Who Wants to Kill Jessie?
(Voricek) 1966 Second Run Blu Ray
Suppose you want to turn your bad dreams into good dreams? And suppose a serum’s invented making it possible to remove what’s undesirable? That’s the SF premise of Who Wants to Kill Jessie? However, such control creates problems as elements removed from dreams aren’t liquidated but manifest themselves in the real world. And because they’re zany comic book characters like the curvaceous Jessie (played by Olga Schoberovaa – a Czech blonde equivalent of Brigitte Bardot) pursued by a superman and a gun toting cowboy, intent on finding the secret behind Jessie’s invention, her anti-gravitation gloves, then we have much comic mayhem.
I loved the early opening scenes of this delightful film. Scientist Dr. Rose Berankova (a marvellous Dana Mendricka) injects the serum into a cow that’s been pestered by dreams of being attacked by gadflies. Afterwards observing the cow, on the monitor of Rose’s dream scanner, it’s now content in its field accompanied by a string quartet playing tranquil music. But unfortunately the gadflies have invaded the laboratory. Then the doctor’s husband Henry (A beautifully dead pan Jiri Sovak) starts dreaming of comic book Jessie and her gloves, desired for his factory workplace: so the jealous Rose injects him with her serum.
Next morning the couple wake up to find the cowboy in the shower; the hungry superman smashing up the kitchen for food and Jessie curled up in Henry’s bed. Jessie pursues Henry to the university, where he lectures, along with her characters who are being chased by the police and fireman (The superman has bitten into the plumbing of Rose and Henry’s apartment block to create a serious flood). We now have social satire, comedy of manners, slapstick routines, screwball antics and pop art fantasy blasting out in all directions!
What makes Who Wants to Kill Jessie such a warm and very entertaining film is its modesty. No colour or expensive special effects. Its charms are economical, crisp black and white B picture production values. The rocks in dreams are cardboard, the laboratory equipment is fifties looking Hollywood and the films cartoon speech balloons are pulpish and pleasingly naïve.
The film opened in Czech cinemas in 1966. The same year as the Batman TV series was first aired and Losey’s Modesty Blaise opened. Vadim’s Barbarella arrived in 1968 alongside of Bava’s Diabolik. They are bold, spectacular productions compared to Jessie but Voricek’s film has a playful cheekiness and invention that makes it more innocent and endearing than those films. Though Jessie has occasional hints of darkness: the increasingly authoritarian behaviour of Dr. Rose; a moment when the comic book creatures are put on trial by the state and a scene were the authorities fail to dismember the body of Jessie and a scientist asks, “Couldn’t we just re-educate these people?”
I’ve only one criticism of this lovely film. What ever happened to the cowboy? The superman is disposed of inside a happy dream of Rosa now turned on by her Hercules catch and Jessie replaces Rosa to become Henry’s partner. The cowboy’s eventual fate was forgotten to be scripted or filmed. Or did he slyly materialise somewhere else and get to fire his constantly waved gun and I missed the bang in a balloon?
Alan Price © 2025.
Who Wants to Kill Jessie?
(Voricek) 1966 Second Run Blu Ray
Suppose you want to turn your bad dreams into good dreams? And suppose a serum’s invented making it possible to remove what’s undesirable? That’s the SF premise of Who Wants to Kill Jessie? However, such control creates problems as elements removed from dreams aren’t liquidated but manifest themselves in the real world. And because they’re zany comic book characters like the curvaceous Jessie (played by Olga Schoberovaa – a Czech blonde equivalent of Brigitte Bardot) pursued by a superman and a gun toting cowboy, intent on finding the secret behind Jessie’s invention, her anti-gravitation gloves, then we have much comic mayhem.
I loved the early opening scenes of this delightful film. Scientist Dr. Rose Berankova (a marvellous Dana Mendricka) injects the serum into a cow that’s been pestered by dreams of being attacked by gadflies. Afterwards observing the cow, on the monitor of Rose’s dream scanner, it’s now content in its field accompanied by a string quartet playing tranquil music. But unfortunately the gadflies have invaded the laboratory. Then the doctor’s husband Henry (A beautifully dead pan Jiri Sovak) starts dreaming of comic book Jessie and her gloves, desired for his factory workplace: so the jealous Rose injects him with her serum.
Next morning the couple wake up to find the cowboy in the shower; the hungry superman smashing up the kitchen for food and Jessie curled up in Henry’s bed. Jessie pursues Henry to the university, where he lectures, along with her characters who are being chased by the police and fireman (The superman has bitten into the plumbing of Rose and Henry’s apartment block to create a serious flood). We now have social satire, comedy of manners, slapstick routines, screwball antics and pop art fantasy blasting out in all directions!
What makes Who Wants to Kill Jessie such a warm and very entertaining film is its modesty. No colour or expensive special effects. Its charms are economical, crisp black and white B picture production values. The rocks in dreams are cardboard, the laboratory equipment is fifties looking Hollywood and the films cartoon speech balloons are pulpish and pleasingly naïve.
The film opened in Czech cinemas in 1966. The same year as the Batman TV series was first aired and Losey’s Modesty Blaise opened. Vadim’s Barbarella arrived in 1968 alongside of Bava’s Diabolik. They are bold, spectacular productions compared to Jessie but Voricek’s film has a playful cheekiness and invention that makes it more innocent and endearing than those films. Though Jessie has occasional hints of darkness: the increasingly authoritarian behaviour of Dr. Rose; a moment when the comic book creatures are put on trial by the state and a scene were the authorities fail to dismember the body of Jessie and a scientist asks, “Couldn’t we just re-educate these people?”
I’ve only one criticism of this lovely film. What ever happened to the cowboy? The superman is disposed of inside a happy dream of Rosa now turned on by her Hercules catch and Jessie replaces Rosa to become Henry’s partner. The cowboy’s eventual fate was forgotten to be scripted or filmed. Or did he slyly materialise somewhere else and get to fire his constantly waved gun and I missed the bang in a balloon?
Alan Price © 2025.
By Alan Price • film, year 2025 • Tags: Alan Price, film