A shimmering tragedy in the Hollywood mold, Virginity concerns a beautiful young woman prepared to sell herself into marriage to obtain money for her dying lover's treatment, while the camera tracks through gaudy nightclubs and overstuffed apartments. This is one of the first films by the great film master Otakar Vávra, a leading fixture in Czech cinema who, at the age of 95 is still directing films! With Lída Baarová, Ladislav Bohác. Directed by Otakar Vávra, Czechoslovakia, 1937, 35mm, 84 mins. The doomed love of a city girl caught in the vise of poverty is detailed in Otakar Vavra's fluid, romantic work. The lovely Hana finds herself on the street after her lecherous stepfather turns a little too attentive, but her new job in a cafeteria offers no respite. When it's not the customers, it's the boss: lechers all around, except the young composer Pavel, whose heart is as large as his lungs are weak. Soon Hana must make a fateful decision, one that may save his life, but end their love. The film lingers over its characters' habitats and haunts, finding psychological truths in what each owns or desires, and countering every Hollywood-ready scene of gleaming restaurants and dazzling penthouses with realist moments of employment lines and crammed flats. Vavra's classical camerawork and aura of romantic defeatism give Virginity a force comparable to the master of this genre, Hollywood's Frank Borzage.

In a Czech town in the seventeenth century, an elderly woman enters a church to accept communion. Her true purpose is to collect the holy host for a midwife who needs it to treat an ailing dairy cow. The woman is caught and is forced to explain her sacrilegious actions. Religious and secular authorities agree that she is in league with witches and may even be a witch herself. This prompts an inquisition where confessions are obtained through threats and torture. A tribunal is held to provide a legal facade. Though the hunt is initially confined to the impoverished fringes of local society, the hysteria soon expands to the point that no one, not even leading citizens, is safe. The ultimate target is a clergyman, Deacon Lautner, who defies the righteous men of the tribunal. Based on actual trial records from the 1678 to 1695 period, this well made Czech film features excellent performances and strong production values. It is somewhat extreme by 1969 standards.

1955 film by Otakar Vávra

1939 film by Otakar Vávra

Based on the novel by Karel Capek, the prominent Czech writer of the early 20th century who coined the word robot for his play R.U.R., the story revolves around a discovery of Krakatit - a powerful explosive - by Prokop, an experimental scientist who, following an accidental explosion in his lab, slips in and out of delirium. When he realises that, in a delirious period, he has given the formula for making Krakatit to one of his colleagues, he tries to find the man, who does not realize how dangerous a thing Krakatit is. In the process, he nearly gives his discovery away again to foreign interests, a group of anarchists, and even greater forces of darkness...

A lyrical story about first love, death and disappointment, based on a poem of the same title.