The Firemen’s Ball [Horí, má panenko] **** (1967, Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebánek, Josef Valnoha) – Classic Movie Review 6921

Director Milos Forman’s amusing, closely observed 1967 Czech comedy, made in the style of a Czechoslovakian Jacques Tati but with sharp a political bite, centres on the arrangements for a small Czech provincial town’s annual firemen’s ball going wildly wrong. The Firemen’s Ball was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

The mischievous satire on simple folk with sideswipes at petty bureaucracy was thought to be so real at home at the time that it caused 40,000 Czech firemen to resign until they were told it was to be interpreted only as an allegory.

The Firemen’s Ball was Forman’s first colour film and last film before his departure for America, and is one of the best-known movies of Czechoslovak New Wave.

It was viewed by film critics and authorities in Czechoslovakia as a biting satire on Eastern European Communism, resulting in it being banned in 1968 by the Communist regime in Forman’s home country of Czechoslovakia, a ban that lasted for many years.

It stars Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebánek, Josef Valnoha, Josef Kolb, Josef Svet, Frantisek Debelka, and Vacklas Stockel.

The Firemen’s Ball, also known as Horí, má panenko (original title) and The Fireman’s Ball (in the UK), is directed by Milos Forman, runs 73 minutes, is produced by Filmové studio Barrandov and Carlo Ponti Cinematografica, is released by Cinema V (USA), is written by Milos Forman, Ivan Passer and Jaroslav Papousek, from a story by Václav Sasek, is shot in Eastmancolor by Miroslav Ondricek, is produced by Rudolf Hájek and Carlo Ponti and is scored by Karel Mares, with Production Design by Karel Cerný.

The advertising is quite helpful for a change: ‘Barevná komedie, v níz se tancí, krade a hasí (A colourful comedy, in which people dance, steal and extinguish the fire).’

Miloš Forman (1932 – 2018).

RIP Miloš Forman (18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018), Oscar-winning director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus,

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6921

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