In the tense dramatic situation of a June night in 1815, a few hours before a battle that seems lost in advance, Napoleon has a choice: either go into battle and risk not winning it, or not go into battle, which of course means abdicating. To give up absolute power and offer his military experience to the people, to the republic...
“A bored housewife, a husband who married her for show, and a stupid boy who is full of himself because he is dating a Swiss woman.” The words of Inspector Tůma sound like they’re from a European melodrama, but in fact they come from a Czechoslovak crime story. A pair of detectives, counterfeit medicine, the high-society setting of a Karlovy Vary hotel, and Oldřich Nový as the aging hotel manager Kraus.
Kaspar Len returns home after three years in the army. He vainly searches for the mason Kryštof’s family where he had lived before he left. All he finds out is that Kryštof’s daughter Márynka, who was in his thoughts all those years, is now working in the local brothel. He goes to visit her and Márynka tells him of the misfortunes which befell her family.
The winter Krkonoše Mountains have many pitfalls, especially if you are overly concerned about their treacherous splendour. The somewhat unheroic hero of this clumsily and uninterestingly shot film is a mail carrier who volunteers for the Mountain Service. Only in a blizzard does he overcome his fear of avalanches when he saves the lives of two hikers caught off guard by the suddenly deteriorating weather...
Who wouldn't want to return to the limelight? Years ago, actress Slávka Hradilová was a movie star. Today, she is approaching 60 and the most she does is appear in commercials. But she still keeps in shape. She regularly meets with friends to help them solve their problems, enjoys her teenage granddaughter, but above all she longs to get a big role in front of the movie camera again. When one day she gets an offer with a script in hand, she beams and heads to the studios where she was once almost a queen. But it turns out that times have changed, and today's directors want something different from actors than routine gestures and flashy facial expressions. So the former star is in for a profound disappointment...
Three detective stories, three different views of life and death... Collection of three horror short stories.
This feature film based on the events of 1938 is a chronicle of the futile efforts of the Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes (Jirí Pleskot), politicians and ordinary citizens, to save the independence and the territorial integrity of the state from the advance of Hitler's Germany. On the 29th of March 1938 the leader of the Sudeten Germans Henlein (Werner Ehrlicher) has a meeting with Hitler (Gunnar Möller). Hitler orders him to intensify pressure on the Czechoslovak government. On the 24th of April in Carlsbad, the Sudetendeutsche Partei (Sudeten German Party) decides upon eight demands that are unacceptable to the Czechoslovak President, since they would ultimately lead to the break-up of the Republic. Benes still shows a certain willingness to negotiate, and Henlein resents this. The Germans are determined to make further negotiations impossible through incidents and violence.
The plot begins in the Soviet Union showing first efforts to establish the Czechoslovak legion in 1942. The film also shows the assassination of Heydrich and the subsequent annihilation of Lidice. The main topis of the film is battles with German troops for Sokolovo.
After an attack against the guard of the Third Reich, Nazi repression intensifies, and the Czechoslovakian resistance's organized sabotage in an aircraft factory leads to Gestapo shootings.
A communist agent, who has successfully caught on with the stupidly gullible American secret services, does not have it easy - he is threatened with exposal, but he still rescues a Czech scientist whom the evil imperialists wanted to kidnap. It was supposed to be a psychological portrait of an intelligence officer under intense stress, yet convinced of his truth...
Marta Dekasová works as a governess in a garrison town. The beautiful girl is the center of attention of many men, but she only desires Lieutenant Varga, who is married and rejects her. Desperate, Marta throws herself into the arms of the most intrusive of her suitors, and is then dismissed in disgrace. She goes to Prague to live with her friend Kiki, becomes a bar singer, and continues her journey down the sloping surface. Hope for a new life dawns on her when a young student falls in love with her, but just then Varga appears in the bar and rekindles her unquenched feelings...
A highly romanticized autobiographical novel by a Czech 19th century writer, Bozena Nemcova. It's a classical, compulsory reading in Czech schools, about a wise, working-class woman, happier in her simplicity and good heart than the nobles whom she serves.
Centurion Kubát, of Czech origin, is staying in the camp of the Habsburg army, which is suppressing the Great French Revolution in France. He is staying in a house where a girl named Francoise lives. The eager Lieutenant Hauser reports to the centurion that he has caught two Habsburg soldiers with a French prisoner. Hauser suspects that the centurion's servant Tomáš is involved in the matter. He must severely punish Tomáš for his absence on the critical evening, but promises to pay him out of the army. He learns that he will receive a medal, invites the officers to dinner, and there announces to the colonel that he wants to request discharge from the army...
