Directed by:
Václav KubásekScreenplay:
Václav KubásekCinematography:
Ferdinand PečenkaComposer:
Jiří SrnkaCast:
Bolek Prchal, Slávka Rosenbergová, Marie Glázrová, Drahomíra Hůrková, František Kreuzmann st., Hermína Vojtová, Karel Černý, Růžena Šlemrová, Jiří Dohnal (more)Plots(1)
Žofka, daughter of the steward Dražil, moves to Prague. She finds work and wants to live independently but she resolves to return to her village and marry the locksmith Jan Rokyta who loves her. Her sister Jiřina loves the son of the landowner Remeš, Jaroslav. Remešs do not approve of Jaroslav's relationship with Jiřina. Only uncle František, manager of a Prague factory, approves of it. He therefore takes Jiřina under his wing with the idea of giving her an education. In Prague Žofka gets involved with Rudolf Slaba, a crook who is interested in getting to know the manager Remeš through her. Eventually he manages to meet him through his own guile, not via Žofka. Žofka warns Remeš that Slaba will rob him, but she ends up hiding Slaba from the police. Slaba would like to improve his standing in Žofka's eyes and start a new life with her. But he is no longer capable of this and commits suicide. Remeš realises he did Žofka wrong but he manages to make amends. Rokyta forgives Žofka her little misdemeanour, and Jiřina finally wins the consent of Jaroslav's parents to the idea of marriage. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (1)
It can be assumed that Václav Kubásek considered the novel the film is based on to still be a current bestseller, even six years after its last edition. However, its author, Vavřinec Řehoř, had already been dead for two years and Kubásek, without Kokeisla, with whom he wrote the screenplay for the first film adaptation in 1924, somewhat overestimated his abilities. The sprawling folk novel reflecting the change in circumstances before and after the war simply was not ideal material for a modern update and relocation to the year 1939. The merging of two plot lines into one at the expense of multiplying the number of potential love affairs was truly unfortunate. While in the novel and in the first adaptation many events make sense in relation to the time the story is set (the introduction takes place in Vienna or Prague before 1910), similar situations unfolding on the brink of World War II sound at least unlikely. Among the most significant problems are the disjointed acting in Kubásek's second film, the spontaneous Marie Glázrová experiences her injustice and rape very expressively and in successful contrast to the cheerful nature of her heroine in the first half of the film. Míla Pačová acts overtly theatrically, because although she was interested in the film, she did not have many roles in sound film at that time (and could not apply her experience from silent film)... Actors such as Vilém Pfeiffer, Jiří Dohnal, Gustav Nezval, or Drahomíra Hůrková needed better directorial guidance for their performances to be at least decent, so in the end the only civilian performance was given by Darja Hajská in a cameo, which is one of the biggest paradoxes of this production. The highlight thus remains the performance of Míla Spazierová-Hezká and the fact that we have so much material left from the collaboration of Kubásek and Řehoř to compare.
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