Invention for Destruction

Logline

The most successful Czechoslovak film in history, which became a global phenomenon in 1958. In New York alone it was screened simultaneously in 96 cinemas. This fantasy adventure won a number of prestigious awards, including the Grand Prix at EXPO 58 in Brussels.

This is the first of Zeman’s films to be inspired by Jules Verne, in which the director tries out a new style of art direction, which he was later to develop even further. The story-book sets, striking design and innovative music of Zdeněk Liška – all contribute to the unique appearance of this thrilling story with its antiwar subtext. The black and white narrative is deeply influenced by the classic engravings of Édouard Riou and Léon Bennett – the original illustrators of Verne’s novels.

Synopsis

The story of the engineer Simon Hart – as recorded in his diary – takes place at a time when humanity was driven by a belief in inevitable progress. New inventions emerged like mushrooms after the rain and attracted criminals to abuse them…

Hart, along with his mentor, Professor Roch are kidnapped by the rogue Count Artigas. This alleged benefactor of the professor’s research is in fact the cynical boss of a band of pirates, who deliberately sink merchant ships to steal their cargo. The trusting Roch is for a long time completely unaware that Artigas wants to exploit his new explosive to gain world domination. Hart, cut off from the old scientist in a makeshift shack, tries to thwart the plans of the villains and inform the world outside of their real intentions. Meanwhile he meets the young beauty Jane, who was rescued during one of the pirate attacks. With some difficulty, he manages to send a message from the villain’s lair on the island of Back Cup, a high-tech base hidden inside what looks to the outside world like a smoldering volcano. But it is not easy to attack overwelmingly powerful enemies who possess the deadly submarine Nautilus and an array of deadly inventions…

Awards 

Digital restoration

The digital restoration of the film Invention for Destruction is a part of the Restoring The World of Fantasy. Restoring The World of Fantasy is a joint project of The Czech Film Foundation, Karel Zeman Museum and Czech Television. The aim of the project is within three years to digitally restore selected films produced by Karel Zeman to the finest quality, to screen them in cinemas and bring them to life again. The aim of the project is also to inform public about the importance of the digital restoration.

During work on the digital restoration of Invention for Destruction, as part of the Restoring the World of Fantasy project, restorers found a scene that is missing on all other available negatives. A shot of a clock depicting the Napoleonic eagle is part of this larger sequence, in which Professor Roch is deeply involved in proposals to construct his invention. „I leave it to the viewers to decide on the deeper meaning of this scene, but the scene takes place at a very crucial moment, when the inventor begins to realize to what ends his discovery could be used,“ commented James Mockoski, the American expert on digital restoration and guarantor of the restoration, on the importance of the scene.

„The goal of the digital restoration Invention for Destruction was to restore the film in such a way that the audience today can see it exactly as it was seen during its initial premiere,“ says the chief conservator Ivo Marák of company UPP. The original Prague premiere took place on 26 June 1958, shortly before the film was shown at the World Film Festival at Expo 58 in Brussels, where it won the Grand Prix and where this scene was discussed at the follow-up press conference. One American journalist interpreted it as anti-American. „Maybe the scene was cut to avoid giving offend when the film was sold into American distribution,“ says Mockoski, though any record or account of this are sadly lacking. „The real reason will probably never be revealed, but based on what we know, we took the right course to be to restore the scene to the movie, so now, for the first time since 1958 we can see Zeman’s uncut version of the film,“ adds Mockoski who decided, together with a commission of experts, to return to the scene to the movie.

The digital restoration of Invention for Destruction was a challenging process, which brought together various experts. In the first phase of the restoration the film was transferred from celluloid film to digital data, a process which was carried out on special equipment at twice the resolution of the resulting film digital restoration. Subsequently, impurities were removed from each film frame in different ways and in several iterations, a procedure which took six months of intensive work. Overall, 117,288 film frames were cleared up, on which there were over 6 million impurities. After these technical adjustments, the film went to image color correction (a process necessary even in the restoration of black and white movies!), based on a reference copy of the film and on all available information from the period of the making of the film, so that the appearance of the restored film resembled as closely as possible the original film as created by Karel Zeman.

The next phase was the restoration of the film sound, which was carried out separately. Audio digitization was based on the original negative and period copies. First the most disturbing sound glitches were erased and then any remaining distortion removed. The sound was finalized in a certificated mixing hall. The result is sound that preserves the original audio format, but including equalization to enable a good acoustic over the entire hall.

The final phase of restoration took place in a film theater which meets the standards of today’s digital cinema, so-called. DCI, which stands for the Digital Cinema Initiatives platform, which was established in 2002 as a joint venture of the major film companies: among others, Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Fox, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. The result of this whole demanding process was a restored digital copy, or new master of Invention for Destruction, which will be used for the production of distribution masters that conform to internationally recognized specifications (DCI or the SMPTE standard, i.e. That set by The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers). These master will eventually be stored in a format that is suitable for the long-term archiving of films.

The world premiere of Invention for Destruction in Turin was held under the auspices of honorary consul of Czech Republic in Liguria a Piemonte county Mr. Franco Aprile.

Distribution information

Czechoslovakia: 1958, 78 min
Director: Karel Zeman
Screenplay: František Hrubín (based on the book by Jules Verne)
Camera: Jiří Tarantík
Music: Zdeněk Liška
Starring: Lubor Tokoš, Arnošt Navrátil, František Šlégr, Miloslav Holub, Václav Kyzlink, Jana Zatloukalová, Felix le Breux,
Otto Šimánek, Alena Kreuzmannová, František Řehák and others
 

Have not seen the movie?

 Watch on DVD, Blu-ray or iTunes.