The 50th anniversary of the Barrandov studios was celebrated with a spectacular show: many directors and other important people gathered in the expensive decorations of the Variety Theatre auditorium (built for the Circus Humberto series). They smiled and showed well-deserved relaxation after a job well done in managing socialist cinema. Vladimir Sís interspersed this with excerpts from films, mainly his own and also a little of others who had worked on the "Hill of Dreams".
The story of Polish and Jewish families living side by side in one Warsaw street. Everything changes once and for all with the Nazi invasion.
A story of a young boy called Bobesh and his funny adventures.
A graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy, Karel Stržický earns extra money in the summer as a day laborer for the landowner Drahan. Jarča, the Drahans' daughter, spends the holidays with her parents, and her father has a lot of worries about her. The unsuccessful student is failing her German. However, an easy solution is offered - Karel will prepare her for remedial work. The mischievous Jarča considers him an ordinary coachman, and so she initially turns her nose up at him. However, the cultured young man manages to win her trust and heart. This does not go down well with his rival in the fight for the girl's favor, and he immediately comes up with a nasty slander: Karel is supposedly a former convict! A rift is not long in coming...
Jindřich Tůma, a partner in the gas mask shop "Asana", has a very energetic wife who promotes a vegetarian diet. The real soul of the company is Ing. Ivan Kareš, who also leads civil defense exercises. On the street, during a practice air raid warning, he sternly reprimands a girl who did not go to shelter. It is Věrka, the Tůma's niece, who comes from the countryside to finish her studies in Prague. Věrka enters the seventh grade and soon shares the enthusiasm of her classmates for an unknown composer whose pseudonym is Michal Marhan. Ing. Kareš gives a lecture on civil defense in the seventh grade and so meets Věrka again. Kareš tries to convince the girls of the necessity of more concrete life ideals. At the premiere of Marhan's operetta "Píseň o štěstí" it turns out that Kareš is the composer. The girls give him a standing ovation. Ivan ignores Věrka, with whom he has recently had a falling out. The stubborn girl therefore leaves for home...
In December 1437, Emperor Sigismund, King of Bohemia and Hungary, returns from Prague to Hungary. Due to a prolonged illness, he stops with his entourage at Znojmo Castle. The Emperor's wife Barbora, daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Duke Albrecht of Habsburg, Supreme Chancellor Kašpar Šlik, bishop, doctors, but also a former supporter of the Hussite movement, Master Křišťan of Prachatice, all expect the Emperor's death. Family members and even the Supreme Chancellor are considering how to obtain the Czech crown for themselves. The Emperor is already dictating a will, but has not yet sealed it with a seal. He waits and takes stock of his reign. Although he defends himself, he is constantly haunted by memories of the Hussite revolutionary movement, which he so cruelly suppressed, and of Hus, for whose death he was responsible.
In the past, most of the wood from the mountain forests was transported to the sawmills by river. The rafters were gradually replaced by trucks and railways, but they still remember the days of their glory and the romance of water travel. Two experienced old swimmers, Váň and Šindelář, managed to push for a return to the old way, at least for one trip. They got a group of like-minded enthusiasts and rafts made of logs can set off down the river...
The bickering of envious mistresses, the criminal intentions of fraudsters and the love of two young people are at the center of events, in the middle of which unfolds the fate of the city executioner Jiří, who longs to break free from his destiny and become a proper burgher. He is not heard, but he manages to expose the iniquities and their culprits, reunites a hard-pressed couple in love and his undeniable merits for the city and eventually bring him luck.
While street photographers Máček and Kalabis are vainly offering their services to passersby, a pair of cronies rob a jewelry store almost right in front of their eyes. Kalabis accidentally manages to photograph one of the robbers. Coincidentally, the brutal thug is indistinguishable from the notorious bookseller Karel Pelikán. Hard times await him: the police, led by the experienced district inspector Moudřý, are interested in him, as well as a gang of criminals who accidentally slipped Karl a ticket from the train station locker where they hid the loot. The only ones who trust Karl are his good-natured aunt Klára and his girlfriend in love, Jarmila...
The families of Vavruš Cagala and Cyril Hanulík live in a secluded area in the Beskydy Mountains. Vavruš and Cyril are hardworking woodcutters and foremen. Cagala's daughter Terezka likes Tomáš Hanulík, but she also likes Pavel Zgabaj, the son of the owner of the farms in the valley. Cyril Hanulík is jealous of his Heva and wrongly suspects her of infidelity. Francek, whom Heva loved before their marriage, takes revenge on the Hanulíks: he sets fire to their apiary, from which he seizes Cagala's hayloft. Since then, misfortune has befallen the Cagala family. They lose their horses and wood, and old Zgabaj demands the money he lent them. He is only willing to back down from his demands if Terezka marries his son. Cagala does not want to allow her daughter to sacrifice herself, so the girl secretly goes to the farm to work there as a helper on the farm...
