František Filip

Frantisek Filip film version of the Smetana opera.

Comedy, 1974 (Czech Republic) : The movie takes place in England. A group of married middle-aged gentlemen have founded a pretense amateur Egyptology society to maintain some degree of freedom from their wives. The elaborate trick gradually escalates into more and more tangled web of lies and tricks, until they have no option but to disband the society for good.

Tóna Bohácek has been a great worry to his mother, Mrs Bohácková. All his friends equal in age are already married and some of them even have children - only Tóna still has nothing. Mother Bohácková thus publishes an ad in the Lonely Hearts column on behalf of her son. From among the girls who responded, she picks out Janicka, a girl from the neighboring village, and then forces Tóna to go to have a look at her and bring her home. The date of the two young people, however, does not turn out well due to the embarrassment on both sides, and Tóna returns home drowning in the feeling of ridiculousness. On the way, he picks up hitchhiker Kveta from Prague. Only then, he realizes that the mother with her festive dinner is waiting for him and Janicka at home and thus asks Kveta to substitute for the girl from the ad.

A little-known adaptation of Jaroslav Vrchlický's play is returning to the television screen, full of humorous plots, telling the story of the courage of two women in love who, because of their love, infiltrated Karlštejn Castle, where women are forbidden to enter by order of the monarch. It was created with a number of star actors eight years before the now legendary film adaptation by Zdeněk Podskalský. When it premiered in 1965, it aroused a stormy, positive and negative response. Quite naturally, because Filip's concept of this classic play, albeit in the authentic setting of Karlštejn Castle, was completely new and unconventional at the time. This adaptation of the classic original uses the melodies of popular Czech and foreign hits with lyrics by P. Kopta. For example, the ruler's arrival at the castle was announced by the melody of the popular song Jó, třešné zrály. However, professional singers mostly sing for the actors here.