Summary
The popular “normalisation” era TV series 30 případů majora Zemana (30 Cases of Major Zeman, 1974) made its way to the silver screen in 1979 via the stitching together of two episodes: “Rukojmí v Bella Vista” (“Hostage at Bella Vista” episode 27) and “Poselství z neznámé země” (“Message from an Unknown Land”, episode 28). Directed by Jiří Sequens and written by Jiří S. Kupka, in these cases the protagonist of the story is not the quick-witted socialist criminologist Zeman, as played by Vladimír Brabec, but rather his secret police friend and colleague Major Jindřich Hradec (Rudolf Jelínek). A murder investigation leads all the way to Chile, where our hero is held hostage by a former Nazi (Jiří Adamír). The hostage-taker wants to gain access to a bank account in which money from the days of the 1930s Protectorate has been stashed away. This spy adventure with a strong tinge of regime politics makes use of exotic “South American” exteriors, which were, in fact, shot in Cuba.
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