Just Because
You're Grown-Up

(aka DOSPELÁCI MUZOU VSECHNO)
(1969, Czechoslovakia) black and white 83 minutes
Kratky Film Praha / Gottwaldov Film Studio
Script: Josef Strnad
Story: Sheila Ochova
Screenplay: Milan Simek, Radim Cvrcek
Music: Harry Macourek
Cinematography: Jiri Kolin
Editor: Antonin Strojsa
Executive Producer: Dusan Schaffer
Directed by Radim Cvrcek

with: Radim Cvrcek (Michael), Vera Stepanova (Louise), Erik Pardus, Martin Trojan, Nina Popelikova, Gustav Opocensky, Pavlina Filipovska (Eva), Mila Sulc, Josef Stovicek, Jiri Marsalek, Ladislav Hrebacka, Vaclav Babka

English-Language Version:
(circa 1973) Xerox Film Corporation 75 minutes (unreleased)
(1993) Studio Off-Hollywood 75 minutes
Series Director: Thomas D. Anglim
Executive Producer: Robert Braverman
Produced by Belluci Productions
Screenplay: Janet Waggener Song Lyrics: Charlotte Fielden, Hubert Fielden, Robert Braverman Dubbing voices: John Gilbert, Madeline Kronby, Richard Comar, Margo MacKinnon, Florence Schreiber, Alan Mills, Dave Raboy, Walter Massey, Julie Wildman, Don MacIntyre, Lynee Deragon, Griffeth Brewer

***

SYNOPSIS: A strange montage opens the film: A young boy named Michael drives up to school in a car and picks up a cute little girl named Louise. They drive off together. Michael tells his father to go to bed rather than watch the horror movie on TV, "The Horrible Ghoul." Michael's teacher chastizes his adult students on not learning to whistle.

Michael wakes up. It was all a dream. His father, the world famous Dr. Dvorak, tells him to get ready for school, wash behind his ears. Michael heads to school, picking up his girlfriend Louise on the way. Michael shamelessly copies Louise' homework.

At school, principal Enright is substituting for the absent teacher. He calls on Michael, who does not know much of anything without the coaxing of the bright Louise. After school, Michael steals some coins from the public phone booth, and takes Louise for ice cream, but the vendor has run out just when the kids arrive.

Michael goes home to find a list of chores from his mother. The lazy boy tries washing the dinner dishes in the clothes washer, with disastrous results. Michael teases his nosy landlady. Michael ends up at the National Science Laboratory to visit his father, but he is kicked off the property.

Michael peeks into the lab and sees his father working with test animals. The press enters, and interviews Dr. Dvorak on his new invention, which can change the size of animals, in an effort to end world hunger. So far, all they have been able to accomplish is to shrink animals, as several miniature animals on display ilustrate. Dvorak gives the formula to a rooster, which shrinks before the group's eyes.

Dvorak leaves the lab, and son Michael sneaks in and steals the formula, adding his own ingredients. Before he can test it, his father returns, drinks the formula, and instantly turns into an infant! Michael tries some new permutation of formula on the small rooster, which grows to giant size. Michael then drinks the potion himself, and grows into an adult!

Michael changes into his father's clothes, hoping to pass himself off as his father's long-lost brother. Michael takes his infant-father in his arms, and tries to drive his car home. Miraculously, Michael manages to drive, backwards, all the way home.

Big Michael hides his infant-father in the apartment, and introduces himself to the nosy landlady as his father's brother. Big Michael goes outside to try and solicit his best friend Louise, but the smart little girl rightly knows not to talk to strange adults, and she solicits the help of a cop.

Big Michael returns home to find that his infant father has made a mess out the place. Later, the two watch an adult melodrama on TV. Big Michael falls asleep, but infant-father is mesmerized by the steamy drama. Soon, the flirty woman next door comes over asking for a date. Big Michael reluctantly agrees, and soon the young woman is leading the terrified man-child in romantic dancing.

Big Michael returns to put his infant-father to bed, but the man-baby won't stop crying. Next morning, an exhausted Big Michael has difficulty making oatmeal for his father's breakfast. Big Michael makes his way to school, and confronts Louise with the truth of his miraculous transformation. Louise at first thinks he is just a pervert trying to befriend her, but soon, she sees the horrible truth about the father's miracle potion.

