Baron Munchausen 1979 Russian television film "The Very Same Munchhausen", directed by Mark Zakharov from Grigori Gorin's screenplay, produced and released by Mosfilm. The film, a satirical commentary on Soviet censorship and social mores, imagines an ostracized Baron attempting to prove the truth of his adventures in a disbelieving and conformity-driven world. In 1988, Terry Gilliam adapted the Raspe stories into a lavish Hollywood film, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", with the British stage actor and director John Neville in the lead. Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, described Neville's Baron as a man who "seems sensible and matter-of-fact, as
Baron Munchausen the main audience for the stories. The book, especially in its adaptations for children, remained widely popular throughout the century. It was translated into nearly all languages spoken in Europe; Robert Southey referred to it as "a book which everybody knows, because all boys read it". Notable later translations include Gautier's French rendering and Korney Chukovsky's popular Russian adaptation. By the 1850s, "Munchausen" had come into slang use as a verb meaning "to tell extravagantly untruthful pseudo-autobiographical stories". Robert Chambers, in an 1863 almanac, cited the iconic 1792 illustration of the Baron by asking rhetorically: Though Raspe's book is no