Rodeo

One of Vítězslav Jandák’s early film appearances was in 1972 drama Rodeo. Then aged 25, the actor portrayed 18-year-old youngster Imrich who dedicates his life to a passion for motorcycles. Instead of taking his high school exams, the dropout Imrich gets to grips with the hard work required in an automobile repair shop (he also learns about the shady practices of his boss Hasman, played by Josef Somer). Eventually, our hero makes it into the national competition… Eva Trejtnarová stars as Imrich’s unreliable lover from school. Libuše Šafránková plays the daughter of the mathematics professor, and it is she who spurs Imrich to return to his classes. Director Antonín Máša, who was forced to depart the “normalised” Barrandov film studios in Prague under early 1970s socialism, produced this feature in a coproduction arranged between Krátký film Praha and Gottwaldov Studio (now Zlín).