YOUNG EINSTEIN

Australia, 1988, 91 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Yahoo Serious.
Yahoo Serious, John Howard, Odile Le Clezio.

Young Einstein is an enjoyable surprise. It is a very entertaining comedy, fantasy, satire - but without the merciless touch. It is the work (acting, writing, directing) of comedian, Greg Pead, who calls himself Yahoo Serious. He appears to be a very young comedian - and has put together a skilful, fast-moving comedy.

He takes the character of Albert Einstein and transfers him to Tasmania 1905, the son of two farmers whose preoccupation is to put bubbles into beer - which he does by atomic fission. Going to the mainland he meets a French scholar, Marie Curie. There is an enterprising businessman-scientist who steals his patent, a Bavarian who makes beer on the stolen formula, activity in an asylum - akin to Cuckoo's nest as well as the 1906 Science Academy Award Show chaired by Sir Charles Darwin with wireless by Marconi, with people like the Wright Brothers,(one negro)in attendance.

These zany goings on are presented with wit as well as broad humorous touches (especially the cook preparing a cat pie for the inmates at the asylum with live kittens - sounds macabre, but is very very funny.

The film is ultimately dedicated to Einstein with a quotation that he felt that others took his theories more seriously than he did.

1. An entertaining comedy? Clever? Wit? The comic touch with the serious points to be made about science, technology, the dangers of science through commercialisation and exploitation?

2. The work of Yahoo Serious: writing, directing, acting? comic success?

3. The creation of period atmosphere: Tasmania and its rustic atmosphere, the trip to the mainland over Bass Strait, the wandering of Australia and the sequences at Uluru? Sydney 1905: offices, flat, the asylum? France? The special effects for the Academy of Science?

4. Colour photography and finesse in film-making, special effects? The importance of sound, music, rock and roll, electric and electronic music?

5. The parallel with the real Einstein by having young Einstein in Tasmania? The final dedication and the quotation about not taking theories too seriously? The film's interest in science, physics? Inventions, brainwaves, the atomic fission for the beer, patent difficulties at the turn of the century, exploiters stealing formulas, success in technological advance, dangers?

6. Audience knowledge of science and physics especially? The laws of physics, gravity and Isaac Newton, relativity, curved space, the fourth dimension, the laws of motion? Einstein's insights and achievements? Madame Curie and her background, interest in atomic physics, radiation? The humour with the Science Academy: Marconi and the wireless, Edison, the Wright Brothers, Sir Charles Darwin? Scientific advance by 1906?

7. Tasmania and its rustic beauty, the orchards, the scenery? Mr. Einstein and his work (and his comment about damming the valley)? Mum and her size, love for father, for Albert? The work, the various jobs, feeding the pigs? Father and son getting lost? The sheep in the house, the pigs, the beer and the shed? Atomic fission? Albert. at home, the bath, under the apple tree, laws of gravity etc.? The discovery of Einstein's formula? The humour with the Tasmanian Devil and its haunting, chasing people? (And its reappearance later?) Pleasing humour, funny but not merciless? Albert's letters home, the family reading them, listening to the wireless?

8. The humour of his going to the mainland, rowing across Bass Strait, Uluru, the Snowy Mountains, the skeleton with the railway timetable -waiting, the train, the encounter with Marie and Preston?

9. Sydney 1906: the street, costumes and decor? The hotel and the girls, the socialist manager, the dirty loft, the mice? The prostitute coning in? An atmosphere of innocence? Albert and his work, the formula, electricity and music, his music theory, rock and roll? The children and their dancing with him?

10. Yahoo Serious as Albert: appearance, age, nice, naive, clever, innocent, the patent, the formula being stolen, the love for music, the violin, the electric music? The visit to the university and his being kicked out? Being kicked out everywhere? Marie and the friendship, the attraction? The sexual encounter and his falling out the window? Resilient? Pres and his offering him the job, his not being a good accountant? Going to the asylum, the various friends, Ernest Rutherford? The Cuckoo's Nest atmosphere and the male acting the part of the dominant nurse? The help from the men in the asylum? Marie and her disguise as his father? The chase around the plant? The escape? The letter from Marie and her challenge to him, going to France, the Academy Awards? The tension with the three minutes to reverse the process? The happy ending? An interesting character, causes? Pleasing?

11. Marie in the train, the Curie background, friendship with Pres with Albert? her work at Sydney University, the professor? Visits with Albert? The sexual encounter and its naivety? her concern? her outings with Pres - and her abusing him for stealing the formula? Her disguise for the escape from the asylum? At home in France, her parents concerned about her relationships with men? The finale?

12. Pres as the cad, in the train, advances towards Marie, his ignorance, his office, his talk, his minions, his praise of the cardinal with the double-entry book-keeping routine? Stealing the formula? His friendship with the Bavarian? Marie's attack on him? Getting Albert into the asylum? The newspaper headlines? His presence at the Academy Awards, the villain, the three-minute tension, his come-uppance? The comic caricature of the cad villain?

13. The Bavarian and his beer, the dwarf, the machine, finale and the danger?

14. The man at the Patents Office and his sneering? The book-keepers?

15. The asylum and the Cuckoo's Nest atmosphere, the cells, recreation, the baths? Theories and intelligence? Rutherford and the comment on the scientist? The cook and the pies with the kittens, and Albert's saving the kittens? The melodrama of the chase around the plant and the escape?

16. The minor characters and the clever impressionistic sketches: e.g. the socialist manager, the Curie parents?

17. The Tasmanian Devil as a comic monster, in Tasmania, on the mainland?

18. Humour: the 19th. century, science, society, verbal humour and wit, puns, jokes? Visual humour: gags, kittens, the finale?

19. Themes of progress, science, faith in science, jargon and gobbledygook, intuitions, exploitation, danger?

20. The themes of relativity, the splitting of the atom, the special effects for the nuclear cloud after the beer atom splitting? The dangers of technology? The jokey comments on 20th century advances, the nuclear age? Jokey, but ... ?