Hughmn

This film is now available on DVD in the Czech Republic. The DVD can be played with English language subtitles.

Terrifically charming light comedy about a young Czech girl (Natasa Gallova, who was really 29, though you wouldn't know it to look at her) who inherits a run-down hotel where three jazz musicians have been living rent free. Gallova is adorable, and I hope I can find more films with her. I was surprised to find on IMDb that, after a period of time away from the screen, she returned in the mid 1950s and continued to work for some years. She even had a small role in Juraj Herz wonderfully bizarre black comedy, "The Cremator" in 1969.

This delightful piece of escapist entertainment was made during World War Two, but there is no indication in the story of any war. There is no hint of propaganda, only fun and music, swing music for that matter. So if the Germans were cracking down degenerate art, swing doesn't seem to have been on the list, at least not in occupied Bohemia.

Dependable actor Oldrich Novy plays the rich playboy industrialist who is set on staying at the old hotel because his parents spent their honeymoon there. Adina Mandlova is his pretty, though stubborn, fiancée, who insists on planting herself at a modern hotel in a better district of the city, which has the same name.

The existence of two Blue Star Hotels in two different districts of the city is device used to create confusion in a number of situations, but the plot is much more inventive than that simple set-up, and the film is great fun. It is marred slightly only by a final conclusion that is brought about rather abruptly. Still, I greatly enjoyed The Blue Star Hotel.

Vlasta Burian was a legendary Czech comic actor, who appeared in dozens of Czech language films from 1923 to 1956. His heyday in film was the 1930s, and he is a distinctive and amusing presence, with his great mustache and his penetrating eyes. To date I have only seen two of his films:"Katakomby" (The Catacombs) and "Duchácek to zarídí," (which if I remember correctly, translates as "Duchacek Will Fix It").

"Catacombs" is the lesser of these two films. The title refers to the office of records in the basement of a large company... sort of the place where a troublesome employee may be dumped in a dead end job. If fact, the story is a simple romantic comedy, with Burian as the kindly old stick-in-the-mud who helps the young man to sort out his romance with the daughter of the company's owner.

There are a few amusing bits with Burian, but the story is strictly by the numbers. I should also note that unless you can read subtitles VERY fast, you may find yourself pausing the DVD in order to catch the fast dialog.

Film Export Home Video and the National Film Archive in Prague have released a large number of DVDs of classic Czech films over the last few years, many of them with excellent English language subtitles available from the "titulky" menu.

I found "Turbina" on a double-bill disk with another production made during WWII, "Divka v modrem" (Girl in Blue).

This must have received a huge budget for its day. The story is based on a famous 1916 novel about an upper middle class Czech family growing apart at the turn of the 20th century. The father has a waterworks company that is building a modern water-powered electrical turbine, that he hopes will help to modernize the entire town, and make him a fortune. He has three grown children, ready to leave the nest: his favorite daughter, who hopes to become an opera singer, his younger daughter, who seeks a medical degree, and his son who appears to have no ambition at all. There is also the rich, bitter, and eccentric uncle, who lives in the old tower next to the waterworks, and fears that the new construction will damage his Gothic home. Each is due for reward or comeuppance, depending upon their dreams.

All these stories play out in a very brief 85 minutes. Not nearly enough to do them justice, and the film suffers significantly because it pares each tale down almost to bullet points. Nevertheless, there is enough of interest here: some excellent scenes (including one that will remind you of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead") as well as some wonderful production design and photography, to make it more than worth your while, if you happen to be lucky enough to find a copy.