Wenn's keine Musikanten gäbe

This short work about Czech provincial life and amateur music-making foreshadows such great films as Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde and Fireman's Ball and Ivan Passer's Intimate Lighting, that came just a few years later, but it never quite comes together or catches flight.

Because I am fascinated by these two filmmakers, I found it to be of some interest, but it's unlikely that very many other viewers would find much to enjoy. The VHS tape I watched was blurry and lacked the mid-tange tonalities that give B&W films their visual appeal. Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is where Forman and Passer began learning their craft. But if all we had to go on was this minor effort, we would never have suspected the richness of their later work.

For hyper-dedicated Czech film buffs only.