Summary
The fact that director Antonín Kachlík had converged with the new norms in Czechoslovak cinematography imposed under the “normalisation” period was demonstrated by this 1973 historical feature. Despite its title, the film is essentially not related to the crime genre. Its narrative – devised according to a secondary plot found in Ivan Olbracht’s novel Anna proletářka (Anna the Proletarian) – outlines the exposed dirty practices of social democrats that have been targeted at working people. The story of a corrupted MP, Jandák (Karel Šebesta), who has enriched himself through a sinister business involving fire extinguishers, is connected to dramatic events centred on Hungarian revolutionary Kerekes (Vladimír Kostovič). In an act of vengeance, he kills a guard who has tortured him in jail… Script editor and screenwriter Václav Šašek, formerly associated with cinema’s Czechoslovak New Wave, wrote the screenplay for this feature. It offers a typical interpretation of modern history through “class”.
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