A Life at Stake

A Life at Stake

1956 · 101 min · ★ 6.2 · Drama

The year is 1941 and the German Nazis rule Bohemia with a free hand. Engineer Otakar Racek is an extremely cautious man who tries to avoid problems at all costs. While some of his colleagues are being arrested by the Gestapo, he receives an offer to become the director of a new department. When he refuses to help the wife of an arrested resistance fighter, his wife Vlasta is shaken. However, she loves him, to the point of even resigning herself to the hatred of Otakar's wealthy mother. One day, Vlasta lets her old acquaintance Ondřej Rýdl, who is on the run from the Gestapo, stay at her house for a few days. The wife passes him off to her husband as a distant relative. However, Otakar succumbs to jealousy and, on his mother's advice, hires a private detective to follow Vlasta. However, the detective is also a Gestapo informant and receives a hefty reward for every arrested resistance fighter...

Directed by Jiří Weiss · Written by Karel Josef Beneš

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Cast

Karel Höger Engineer Otakar Racek
Vlasta Chramostová Vlasta, Racek's wife
Jaroslav Someš Bedřich, the eldest son of the Raceks
Jaroslav Drahan Mirek, the younger son of the Raceks
Zdeněk Dítě resistance fighter Ondřej Rýdl
Soňa Neumannová Racková, Otakar's mother
Otomar Krejča Deputy Rudolf Kadera
František Holar Gestapo
Jindřich Narenta Gestapo
Stanislav Neumann doorman Dobeš
Josef Bek supervisor Josef Frouz
Vlasta Vlasáková Tonička, Frouz's wife

Make it a double feature

3h 22m together

A Life at Stake

Conscience

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