At school, principal Enright mistakes Big Michael for a subsitute teacher for the fifth grade, and Big Michael is forced into the problematic position of teaching his own peers. Big Michael makes the class stand up and sit down repeatedly, enjoying this new-found power. He confiscates all the boys' pea-shooters and slingshots. Big Michael taunts his enemy, Frankie, with difficult mathematics problems.

After school, Louise rebels against Big Michael's selfish reliance on her, and he purchases all of the ice cream from the local vendor in order to win his girlfriend back. Big Michael then explains the joys of being an adult with a production number called "Now That I'm Grown-Up".

Big Michael returns to the apartment with Louise, and finds dad-baby crying as usual. Louise helps out by feeding and bathing father-baby. However, Louise chastizes for Big Michael's irresponsibility in domestic affairs. Soon, Big Michael is at an emplyment agency, asking to become a hockey player or astronaut. Of course, no-one has any jobs like that, and Big Michael returns, dejected. Looking in the newspaper, Big Michael is surprised to find a "Help Wanted" ad seeking astronauts. Soon, Big Michael is undergoing a rigorous scientific examination to test his physical capacity for the job.

On their way home, Louise and Big Michael spot a traveling carnival, and notice a boxing contest to battle a strong man, Mighty Eddy Emperor, with the prize being big money. Louise browbeats poor Big Michael into fighting the brute. He is saved from total annihilation only by Louise's quick thinking, as she drops the lighting fixture onto Might Eddy's head, knocking him out.

The press corp arrives at Dr. Dvorak's apartment in order in make him a National Hero for his new potion. The nosy landlady tells the press everything she knows about Dr. Dvorak's strange "brother"and his weird, childlike behavior. They run off to find him.

Soon, Louise and Big Michael arrive back at the apartment and to the always-crying dad-baby. Louise shames Big Michael into going out and getting a real job. Soon, Big Michael is a lowly dishwasher at a local eatery. He is soon fired for breaking a stack of plates, however. As he walks home, despondent, he sees a group of boys playing softball, and wishes to be just a child again.

Big Michael informs Louise of his failure, and she tells him that he is still immature, no matter how big he appears to be. Big Michael returns to the laboratory in an attempt to reverse his fortune by drinking his father's formula, but the press is lying in wait for him, and chases him through the streets of Prague.

Big Michael manages to run home, and hides under his bedsheets, unable to face any more "adult" reality. He is haunted by visions of everyone in his community, gathered in his bedroom, laughing at his cowardice. Suddenly, the real Dr. Dvorak pulls off the covers, and Michael is a child again. The entire scenario has been a horrible dream! Michael runs in to the kitchen, and welcomes home his mother, with her new baby, Michael's real baby brother!

THE END

***

JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE GROWN-UP is a marvelous allegorical fantasy for children, and deals deftly with the time-honored cinematic tradition of role-changing between adults and children, a trend perhaps started with Great Britain’s 1948 offering, VICE VERSA, and carried on world-wide to this day. Indeed, this film seems specifically a prototype for Disney’s successful 1976 fantasy, FREAKY FRIDAY, with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris switching identities for a most freaky weekday.

The somewhat arrogant and spoiled Michael learns that being an adult is no picnic, especially when faced with that four-letter word, W-O-R-K. His scientist-father is reduced to a drooling infant, a situation which produces some simplistic yet amusing eventualities. As is often the case with the European children’s cinema of the day, the punitive institution known as public education gets a sound thrashing.

One could certainly see the film as a fantasy regarding youth rebellion against the arrogance, and seemingly undeserved privilege of the Czech middle class, but also visible is a warning to youth not to take the world of adulthood too lightly, for it has its own pitfalls, as well as freedoms.

The beautiful black and white film captures Prague, Czechoslovakia in vivid and loving tones. The film boasts several somewhat surreal sequences, as well as one wholly bizarre production number, replete with that rarest of cultural ephemera, a dubbed song.

JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE GROWN UP was slated for a U.S. theatrical release by Xerox Films. Their involvement in the English-Language version of the film is evident in the credits, which lists Robert Braverman, executive producer of the Xerox matinee series, as one of the song lyricists. Also, there are several insert shots of English-Language signage indicating an intention towards the English-speaking audience. It is curious that few if any of these exemplary examples of world cinema for children ended up in television syndication, where they surely would have bee popular. The only release of this film in the U.S. seems to be obscure “’Specially for Kids” video release of 1993, which seemed to be targeted not for the general public, but libraries and institutions.

(Our thanks once again go to Marc Berezin for locating this rare film!)

Video/DVD availability: VHS (Off-Hollywood; oop)