Summary
The eponymous heroine of the popular children’s film Lucie, postrach ulice (Lucy, Terror of the Street) is a six-year-old girl about to start school after the summer holidays. But first she has to take on a gang of six older children led by Osvald, the mischievous son of a neighbour. He persuades the naive girl that they’ll let her join the gang only if she steals something from a department store. But instead of taking plasticine, Lucie encounters the Shapers, little plasticine men who have come to life and can do magic. Instantly all the kids in the neighbourhood want to be her friend. However, Osvald, deposed as leader, is out for revenge. That is the subject of the follow-up …a zase ta Lucie! (Lucy Again) (1984), again filmed by director Jindřich Polák in cooperation with screenwriter Ota Hofman. The pair are also known for the tales of a silent man with a magic bowler hat, Mr. Tau, and the comedy Chobotnice z II. Patra (Octopuses from the Second Floor) (1986). The two popular film comedies about the little girl were created as six half-hour television stories which Polák and Hofman produced as Luzie, der Schrecken der Straße (1980) for a West German channel. Czechoslovak Television did not broadcast the series at the time though it did reach domestic viewers four years later when the material was edited into two feature films… The focus in the popular children’s film is on the animated Shapers, voiced by Jiřina Bohdalová and Josef Dvořák. The frequently cast Žaneta Fuchsová, one of Polák’s favourite child actresses (he used her in Octopuses from the Second Floor and the Pan Tau [Tau] movie), took the role of
Lucie. The part of the mischievous Osvald went to Michael Hofbauer, who the director had previously used in the Mr. Tau films. Otto Šimánek, who in that series portrayed Polák’s most popular character, appears in Lucy, Terror of the Street as a store detective.
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