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Please do not suffer in silence. In 1975, a film opened up in Czechoslovakian movie theaters.

With a title that translates to The Case of the Dead Man, this was a spy movie that centered

around a suspicious man showing up at the nation's border

in the mid-1950s, armed with only a name and some scant belongings.

Claiming to be a deaf mute, the man wasn't able to talk and had very little memory of

who he was or where he was from.

Over the next 90 or so minutes, a pretty typical spy thriller would play out.

With it being revealed, that, surprise, surprise, the man claiming to be a deaf mute was anything

but.

He was actually a spy sent from another nation trying to cause dissent, who spent years trying

to embed himself into Czechoslovakian society and develop relationships. However, the most surprising thing about this movie is that it had pulled its central plot

from a real story.

One that may not have been as exciting or thrilling, but one that was even more interesting

and mysterious than the generic spy thriller.

At the time this movie came out in 1975, the figure at the center of that true story

was still alive, and at that point, the Czechoslovakian government had spent two decades

trying to determine just who he was exactly.

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