Jan Diviš

Based on the novel by Friedrich Gerstäcker, the film, set entirely in the state of Arkansas, tells of the conflict of interests between the local townspeople and homesteaders on the surrounding land, miners arriving during the gold rush, cowboys and cattle thieves who cause problems in the area, and the native tribes of the region. Two adventurers arrive in town and try to restore peace to it and its inhabitants.

Tram driver Marie has far too much to do after her shift is over. But she likes to do it all since she loves her husband Václav sincerely. One day she spots him on the Lesser Town Square in Prague, kissing an attractive blonde good-bye. It seems to Marie that her small comfortable world has collapsed and she walks out of the tram in tears. But her sadness does not last long. She wipes off the tears and begins to act. She withdraws all the money from their savings books and buys off all the latest models from the Fashion Works. The visit to the beauty salon then completes her transformation into a lady.

The exemplary accountant Antonín Safránek lives his orderly life as a citizen of a small town. His wife Eliska brings up their three children and desperately tries to get by on her husband's low salary every month. At the same time, she sadly watches the luxurious life of their neighbor and other people like him who have no qualms about improving their standard of living by cheating. One day, the infallible Safránek makes a mistake in the cash clearance and there are nine one-hundred Crown bills left in the safe. An unexpected company control carried out the next day passes without problems and the account is closed. The temptation is too strong. The insufficient control enables Safránek to gradually steal one million Crowns.

It is 5 May 1945 and the uprising against the hated German occupiers has broken out in Prague. The Czech guards open the gate of the Pankrác prison to allow the prisoners to escape en masse. Many of them are shot dead by the German guards but young Ruda (Jaromír Hanzlík) manages to run away. He is taken care of by one of the Prague fighters, concierge Kytka. Kytka hides him in the flat of the house's owner where only the young maid Karla (Jana Brejchová) is left, ordering her to take care of Ruda.

This drama with a criminal plot is a study of the intricately intertwined relationships of four people whose lives have been interrupted by the violent death of a loved one. The story begins almost classically: when a visitor rings the doorbell of a prominent scientist's villa, there is an explosion. The owner is found poisoned by gas in the demolished room. Everything suggests that he committed suicide. But then a major twist comes and the seemingly obvious suicide becomes a well thought out and carefully prepared crime...

At the year 1946, the time of the Nuremberg Process. One of the main actors of the Second World War, who reportedly committed suicide, Adolf Hitler is, however, missing. The Czech doctor Herman (Karel Höger) is kidnapped from Prague and driven to the sanatorium of Professor Rolf Harting (Jirí Vrstála). The sanatorium is a disguised military stronghold, most probably occupied by a Nazi garrison, with prison cells and an execution chamber in the basement. At night, Herman is taken to a patient in whom he, to his horror, recognizes Hitler (Fritz Diez).

More than twenty years after the Second World War, a mining engineer named Fischer is revealed as a former member of the Gestapo, Karel Kraus. He is sentenced for murder to eight years in prison and now works with other prisoners on the renovation of the Convent of St Agnes of Bohemia in Prague. Then a car with a foreign registration begins to park regularly close to the construction site. Its crew, a man and a woman, contact the construction foreman, who probably would not reject a bribe offer to perform some service. The prisoner Bicík is appointed to work with Kraus; Bicík gives him a message from Kraus' brother Bert, who lives abroad, that he wants to help him escape.

A worker steals bits and pieces of building materials from work to construct a new home for himself and his girlfriend. When he discovers that she’s having an affair with his boss, he devises one elaborate plot after another to murder the rival, each time with pathetic results.