Humoreska 1939
Venice Film Festival 1939
Venice Film Festival 1939
A village shop owner is convinced by his children to move to Prague, where they say he'll be able to enjoy a fine retirement in a modern furnished apartment. Bored by life in Prague with nothing to do, the old man takes to helping a young widow in her stationery shop.
A morally questionable lord comes to the aid of a working class man who is to be executed for speaking out about thieving rich scoundrels sticking it to the poor.
Josef Houbička, the owner of the U pěti veverek apartment building in Malostran, is a kind and forgiving good man who allows himself to be ruthlessly oppressed by his proud wife, Filoména, and secretly fixes her problems with the tenants. He lends rent money to two poor painters and bribes offended maids just to keep the house quiet. He would like to restore the old soap factory in the house, but Filoména promotes more profitable garages. And since neither of them wants to back down, Houbička eventually leaves the house after one of the arguments. He makes friends with the innkeeper Pulec, who runs the not-so-prosperous inn At the Leaky Jug...
Filmed during the Nazi occupation, this panoramic drama set in a Prague department store follows the divergent destinies of four female coworkers, each of whom seeks happiness in a different way.
Venice Film Festival 1941
A young man has led his whole life with his grandfather. When he was in school, he was the only one who was refused to join the Youth Brigade, since his father was sentenced to death for spying. When it is time for him to do the compulsory military service, he has to do it in a platoon for "unreliable" persons.
Rudolf Bartoš, the owner of a farm, quarry and factory, is extremely rich, however, he is unapproachable and irritable, and the dread of his employees. One day he falls down a steep slope by a river and hurts himself. The quarryman Fábera finds him groaning in pain and takes him to his cottage.
Prague, the beginning of the 17th century. Rozina falls in love with Italian glass worker Nikolo, but after returning home, she gets a message that will never come to Prague. She falls for the promise of an older man to marry her, but when Nikolo does return, the tragic fate of Rozina is sealed.
Eva's aunt is jealous of her neighbor's excellent roses and wants to know the secret. To help auntie out Eva applies for secretarial work at the neighbor's house in order to find out the formula. Things get complicated when it turns out that Eva's brother is in love with the daughter of the house and also wants to get in there under false pretenses.
The smooth narration, corresponding to the requirements of a light comedy, develops the smiling and optimistic story of the "one-armed" beggar Dostál, who earned enough money with his excellent begging skills to buy a nice house, become a respectable master of the house, and save the impoverished lawyer Neprosil from poverty, who he contributed regularly to him when he was still well off. He also wanted to get him together with his pretty ward Zorka, for whom he said he would be an ideal husband, but the young people were able to do that by themselves and without his clumsy help, or rather despite his rather ineffective help... The film was shown at the VI. IFF in Venice in 1938.