Neobyčejná historie

Neobyčejná historie (Czechoslovakia, 1967 / Director: Jan Iván)

This is a Eurowestern

Runtime: 38 min.
Release Date: 1967

Also known as

The Extraordinary History (English unofficial title).

Cast and Crew

Cast: Josef Haukvic (detective Sherlock Holmes), Alois Müller (sheriff), Vladimír Hrabánek (Sam, the sheriff‘s deputy), Karel Bartoň (The Nimble Pete, the masked bandit and bank robber), Karel Rosenkranz (employee of the Tatra automobile company), Ivan Stanček (employee of the Tatra automobile company).

Idea: Jan Iván, Jiří Kolín, Karel Hutěčka, Eduard Petr
Story: Jan Iván
Screenwriter: Jan Iván
Dramaturgist: Milan Šimek
Cinematographer: Jiří Kolín
Music: Zdeněk Liška (composer‘s archive music)
Editor: Antonín Štrojsa
Art directors: Jiří Kolín, Jan Iván
Set decorators: Jiří Kolín, Jan Iván
Sound: Radomír Koutek
Expert cooperation: Eduard Petr
Producer: Karel Hutěčka

Synopsis

The commissioned promotional film of the “Národní podnik Tatra Kopřivnice (The National Company Tatra Kopřivnice)”, filmed for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Moravian car factory in Kopřivnice in Moravia. The film, which was co-produced by the companies “Krátký film Praha (Short Film Prague)” and “Filmové studio Gottwaldov (Film Studio Gottwaldov)”, is a combination of black-and-white and color feature film, documentary and didactic film, and cartoon animation. It‘s an intertextual and ironic western reminiscent of similar Czechoslovak westerns “Limonádový Joe (Lemonade Joe, 1964)” by Oldřich Lipský or “Šlechetný cowboy Sandy (The Noble Cowboy Sandy, 1964)” by Emanuel Kaněra in terms of humor and iconographic elements of genre. The film tells about the history of the Tatra car company, which takes place partly in the American Wild West and partly in Moravia in Czechoslovakia. A masked bandit named Nimble Pete robs banks and always throws the car off a cliff after the robbery, but it always remains intact and unbroken. Detective Sherlock Holmes, the sheriff and his deputy not only search for the masked bandit, but also discover why cars are unbreakable. The medium-length film was shot mostly in natural exteriors in Štramberk, where the filmmakers used a quarry, canyon and rocks, and in urban locations in Kopřivnice. From the western genre, the film contains characteristic iconographic elements such as the costumes and props of the gunmen or the environment (bank, post office, sheriff’s office, telegraph office). In the film, many former employees of the Tatra automobile company in Kopřivnice play small and episodic roles. Karel Rosenkranz, the historian and the first director of “Technické muzeum (The Technical Museum)” in Kopřivnice, also appears very briefly in the final scene of the ironic western that was filmed at the Hukvaldy Castle. Other exteriors were filmed on the way from the nature water reservoir Čerťák in Nový Jičín towards the northern part of the village Hutisko-Solanec in Vsetín, and interiors in film studios in Kudlov in Zlín.

By Jan Švábenický