SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

MartinHafer Considering that this film was made in Nazi Germany during the middle of WWII, I expected the film to be a dogmatic piece of propaganda. Surprisingly, despite its pedigree, it was a wonderful piece of escapist fantasy and seemed to have nothing to do with the Nazi regime. In fact, a writer whose works were burned by the Nazis is the man responsible for this screenplay (though, of course, under a pseudonym). So my advice is try to forget when it was made and just sit back and enjoy.Baron Munchausen was, despite the weirdness of the film, was a real adventurer and war hero. In real life, he tended to greatly exaggerate his exploits and this was the basis for later stories of his life.In this film, the movie starts in the present day (1943), but it was brilliant how the writer and director made it look like it was in the 17th or 18th century. This was very clever. Then, when a party guest begs the host to tell them about the exploits of his ancestor (Munchausen), the story of Munchausen's adventures begins. This is a wonderful way to both introduce and conclude the film and makes this aspect of the film better than the 1988 version of Baron Munchausen. Now this isn't to say the 1943 version is superior overall--it certainly isn't. In fact, BOTH are extraordinary films and I recommend you see both. However, if you can only see one, try the 1988 version by Terry Gilliam first, as the story itself is a little more action-packed and the special effects are truly amazing even today, whereas the 1943 film at times looks a bit "cheesy"--mostly because special effects of the day just weren't up to the story in a few places (since it was SO weird and over-the-top).PS--A note to parents--there is some nudity in the film, which is surprising considering this seems to be a family-oriented film. While not super-graphic, you do see a lot of topless harem girls during one scene. It's really a shame, as it doesn't exactly fit in with the rest of the film, though compared to some newer films the nude scene is rather tame. However, you should consider this when you think about having your kids watch the film.

MARIO GAUCI I first watched this in the early 1990s on Italian TV; back then, I didn't even know it existed and, in all probability, the version I watched was trimmed - since the full-blown restoration wasn't carried out until 2004! Anyway, I remember the film with affection and I thoroughly enjoyed rewatching it on DVD (even if this version is still several minutes shy of its 134-minute original length!).For being made right in the middle of WWII, this is an obscenely expensive - circa $35 million in today's currency - spectacle (given pretty much carte blanche, the producers went overschedule and overbudget) commissioned by the Nazis - but scripted, ironically, by a Jew - on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Germany's foremost film unit, UFA, it was also seen as a direct response to such foreign-made extravaganzas as Hollywood's THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) and Britain's THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940)! The character of the tale-spinning Baron Munchausen originated in a book by 18th century author Gottfried August Burger which, along the years, has inspired 4 feature-film adaptations (as well as a Silent short by pioneering wizard Georges Melies and an animated short that was thankfully included on the Kino DVD and which will be discussed separately). Despite the stature accorded the 1988 Terry Gilliam version THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (which I watched only once several years ago and recall being a somewhat hit-or-miss affair), the 1943 film emerges as perhaps the most satisfying cinematic rendition overall.The film is book-ended by scenes with a contemporary i.e. 1940s setting, in which the Baron (played as a dashing yet cunning womanizer rather than the Quixotic fool envisioned by Terry Gilliam) recounts some of his adventures - in the third person - to a naïve young couple (the female member of which had fallen under his spell at a fancy-dress ball). The rest is an episodic fantasia in which Munchausen - usually driven by the promise of a romance and accompanied by his faithful sidekick - journeys from one country to the other (meeting along the way historical historical figures like Czarina Catherine The Great, Giacomo Casanova and the magician Cagliostro, who endows him with both immortality and the power of invisibility, as well as purely invented characters such as the self-proclaimed "world's fastest runner") until he ends up on the moon itself. Quality varies but the end result, as a whole, is a delight and a veritable feast for the eyes (thanks, in no small measure to the highly pleasing Agfacolor, the splendid production design and the charmingly primitive special effects).Still, one thing that bothered me about the DVD was the fact that the subtitles barely allowed one time to read them (in all fairness, this had a lot to do with the virtually uninterrupted flurry of the film's dialogue itself - hence, something other than a thin white font should have been adopted)! The extras were more extensive than I had anticipated and up to Kino's standards for a "Special Edition" release - the best, however, was the 17-minute interview with the head of the German archival company that handled the current restoration, which goes into some detail about this as well as the production of the film itself.DIE ABENTEUER DES BARON MUNCHHAUSEN - EINE WINTERREISE (Hans Held, 1944) **1/2 {6/10}: A pleasant animated short from Germany about the popular title character, made in color but containing no dialogue; it came hot on the heels of the 1943 epic film version - though the latter, apparently, left no recognizable impression on it (as the Baron here looked and acted nothing like the part as played by Hans Albers, nor was the plot 'lifted' from some particular sketch in the episodic film). In fact, the short presents only a couple of incidents (presumably taken from the book which inspired the film version in the first place, and several others made before and after it): one in which the Baron's horse ends up dangling in the air from the façade of a building (seen in the front-cover illustration of the book from which Albers reads during the modern sequences in the film, though the episode itself is not re-enacted) and then when the two of them are chased by a hungry wolf in the snow, with the latter proceeding to swallow the horse in one gulp and replaces it in leading the Baron's sled!

zardoz12 ...I just can't get it out of my mind that this film, while an annversary picture for UFA, also was a way for Reichpropagandaminister Goebbles to get the German movie-goer to forget the war. Gilliam followed this picture very closely with his 1980's version, but this one has far more charm because of the primitive silent-movie effects used, and the sly moral ambiguity of the title character, who is a combination of rake, vagabond, and ace story-teller, though he a German patriot nonetheless. Also there is no moral to this story, unlike the Gilliam version (its motto: imagination is everything,) except maybe that every person lives in one era and should only live in one era. For the modern audience the blurry color (which has faded tremedously) will be off-putting; I know it gave me a headache. If you can find it, see it, along with the final big film of the Third Reich era, "Koblenz." ...Germany had become so wealthy from war so quick, a film like this could be easily produced, even though the Wehrmacht had lost an entire army at Stalingrad, Rommel had lost Africa, Moussolini had given up, the 8th Army Air Force was pasting German towns daily...the sweat of Vichy France, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. was extracted by the German economic machine to make the weapons to keep the battered Axis war machine going, and "Meuchhausen" was one of the products...As for the real Baron, he was an aged liar living in London in the mid 1700's, telling his bunko tales to pub mates...the man had served in many armies (Germans could do this because they had no unified country), and so his stories ranged from true war exploits to wild rambings about going to the moon in a balloon; wandering in Russia where he tied up his horse on a stick in the ground only to awake and find that the snow had melted away, and that he had tied his horse to the cross of an Orthodox church (!); and other hooey. The film fits the man.

Turan Although "Münchhausen" was produced in Nazi Germany during World War 2, it is a good movie that many people have enjoyed. The reason came out after the war: the screenplay was written by the author Erich Kaestner under an alias. Kaestner, a liberal, was banned from writing by the Nazis.