Unusual Class

Among the numerous movies made for children and young adults by Josef Pinkava in the 1960s was this 1964 comedy about an all-girl graduating class. The girls are in constant conflict with Křivka, their unfair teacher of Czech. Things escalate during a winter school trip to the Giant Mountains (Krkonoše), but they fare much better with the grumpy foreman in the engineering plant where they go for practical training. Graduation brings an end to the girls’ joys and woes. Real life awaits… As a light comedy this motion picture presents an idealised picture of student life in the contemporary era: the girls show a moral conscience in dropping their efforts at proving their teacher’s guilt, and pledge not to cheat during examinations. The film, starring Helga Čočková and Evelyna Steimarová as students, cannot compare to titles dealing with the same topics that were made during the Czechoslovak New Wave, such as Věra Chytilová’s short documentary Pytel blech (A Bag of Fleas, 1962) or Miloš Forman’s Černý Petr (Black Peter, 1963).