Recently I was accused of enjoying foreign films because I grew up in West Germany when my father was stationed at US military bases there. But that’s not true. My folks stuck to base cinemas that showed only American films (at an amazing discount). We weren’t seeing Werner Herzog or Rainer Werner Fassbinder flicks with the locals. I didn’t become exposed to foreign films until coming back to America and seeing the CBS Children’s Film Festival on Saturday mornings. The show was hosted by Kukla, Fran and Ollie, a TV act since the earliest days of TV. Fran Allison kept the piece between the serious Kukla and the dragon Ollie. Kukla and Ollie were handpuppets. The series featured movies from around the world that had kids as the main characters. The movies were dubbed and cut down to fit an hour long time slot. In the mid-70s, these alterations were not something that upset an 8 year old future cinephile. Ultimately watching the movies made me eager to see foreign films at my local arthouse and college theater. Freckled Max And The Spooks would have been a perfect film for Fran to introduce with her puppet pals. Freckled Max is a kid. The movie was from Czechoslovakia. Making even more perfect for a Saturday afternoon is that the Spooks were Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the Werewolf and more. This would have been great while waiting for the Creature Double Feature. Freckled Max And the Spooks didn’t make it on the show because it was released in 1987 and the CBS Children’s Film Festival had been cancelled in 1984.
The movie opens with a reverse situation. Max (Martin Hreben) is a small kid was wants to run away from the circus and join a normal life. He’s stuck in a circus caravan when he gets his chance to bolt thanks to a water spirit named Alois (Alphaville‘s Eddie Constantine). Turns out the normal life is further away as Max finds himself at Frankenstein’s castle. There’s a lot going on since Dr, Frankenstein is getting his creation ready. Dracula (Fearless Vampire Killers‘ Ferdy Mayne) flies in with a brain that Igor puts in the freezer for safe keeping. This turns out to be bad since he can’t get it to room service before the lightning storm strikes. So he unzips the Monsters scalp and shoves in the brain. The monster comes alive. Except he’s not quite the professor he wanted to revive with the new body. Eventually Frankenstein must flee when the locals bust in the front doors to destroy his scientific break through. Max sticks around the castle as his new home. But he isn’t alone since along with the staff that stuck around, Dr. Frankenstein’s Aunt has arrived in town and isn’t happy that her nephew has gone away. Hannah von Frankenstein (The Sure Thing‘s Viveca Lindfors). She plans on renovating the castle. Max finds the monster lurking in a bit of a wrecked room.
What’s interesting about Freckled Max And the Spooks is that it isn’t really a movie. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the film is in fact parts of a seven episode TV series that aired in Europe as Frankenstein’s Aunt. While other TV shows have done the trick of merging two episodes and calling it a “movie,” this contains a condensed version of the entire series. It works as a narrative. Director Juraj Jakubisko and his production crew really amp up the visuals so it seems more cinematic than what you’d get from a normal television production in 1986. Max and Alois get around on an unusual fish boat.
Even though the series was shot in Czechoslovakia, there are notable actors in the production that you know from the west. Ferdy Mayne was the vampire in Roman Polanski’s Fearless Vampire Killers. The wolfman is played by Flavio Bucci. He was so menacing in Aldo Lado’s Night Train Murders. Viveca Lindfors was so inspirational in The Sure Thing as the professor that sparks things right for John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga. Eddie Constantine is best known for playing Lemmy Caution in Jean-Luc Godard’s science fiction Noir movie Alphaville. This is a movie that feels like a bridge between East and West in the final years of the communist hold on Czechoslovakia. It’s also a way to enjoy a touch of how a communist production would handle the monsters made famous by Universal. It’s a shame that Kukla, Fran and Ollie didn’t get introduce Freckled Max And the Spooks to kids. But after editing to fit the time slot, we’d be getting all seven episodes squeezed into a single hour.
The Video is 1.33:1 full frame. The movie was originally shot as a TV series so this is the original aspect ratio. Any cropping would wipe out so much of the action in the frame. The Audio is DTS-HD MA 2.0 in Slovak. The sound is clean. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Samm Deighan has her talk about the movie adaptation. She talks about the differences between the tv show and the movie so you can know what’s been cut down.
New Interview with Rastislav Steranka (17:06) has the director of National Cinematgraphic Centre at the Slovak Film institute talks about Juraj Jakubisko and Slovak cinema. He gets into how the communist party controlled filmmaking in Czechoslovakia. They wanted social realism on the screen. There were a few noted directors who were able to make good movies under such circumstances. Then they would defect to the West after the end of Prague Spring. Turns out the communist party had issues with Jakubisko during the ’70s and had him working on short films. When he
New Interview with Petra Galkova (17:54) has the assistant director discuss the making of the film/TV series. Her parents were painters so she grew up in an artistic household. She ate her parents paints at a young age. She became interesting in photography and found herself working in documentaries. She began to work with Juraj Jakubisko after the director’s ban by the communist party ended. She was appointed to work with him on a film because she could speak German and Czech which helped during the international co-production. The director had a firm vision for his films and how to make them happen. She was surprised that the TV series was also being planned as a condensed feature film. She points out that Eddie Constantine kept destroying his makeup.
New Interview with Jan Duris (26:40) about being the director of photography on this project ad working with Juraj Jakubisko. He talks about Prague Spring and when the Soviet tanks rolled into the country. The two began working in 1976 on Red Cross Drummer. There’s clips of their first film together. He points out that Juraj was nicknamed “The Fellini of the East.” He talks about how Juraj sketched out his shots. The two made seven films together.
Portrait of a Film Director: Film On A Branch I Am Fine (42:27) is a profile of the Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko during a different movie. He has them interview him seated before the smoldering ruins of a house. There’s a surprise appearance by Federico Fellini! There’s photos of him with Stanley Kramer and Jean-Luc Goddard.
Three Encounters: Film About Films No. 1/86 (4:43) is about the shooting of the movie. There’s behind the scenes shot of the scene at the train station. There’s talk about the international cast that came to Czechoslovakia.
Frankenstein’s Faster: The Novel That Became Freckled Max (27:55) is a visual essay by Dr. Will Dodson and Ryan Verrill. This is summary of Allan Rune Pettersson, book that’s from Sweden in 1978. He reads passages with clips from the film.
Deaf Crocodile presents Freckled Max And The Spooks. Directed by Juraj Jakubisko. Screenplay by Jaroslav Dietl, Joachim Hammann, Juraj Jakubisko, Jozef Pastéka and Alan Rune Pettersson. Starring Martin Hreben, Gerhard Karzel, Eddie Constantine, Ferdy Mayne, Jacques Herlin, Barbara De Rossi, Viveca Lindfors, Mercedes Sampietro, Andrej Hryc, Bolek Polívka & Marie Drahokoupilová. Running Time: Rating: Unrated. Release Date: June 10, 2025.
