick Carter’s absurd inventions are confected with brass and stained wood, and add greatly to our hero’s panache.

Nick Carter’s arsenal contains odd accoutrements suitable for a Road Runner cartoon. The defensive weapons can be as silly as his hats — one emits a puff of knockout gas, and another a literal boxing glove fist. An impressive solar rifle stops working when the sun goes behind a cloud, so Commisar Ledvina improvises a slingshot confiscated from a young delinquent. When Nick needs to chase a balloonist into the sky, he borrows an amateur inventor’s flying bicycle. But his main commando outfit is a goofy hooded suit with a utility belt, a strange mask, batwings, and grip shoes with which he scales buildings like Adam West. His rig finally sprouts a helicopter rotor, just like Inspector Gadget.  Yet the tone never becomes infantile, even when Nick levitates into the air: we know we’re looking at an affectionate ode to the pop daydreams of an era gone by.

Jan Švankmajer’s voracious, colorful Adéla monster is a big success. Various tendrils grip the victim and an oversized flower does the people-eating. In design and execution it easily bests the plant in  The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters, and the foolish fauna in Eros Films’  The Woman Eater. When carted around in a pot, it has a close resemblance to a Wyndham  Triffid.

The she-plant is operated both mechanically and with puppeteers manipulating fine threads. Other insert shots use stop-motion animation. Angles on the salivating tongue in its flower-mouth mouth border on Gross. As Adéla closes in on the unconscious Květuše, the imagery reminds us of Mario Bava’s  Lisa and the Devil, with Elke Sommer surrounded by surreal vegetation in a decaying garden.  Adéla only feeds when certain music plays.

A second mutant plant sprouts a bouquet of oversize eyes. When Baron Kratzmar’s flute activates a third plant-monster, its dancing vines reach out to entwine an unuspecting victim. The puppeteering is so adept, we wonder if these Czech experts could have saved the underwhelming ‘killer plant’ episode of  Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors.

The popular director Oldrich Lipský had enough clout to employ  Jiří Brdečka, a writer-animator out of favor with the Communist government. Brdečka had written for Czech fantasy as far back as 1954’s  The Emperor and the Golem, which also had a role for Adéla’s colorful villain, Miloš Kopecký. He had also contributed writing to Karel Zeman’s  Baron Munchausen (starring Kopecký) and the portmanteau picture  Prague Nights. But the Lipský – Brdečka team is best noted for a trio of playful fantasies styled after comic books. 1963’s  Lemonade Joe (Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera) is a much-beloved spoof of American westerns, filmed with a combination of live-action and cartoon artwork. The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians is a loose takeoff on the gothic horror genre.  Adéla incorporates a number of highly creative animation scenes, presumably organized by Jiří Brdečka.

The whimsical storyline has plenty of abductions, impersonations, foolish disguises, and of course an imperiled damsel in distress. Everybody seems to be having a great time. We admire the great actor Rudolf Hrusínský from his chilling role in Juraj Herz’s Czech New Wave political horror picture  The Cremator, and in Jiří Weiss’s  90° in the Shade. The sweet heroine played by Naďa Konvalinková may have been borrowed from a thriller made a couple of years before, The Great Movie Robbery — both are named ‘Květuše.’

The role of the femme fatale Irma is filled by the retired actress Olga Schoberová, in a comeback cameo. When Irma discovers that Nick Carter is immune to her seductive advances, she hits just the right note of boudoir outrage. The Prague beauty had graced Lemonade Joe, and after a name change to  ‘Olinka Berova’ made a play for international stardom in Hammer’s  The Vengeance of She.  Schoberová’s showcase movie is  Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (Kdo chce zabít Jessii?), an inventive Czech fantasy about comic book characters brought to life. Olga’s Jessie is a ‘Wonder Woman’- like super-heroine. A Sci-fi invention liberates her from a scientist’s daydreams, and she becomes a living and breathing real person.

Fans of movie makeup might like one scene as much as we did. To confuse his foes, Nick opens his bag of makeup tricks to perform a change-over that converts Commisar Ledvina into a duplicate Nick Carter. Pieces of rubber skin, fake eyes and a wig go on, and a special pill flattens Ledvina’s pot belly. It’s the kind of thing that never works in movies, but here the gag is charming. A split screen puts both Nicks in the same frame. When a mask is ripped off to reveal the subterfuge, the illusion is nearly perfect.