Řina Weberová, the daughter of a retired colonel, is the owner of a not very prosperous photo studio. Her elderly boyfriend, banker Václav Novák, secretly supports her financially because he is in love with her. One day, Řina meets her childhood friend, Vincenc Špaček, who has entered military service in Prague. The enterprising Vincenc and his inseparable comrade Vendelín Křídl advertise Řina's studio in the military garrison, so that the soldiers flock to Řina to have her photograph them. One day, Lieutenant Novák also shows up and immediately falls in love with Řina. Řina's father finds out that banker Novák is visiting his daughter, and he wants him to marry her...
The bourgeois family does not forgive, from her point of view, inappropriate behavior - contempt overtakes both the girl who decides to dedicate her life to dancing and her sister, who takes in her child, passing it off as her own. The sinister lesson is that even the greatest career cannot compensate for lost maternal love...
Dentist Dr. Matys employs two laboratory assistants, brothers Alois and Benjamin Zoubkova. They also serve as occasional nannies, because the young doctor is living with his widowed stepfather, former forest manager Václav Bezdětek, and his four small children. The brothers would like to marry their beloved boss, but they know that they must first find a new wife for Bezdětek. All the men are irritated by the radio feminist lectures of a certain Marta Kočová, who preaches against men who serve women and even give birth to children "on demand"...
Milada Dvořáková is about to get married to her business partner Dub, a gas station owner. When she catches him hugging his secretary, she breaks up with him. She sets up a rival company, ŽUB (Women at Gas Stations), and employs only single women. Dub also gets into the competitive fight...
It all started when the family of a rich farmer, Stanek, moved to a small village and his daughter Liduška fell in love with a poor violinist, Toník. However, her parents did not approve of her love and decided to marry her to the son of the landowner Krejzová, even though the girl rejected the unsympathetic man. When her parents did not back down, Liduška was determined to run away with Toník, but when she learned that her beloved had been called up for military service, in despair she gave in to her parents' pressure and agreed to the wedding...
Two good friends return from long-term military service: Jan Cimbura from Semic and Josef Piksa from Putim. Piksa farms on his own, Cimbura accepts service with the Hradiště farmer and mayor of Kovanda. The farmhand Cimbura is a real treasure for the farm. He is strong and hardworking, he doesn't drink or smoke. He can keep his eyes on the girl Marjánka, and Cimbura likes her too. However, Cimbura doesn't want to and cannot marry. First, he wants to become independent, and that may take years....
In 1911, Stáňa Járský was giving music lessons to little Jiřina Horníková and fell passionately in love with his pupil's mother. The evening before he left for his studies, Mrs. Helena succumbed to him. Nine years later, engineer Járský met the grown-up Jiřina in Prague - and love met him again. However, this time he was not lucky either, the girl had to save the family factory with a marriage of convenience. After another nineteen years, CEO Járský returns home after a long stay abroad. His hair is graying, but he is still charming and elegant. How will his meeting with young Helenka, the granddaughter and daughter of his former loves, turn out?
In 1972, Czechoslovak Television recorded a performance by the Vinohrady Theatre, which was very well received. Moliere's comedy The Miser was staged on a turntable, but in period costumes and scenery, without any hint of updating, in a traditional translation. However, it was modern and contemporary mainly thanks to the stage direction of Jaroslav Dudek and the excellent acting performances of the main actors, led by Miloš Kopecký in the role of Harpagon. His civil speech, which was not devoid of majesty, anger, imperiousness, dislike and lack of feeling towards those closest to him, was supported by the equally precise performance of Jaromír Hanzlík and Daniela Kolářová in the roles of his children, Jiřina Bohdalová as the matchmaker, and the other actors. The comedy in their performance is timeless and will delight lovers of classical theatre even today.
A romantic story of a noble lady who wanted to live without the bonds of marriage, but her desire for a child led her - carefully disguised - into the arms of a young nobleman. Only years later did she believe in his love and make herself known.
The actress, who is starring in a successful theatre production, is offered a big film role by an Italian director. She decides to leave her current certainties behind and throw herself into the whirlwind of a tempting opportunity, only she doesn't count on the fact that not every expectation will actually come true as she had ideally hoped...
The new era brings with it progress, which must inevitably penetrate even the most remote corners. It has also reached the village of Čirá. The men there have a number of modern machines that make their work in the fields easier, while their wives still toil in the household. One help is readily available - a communal laundry could replace the traditional washcloths. However, the men who rule the municipal council do not want to hear about such spending. So the wives join forces in resistance and resort to severely repressive means...
