Hasek’s Tales from the Old Monarchy

Young Jan Stehlík signs up for a job to build a new mine. On the train he meets the pretty Alena, who falls in love with him. However, she means nothing to the superficial Jan, and when the girl becomes his lover, he treats her rudely and insultingly. But Alena's relationship troubles the honest Joseph, who really likes her.

A psychological drama about a nurse and a seriously ill car racer and factory driver...

At the end of the 1950s, some filmmakers attempted to escape the ideological dictates by turning to psychological drama. We watch as an aging, uptight, strict woman who has come to inspect a regional publishing house literally blossoms and snows. A few days of comfort and happiness, however, are capped by a bitter epiphany: the man who had so charmed her has indeed embezzled the money entrusted to him.

The construction of the new dam deprived the ferryman Ryba of his trade. The new dam replaced the ferry. However, Ryba's ancestors were ferrymen and the old man would have liked his two sons to take up the same profession. But Joseph is an indecisive weakling and Karel found work on the dam. That's why old Ryba drove him out of the house. The persistent rain brings Ryba miserable joy. The man knows well that a sudden flood can endanger the unfinished dam. In his fanatical hatred, he forgets that the water from a broken dam would sweep away his house and his daughter-in-law and sick grandchild in the first place...

In this crime story, surprisingly, neither the all-powerful criminals nor the spies or saboteurs are pursued, as was once common. The plot is almost mundane: someone unwittingly siphoned off alcohol from a tanker, unaware that it was deadly methyl alcohol, intended for industrial use. Finding out where the poison has been transported and which people it endangers requires painstaking work.

Police discover Eva Nejtková dead in her apartment and her husband Zdeněk unconscious from a shotgun wound. Captain Hora leads the investigation, noting that the killer struck Eva fatally and shattered her large aquarium, yet carefully transferred the goldfish into a smaller tank. Initial suspicion falls on Zdeněk’s apparent suicide attempt, but financial records and the absence of drugs at the scene shift focus. Detectives trace psychotropic medication supplies to Eva’s dealings with local addicts. As they question these “práškaři,” they uncover a network of illicit sales and potential motives tied to debts and blackmail. Clues from the supplier’s arrest and addicts’ testimonies gradually reveal whether Eva’s murder was linked to her clandestine drug trade or if a more personal betrayal lies at the heart of the crime.