The Courrier Who Vanished

Country

Czechoslovakia

Copyright

1981

Production year

1981

Premiere

16 October 1981

Runtime

86 min

Director

Otakar Fuka

Genre

sci-fi

Typology

featurelong

Original title

Kam zmizel kurýr

Czech title

Kam zmizel kurýr

English title

The Courrier Who Vanished

Working Title

Kurýr ze souhvězdí Pegas

Summary

Filmmakers have been drawn to the short stories and novellas of Josef Nesvadba on numerous occasions. However, the sci-fi film Kam zmizel kurýr (The Courier Who Vanished, 1981), directed by Otakar Fuka, was made according to an original script penned by the popular writer. The courier of the film’s title is an alien who crash landed on Earth in the 17th century and has since been secretly manipulating human history. The protagonist is an extra-terrestrial envoy who arrives in Prague disguised as “Jones”, a Czech language student from Australia. The envoy’s real task is to find the alien courier and bring him back home. Young sci-fi writer Marcela becomes a witness to Jones’s quest... The film’s lead roles were played by Jan Kanyza and Eva Jakoubková. In one absorbing sequence, Jones uncovers “evidence” of the courier’s existence in, among other things, earlier Czech sci-fi films. Kam zmizel kurýr thus contains clips from Muž z prvního století (The Man from the First Century, 1961), Ikarie XB 1 (Icarus XB 1, 1963), Vynález zkázy (An Invention for Destruction, 1958), Baron Prášil (Baron Münchausen, 1961), as well as Fuka’s own Akce Bororo (Bororo Operation, 1972).

Note

The film includes parts of Czech sci-fi films Baron Münchhausen (1961, dir. Karel Zeman), An Invention for Destruction (1958, dir. Karel Zeman), The Man from the First Century (1961, dir. Oldřich Lipský), Icarus XB-1 (dir. Jindřich Polák), Bororo Operation (1972, dir. Otakar Fuka).