“A bored housewife, a husband who married her for show, and a stupid boy who is full of himself because he is dating a Swiss woman.” The words of Inspector Tůma sound like they’re from a European melodrama, but in fact they come from a Czechoslovak crime story. A pair of detectives, counterfeit medicine, the high-society setting of a Karlovy Vary hotel, and Oldřich Nový as the aging hotel manager Kraus.
Acting
Oldřich Nový's weary hotel manager hiding decades of compromise.
Production
Karlovy Vary's grand hotels as crumbling character, not backdrop.
Director
Vladimír Čech
Karel Höger
Kpt. Tůma
Josef Bek
Lieutenant Frantisek Líbal
Oldřich Nový
Jindrich Kraus, director of the hotel
Bohuš Záhorský
Dr. Vopálenský
Jan Tříska
laboratory assistant Mirek Zach
Miloš Nedbal
magician Bonhardi (Ladislav Valenta)
Bohumil Šmída
thief Josef Sesták
Oldřich Velen
Lieutenant Jiri Florian
Josef Abrhám
witness Jirka Ruml
Libuše Geprtová
Ruml's girl
Rudolf Deyl
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during the brief Czech New Wave thaw, this police procedural smuggles class critique past censors via spa-town decadence.
Jan Tříska later defected after 1968's Prague Spring; his Mirek here already plays the arrogant young man the regime would soon distrust.
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