Main Cast: Yahoo Serious, Odile Le Clezio, John Howard, Pee Wee Wilson, Su Cruickshank
Release Year: 1988
Country: AU
Run Time: 91 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
The life of legendary scientist Albert Einstein is re-imagined as a slapstick farce in this comic fantasy. Changing Einstein's country of origin from Germany to Tasmania, the film shows the scientist's eventful youth as he creates rock & roll and discovers the secret of splitting the beer atom. Director and star Yahoo Serious loads the film with slapstick comedy, absurd sight gags, and even sneaks in a romantic subplot in which Einstein courts Marie Curie. The film was a huge hit in its native Australia but a major box-office disappointment in the United States, where audiences largely ignored the display of nonstop silliness. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
Australian comic writer-director-actor Yahoo Serious, the stage name for Greg Pead, scored a huge hit Down Under with this 1988 farce about a Tasmanian genius who not only discovers the theory of relativity but also invents the electric guitar, rock and roll, the surfboard, and the method of splitting the beer atom. Full of slapstick scenes, sight gags, and unabashed silliness, this Outback comedy was a disappointment outside Australia, perhaps because too much of its humor is Aussie-based. There's even a subplot involving an imagined romance between Einstein and Marie Curie. As a satirical gonzo-biography of a famous person, Young Einstein is in a class by itself; the concept is outrageous, and the comedy strictly a matter of taste. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Cast
Yahoo Serious - Albert Einstein
Odile Le Clezio - Marie Curie
John Howard - Preston Preston
Pee Wee Wilson - Mr. Einstein
Su Cruickshank - Mrs. Einstein
Basil Clarke - Charles Darwin; Ebsen Storm - Wilbur Wright; Lulu Pinkus - Blonde; Kaarin Fairfax - Brunette; Jonathan Coleman - Wolfgang Bavarian; Roger Ward - Cat Pie Cook; Max Meldrum - Mr. Curie; Rose Jackson - Mrs. Curie; Adam Bowen - Guglielmo Marconi; Tim McKew - Sigmund Freud; Philippa Baker - Freud's Mother; Geoff Aldridge - Lumiere Brother; Hugh Wayland - Lumiere Brother; Ian James Tait - Thomas Edison; Michael Blaxland - Desk Clerk; Tim Elliot - Lecturer; Ray Fogo - Bright Clerk; Ollie Hall - Darwin's Bodyguard; Tony Harvey - Bursar; Michael Lake - Lonely Street Hotel Manager; Christian Manon - Darwin's Bodyguard; Johnny McCall - Rudy Bavarian; Alice Pead - Inventor Couple; Terry Pead - Inventor Couple; Colin Gibson - Country Yokel; Aku Kadogo - African Lady; David Roach - Country Yokel; Steve Abbott - Brian Asprin; Mark Bell - Kid; Inge Burke - Country Girl Fan; Glenn Butcher - Ernest Rutherford; Russell Cheek - Nurse; Warren Coleman - Lunatic Professor; Nick Conroy - Clark Gable; Shannen de Villermont - Kid; Wendy de Waal - Prudish Student; Film Crew - Dangerous Lunatics; Albert Heygate - Dog; Conky Heygate - Kid; Keith Heygate - Scientist's Guard; John Even Hughes - Drunk; Warwick Irwin - Gate Guard; Zanzi Mann - Kid; Michael Matou - Asylum Guard; Georgie Parker - Country Girl Fan; Martin Raphael - Crazed Lunatic; Ted Reid - Asylum Guard; Rhonvic Brolga Dancers - Polka Dancer; Ian "Danno" Rogerson - Randy Student; Madeleine Ross - Baby Scientist; Margot Ross - Emotional Mother; Megan Shapcott - Country Girl Fan; Michael Shirley - Admiral Shackleton; Pepper Soudakoff - Darwin's Beagle; Sylvester's Sextet - Bavarian Band; P.J. Voeten - Chinese Student; Wick Wilson - News Cameraman; Ray Winslade - Droving Student; Wombat - Dog; Sally Zakrzewski - Kid; Michael Lynch; David Ngoombujarra - Aborignial Dancer; Frank McDonald - Nihilist
Credit
Laurie Faen - Art Director, Colin Gibson - Art Director, Ron Highfield - Art Director, Steve Marr - Art Director, Animation Flicks - Animator, Lulu Pinkus - Associate Producer, Michael Lynch - Casting, Aku Kadogo - Choreography, David Roach - Co-producer, Warwick Ross - Co-producer, Yahoo Serious - Co-producer, Susan Bowden - Costume Designer, Keith Heygate - First Assistant Director, Yahoo Serious - Director, David Roach - Editor, Amanda Robson - Editor, Yahoo Serious - Editor, Neil Thumpston - Editor, Peter Whitmore - Editor, Graham Burke - Executive Producer, Martin Armiger - Composer (Music Score), William Motzing - Composer (Music Score), Tommy Tycho - Composer (Music Score), Sherry Hubbard - Makeup, Laurie Faen - Production Designer, Colin Gibson - Production Designer, Ron Highfield - Production Designer, Steve Marr - Production Designer, Jeff Darling - Cinematographer, Antonia Barnard - Production Manager, Patrick Fitzgerald - Special Effects, Steven Richard Courtley - Special Effects, Laurie Faen - Special Effects, Yahoo Serious - Stunts, David Roach - Screenwriter, Yahoo Serious - Screenwriter
The film is an intentionally inaccurate portrayal of Albert Einstein as the son of an apple farmer in Tasmania in the early 1900s. In this movie, Einstein splits a beer atom (with a chisel) in order to add bubbles to beer, discovers the theory of relativity and travels to Sydney to patent it. Here he invents the electric guitar and surfing, while romancing Marie Curie, who was in fact much older at the time and married. He invents rock and roll and uses it to save the world from being destroyed due to mis-use of a nuclear reactor under the watching eye of Charles Darwin, who had in fact died in 1882. The rest of the movie is somewhat less historically correct.
Reception
It grossed over $11 million in its United States theatrical run,[1] and over $100 million worldwide. The movie's off-beat combination of originality and humour was apparently lost on many U.S. critics - examples ranging from "as much fun as you can have watching someone being repeatedly electrocuted and blown up -- over and over again" to "with no depth to the main character and little that's really funny to commend its script, Young Einstein falls as flat as old dad's beer" [2], while by contrast, at least one viewer has written, "I found "Young Einstein" to be so, so so side-splittingly funny, I almost died laughing. More so, because my wife is an astrophysicist... I think that this movie should be required viewing for all physicists."[3] According to film critic/historian Leonard Maltin, "...Any movie with 'cat-pies' can't be all bad."