The story tells of a village girl, falsely accused by her sister-in-law of the murder of her illegitimate child. The unfortunate girl ends up in court, but fortunately her lawyer suspects that passion and hatred rule in this case. Together they search for the child's father, who seduced and abandoned the heroine...
Based on book by Svatopluk Turek.
ComiBaran, a protestant blacksmith arrives in the little village of Lakotice to kill Sekal, a cruel Nazi collaborator.
A young and ambitious engineer named Švajcar arrives at the family of a businessman as the fiancé of the factory owner's daughter. He meets his father-in-law's brother Cyril, who pretends to be invisible. The family plays this game with him so that they don't have to put him in an institution.
An adventure film about the struggle of the Czechoslovak security authorities against Western agents. In an express train departing from Nuremberg station, a cigarette box with plans and instructions for the destruction of one of the Czechoslovak dams is stuck under the seat. The State Security is informed about the whole operation and tries to catch the foreign agents.
A spring is hidden in the Iron Mountain but the people of Arzen cannot get to it and they are suffering from thirst.
At the end of the First World War, Nikola Shuhai and his friend from the army desert. On the way home, to the village of Kolochava, they both find refuge with baby Jaga. Jaga mixes them a drink to protect them from the deadly bullets. The bachelors must promise to marry her daughters in exchange for a drink, or they will be punished. Nikola finds his home village in poverty. He stands against the powerful and the rich, and they turn the gendarmes against him. Nikola hides from them in the woods, where he will remain even after the end of the war, because nothing has changed for the villagers. Out of poverty and hopelessness, other men join Nikola and together they raid the wealthy. Nikola distributes the obtained booty to the poor and needy, who see him as their protector and hero.
A young company doctor will awaken interest in active and regular sports activities among employees of repair shops of Prague transport companies. Through her personal example, she will lead them to fulfill the conditions of the Tyrš badge of fitness.
During the First World War, the crooks Scholef and Krumka sell weapons on the black market. After the collapse of the monarchy they try their hand at speculation on a grand scale.
At the annual festival in Strážnice, long-time rivals - cooperative members from the neighboring municipalities of Dubnice and Bojanova - met. This time, the people of Dubnice are leading both in selling sausages and in the artistic forum. Despite the protests of the accounting cooperative Ambrože, the youth from Bojanova establish a singing and dancing group, led by teacher Bartoš, whom Ambrože's daughter Eva loves. However, they go all the way to Dubnice to practice so that the irritable Ambrož does not know about it. This is the reason for the rift between Eva and Bartoš. They only reconciled after the defeat of the Bojanova group in the regional round of the competition. It turns out that neither Bojanova nor Dubnice alone can build an artistically strong group, but if they unite, they have hope for success in the next year of Strážnice.
If a girl has such an uninteresting occupation that she sells flowers, she likes to indulge in daydreaming, where she can experience unsuspected adventures. But a real suitor who courts a girl is more attractive...
The cheerful farce tells the story of the charming wife of an Andalusian shoemaker, a charming beauty who attracts the eyes of a crowd of cavaliers. The beautiful woman is more than thirty years younger than her husband, but she is quarrelsome, argumentative and, above all, dissatisfied. Despite this, she remains faithful to her good-natured husband, many years older. However, he mainly desires peace, and, carried away by gossip, one day leaves his wife. He returns as a principal with a puppet theater to find that his wife has remained faithful to him, both spouses are convinced that they were wrong and return to each other...
As a young actor František Lukávec and his teacher Vladimir Tuma became enemies. František insisted that Tuma was dismissed from the school as a reactionary and hostile to the new government. Many years passed, and here they met again on the stage of a theater. František is assigned the role of Julius Fucik, Tuma plays the role of a Gestapo man in the same play. In the course of the action, the Gestapo man beats Fucik. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Tuma beats up his old enemy during the dress rehearsal. Frantisek's face is bleeding, but he will still play. The rehearsal continues...
A comedy about a young salesman Havelka, who gets his life's wish. He wins his dream car Spartacus in a lottery. So together with his fiancée, they experience a happiness they have never known before and have no idea that their dream car will complicate their lives...
A lone military unit carrying a cannon is stopped while moving from the training area by a gamekeeper who is in extreme distress because his son is seriously ill and needs acute medical attention. The lieutenant hesitates for a moment whether to help or move on...
The movie is a satirical look at foreign occupation - a medieval Czech jester entertains a German king and his French wife, or a modern Czech villager helps a Bavarian hunter and his French wife find wild boar in Bohemia - the story switches back and forth between the two plots and time-periods.