Josef Mixa

In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects.

The first part of the "Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy", completed with Jan Žižka (1955) and Proti všem (Against All Odds, 1957). The film captures the period from May 1412 to the summer of 1415, a turbulent time in the Czech Kingdom, during which there were protests in Prague against the sale of "omnipotent indulgences" whose sale throughout the kingdom was announced by Pope John XXIII. The ideological leader of this movement is the preacher Master Jan Hus, whose words, calling for the elimination of church abuses, are listened to in the Bethlehem Chapel by thousands of ordinary Praguers, Czech lords and Queen Sophie, wife of the Czech King Wenceslas IV.

Soviet engineer Kuznecov is coming to Prague as an expert on work with the tunneling shield in construction of the metro. He is returning after more than thirty years. In May 1945 as a young soldier in the Red Army he was seriously injured in the liberation of Prague and while recovering experienced a great love with a young teacher called Vera.

As a young actor František Lukávec and his teacher Vladimir Tuma became enemies. František insisted that Tuma was dismissed from the school as a reactionary and hostile to the new government. Many years passed, and here they met again on the stage of a theater. František is assigned the role of Julius Fucik, Tuma plays the role of a Gestapo man in the same play. In the course of the action, the Gestapo man beats Fucik. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Tuma beats up his old enemy during the dress rehearsal. Frantisek's face is bleeding, but he will still play. The rehearsal continues...

Frantík arrives in Prague for the holidays and discovers an abandoned tram named Terezka. With local children, he secretly paints and hides it to prevent scrapping, then organizes a scrap-metal collection to raise funds for its restoration.

Two marriageable girls, Princess Disperanda and her maid Káča, sign a betrothal with their own blood in exchange for fairy-tale grooms. Although both devilish betrothals accidentally fall into the hands of the brave retired soldier Martin Kabát, the cunning devil Solfernus takes possession of them through cunning, and Martin has no choice but to go to the burning hell.

At the end of August, a young woman is chased by an angry mob of hooligans under the windows of a bus because she decides to tear down a poster grossly insulting her husband, the staunch communist and deputy Balcar. She only gets a defence from the prosecutor Ronešová, who decides to convict and prosecute the perpetrators and bystanders of the unfortunate event. The principled Ronešová is oblivious to personal problems and sets out to fight against the relics of a happily extinguished social movement, with the right-wing defence lawyer Kahan being no match for her.

Petr Rynes (Svatopluk Matyás) is celebrating his forty-fifth birthday in the company of his friends. He is happy with his wife, and his abilities at work have been rewarded with the medal For Outstanding Work. But a few short seconds are enough to change his life when he makes the ill-judged decision to take his car to bring a friend's wife to the celebration, and hits a pedestrian on the way. He has of course been drinking at the party and is consequently sentenced to sixteen months in prison. Being in jail is not an easy thing for a honorable communist. He soon gets into conflict with several violent inmates, who think they can break his spirit by violence.