Kate and the Crocodile

With her 1965 feature debut Káťa a krokodýl (Kate and the Crocodile) Věra Plívová-Šimková signed up to the genre of family stories about and for children which she was to remain faithful to for her entire professional life. The director, then 31, hooked up with the experienced screenwriter Ota Hofman, who conceived of a children’s book by Soviet novelist Grigori Jagfeld as a holidays tale played out over one summer’s day in Prague. The narrative begins with little Míša Horák taking charge of the animals from his school’s wild animals club for the summer. However, his unwilling parents nix the idea and the animals are quickly taken over by the enterprising Káťa. But then they get free from the girl’s room. The biggest problem is a missing crocodile… The simple storyline enables a number of comedic scenes to fill a relatively short film that poetically evokes the sense of a playful, dreamy world of children. Plívová-Šimková is characterised by the humorous distance with which she puts children together with older people who unlike “sensible” adults are capable of play and dreaming… Cinematographer František Valert, who in the 1960s worked on the satire Bílá paní (The White Lady) (1965) and the musical Šíleně smutná princezna (The Incredibly Sad Princess) (1968), contributed to the successful result. With her debut Plívová-Šimková proved she already had a knack for casting interesting child actors and eliciting authentic performances from them on camera. Káťa was portrayed by Yvetta Hollauerová in her only film role. Antonín Nedvídek, who played Míša, never returned to acting either. However, several future popular actors appeared in smaller children’s parts in the movie (incl. Jan Kraus, Andrea Čunderlíková, Marek Vašut, Miroslav Vladyka). Plívová-Šimková also cast a number of interwar acting legends (Oldřich Nový, Věra Ferbasová, screenwriter Václav Wasserman). Jan Zrzavý makes a unique cameo in the role of a painter.