In 1888 Africa, a French soldier, Hector Servadac (Emil Horvath) is out surveying the country when he falls from a cliff into the ocean. He is rescued by a beautiful woman named Angelika (Magda Vasaryova). She says she was kidnapped from Valencia by Spanish gun smugglers. She managed to escape and swim towards shore where she found Servadac drowning. She mentions that as she was swimming, she saw what she described as a second sun rising. Servadac says that he too saw it but thinks that it is not a sun but perhaps a planet rushing toward them. In reality it is a comet.
The closeness of the comet creates a terrific storm. As the comet approaches, a local Arabian Sheik (Josef Vetrovec) plans on using the guns he bought from the Spanish arms dealer to drive the French out of Africa. In return the Spanish plan on attacking the Arabs, once they have disposed of the French. As the comet rushes by it sweeps up Servadac, Angelika, the soldiers, the sheik, his men and the men from the Spanish ship up onto the comet.
Now on the comet everyone tries to continue on as before, however, they are attacked by rampaging dinosaurs. The French try to kill the dinosaurs using cannons, to no effect. In the melee, horses tied to a wagon full of pots and pans are spooked and run directly toward the dinosaurs. Angelika, who happens to be on the wagon, is also carried away. Servadac rides off to try to stop the horses. When the wagon gets near the dinosaurs they are scared away by the rattling of the pots and pans.
The fort commander, Colonel Picard (Frantisek Filipovsky) decides that they need to get rid of their guns and cannons since they don’t have any effect on the dinosaurs. Instead, he orders his men to hang pots and pans on sticks to drive them away. He prepares the fort against attack from the dinosaurs not realizing that the sheik is preparing to attack them with the guns the fort threw away.
Eventually everyone realizes that they are no longer on Earth and decide to try to live together peacefully but the fates decide otherwise.
“On the Comet” AKA “Na Komete” AKA “Off On A Comet” was released in 1970 and was written and directed by Karel Zeman. It is a Czech science fiction adventure using live action and animation. The movie was based on the 1877 novel “Hector Servadac” by Jules Verne.
The dinosaurs don’t show up until about halfway into the film. It’s not the best Karel Zeman movie I’ve seen, but it did have dinosaurs so that was a big plus. Despite their late arrival, the film is still a lot of fun to watch, especially the visuals produced by Zeman. I was amused by Zeman’s tongue-in-cheek depiction of war and its ridiculousness, focusing on the power-hungry leaders and their inability to think or act logically. The plot may not be intricate, but the movie has a lot of humorous components that add a lot of facets to the incredible visuals.
During production Czechoslovakia was invaded by Russia.