Summary
Director Jindřich Polák did not only make his mark in 1960s Czechoslovak cinema with his wartime drama Nebeští jezdci (Riders of the Sky, 1968). Also pre-eminent is this detective story informed by the French style. Hra bez pravidel (A Game without Rules, 1967) once again confirmed that the crime genre was always a welcome challenge for the director of Smrt v sedle (Death in the Saddle, 1958) and Páté oddělení (The Fifth Division, AKA Agent for Panic, 1960). The narrative’s protagonist is Málek, a retired plainclothes policeman from Prague. Now a taxi driver who gets up to some amateur sleuthing, he revisits the cold case of a jewellery heist. Málek eventually succeeds in handing the criminals over to his former colleagues, complete with their loot… Svatopluk Matyáš in the lead role faced tough adversaries, seasoned criminals played by Jan Tříska, Vladimír Menšík and Jiří Adamíra. The film cast also included Grand Prix motorcycle road racer František Šťastný – starring as himself.
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