The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) on Netflix
PG19882h 6mAdventureComedyFantasy
An Ottoman army besieges a city while a troupe stages a play about Baron Munchausen. An old man interrupts, claiming to be the Baron, and Sally Salt stows away on his balloon.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.1/1060,318 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
In a European city of the Age of Reason, an Ottoman army waits outside the gates. Inside, the theater company of Henry Salt performs a stage version of Baron Munchausen's life. The mayor, Horatio Jackson, champions reason, and an old man in the audience protests that the play is wrong about him. He says he is the Baron, and tells of a wager with the Grand Turk that he survived through luck and the help of four servants with extraordinary talents: Berthold the fastest runner, Adolphus the rifleman with superhuman eyesight, Gustavus with extraordinary hearing, and the strong Albrecht. Gunfire interrupts him, and Jackson cancels the troupe's contract. The Baron builds a balloon and leaves the city over its walls in search of the servants. Sally Salt, Henry's daughter, is aboard.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Robin Williams, credited as "Ray D. Tutto", a play on "king of everything" in Italian, portrays the King of the Moon; director Terry Gilliam explained that the deal was that they could not use Williams's name because his agents said, "We don't want you pimping his ass for your film."
- Sarah Polley, who was nine years old at the time of filming, described it as a traumatic experience that left her with a few scars, with so many explosions going off close to her and long periods in freezing cold water.
- The film went over budget: what was originally $23.5 million grew to a reported $46.63 million, though Gilliam, while acknowledging the overrun, said its final costs had been nowhere near $40 million.
- Only 117 prints of the film were made for America when it was ultimately released, so it was never really released, where an art film gets 400; the blame was put on Columbia Tri-Star being sold to Sony, when all the company was doing was trying to get the books looking as good as possible.
- Eric Idle said that up until Munchausen he had always been very smart about Terry Gilliam films: "You don't ever [want to] be in them. Go and see them by all means - but to be in them, fucking madness!!!"
- In February 1984, 20th Century Fox and Arnon Milchan announced the making of two films, The Improbable Adventures of Baron Munchausen I and II, with Terry Gilliam.
- Munchausen is the third entry in Gilliam's "Trilogy of Imagination", preceded by Time Bandits in 1981 and Brazil in 1985.
