The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Karel Zeman, 1962)
Not as reined-in as his wonderful 1958 tribute to Jules Verne, Invention for Destruction, Karel Zeman's The Fabulous Baron Munchausen often has an anything-goes quality to its fantasy, which makes it a little too easy to detach yourself from its ongoing barrage of astonishing images. A revival of the film in the 1980s directly influenced Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), which suffers from a similar lack of groundedness.
Cast: Milos Kopecký, Rudolf Jelinek, Jana Brejchová, Karel Höger, Eduard Kohout, Jan Werich, Bohus Záhorský, Rudlof Hrusínský. Screenplay: Jirí Brdecka, Josef Kainar, Karel Zeman, based on a book by Gottfried August Bürger and stories by Rudolph Erich Raspe. Cinematography: Jirí Tarantik. Production design: Karel Zeman. Film editing: Vera Kutilova. Music: Zdenek Liska.