Way Leading to Happiness

As Nazi troops prepare to occupy the already truncated Czechoslovak Republic, a small military garrison made up of communists defies orders to abandon their post.

In autumn 1941, Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich’s brutal rule in occupied Bohemia and Moravia fuels Czech resistance. In spring 1942, the government-in-exile sends trained paratroopers led by Lt. Král on a mission to assassinate him. Masters Strnad and Vyskočil ambush Heydrich’s open Mercedes in Prague’s Libeň district, mortally wounding him despite a jammed submachine gun. Their success triggers harsh Nazi reprisals, mass executions, and an intense manhunt for the operatives.

The musical version of the successful play of Oldřich Daněk was transferred to the screen by director Jiří Sequens in 1986. It takes place in the 14th century in Bohemia during the reign of King Wenceslas IV. Heroes of the story are three mercenaries who always fight on the wrong side and are always beaten, but they are moral winners of all conflicts and skirmishes.

Thirty Cases of Major Zeman is a Czechoslovak action-drama television show intended as a political propaganda to support the official attitude of the communist party. The series were filmed in the 1970s. Each episode encompasses one year, and investigations are stylized to that year. Most are inspired by real cases. The series follows the life of police investigator Jan Zeman during his career from 1945 to 1975.

The film thematically follows the stories of the TV series "30 cases of Major Zeman". We can meet Major Zeman again with Lieutenant Colonel Zitny, Major Hradec and Lieutenant Gajdoš. The film is set in 1972 in a South American country and shows the activities of an international counter-revolutionary headquarters, which the central character of the film - Major Hradec - uncovers even at the cost of his own life. The film was largely shot in Cuba. The film is an edited version of the series episodes 27 and 28 "Messages from an Unknown Land" and "Hostages in Bella Vista".

A broadly drawn ideological epic set in the summer of 1947 in the borderlands of northern Bohemia: reactionary elements plot to undermine postwar social change while committed local communists struggle to organize workers and defend the emerging order. The narrative follows several archetypal figures—steadfast party activists, wary peasants, and obstructive reactionaries—whose clashes illustrate the claimed inevitability of working-class victory under communist leadership.

The main character of the story is Professor Trojan, the head of a Prague clinic, who is not experiencing the happiest of times. His cat has been poisoned with cyanide, he has a falling out with his son Petr, who has moved to Brno to be with his wife, the promising singer Eva, and only seeks out his father when he needs money, and as if that weren't enough, someone shoots him in the evening. Trojan initially considers it a mistake or a prank and does not share the fears of those around him. But then cyanide is discovered and one of the patients takes it from the assistant Dvoracek, who borrowed it for an unauthorized experiment. Trojan pairs the cyanide with a gunshot and slowly begins to suspect that someone is trying to kill him. At first he suspects Dvorak, who might become the foreman after his death, but later, as he falls deeper and deeper into a psychosis of fear and apprehension, he begins to suspect everyone around him...

A group of temporary workers arrive at the Czech-German border to conduct geological exploration. However, not all people have pure intentions and a past, and so the group of geologists is threatened by saboteurs who want to blow up an abandoned mine and escape across the border...

A Czech ship's doctor accidentally meets his fellow expatriates on a tropical island. Under his influence, a sympathetic young woman, who has gone abroad with her sickly old father and her selfish and unprincipled husband, decides to return to her homeland...

In Vražda v hotelu Excelsior, the interwar period homicide detective squad from Prague investigates the murder of a wealthy woman, Mrs Matoušová, which threatens the reputation of the eponymous luxury hotel popular with Prague’s elite. Even the retired police inspector Mrázek (František Filipovský), who works at the Excelsior as a hotel detective, is unable to help at first. Although the investigation inevitably uncovers the hotel staff’s scheming, Vacátko and his team unerringly follow the trail that leads them to the murderer…

In a suburban villa, a woman of means is murdered. Police Superintendent Zdychynec from the Prague Liben neighborhood reports the case to Police Councilman Vacátko, upon whose order an investigation is launched immediately. Zdychynec begins to suspect the wooer of his own daughter, a handsome dragoon named Rudi, of the crime. In Rudi's absence, Zdychynec searches his rented room in the apartment of the elegant Mrs Dragicová. All his findings - among others, sand left on Rudi's jackboots and a decent amount of money in his bedside table - convince the superintendent that he is following the right lead, especially when Rudi refuses to say where he was at the time of the murder.

Prague in the 1930s. A young, pretty girl gets on a crowded tram. She immediately catches the attention of a young man who not only appreciates the girl's charm, but also tries to steal her handbag discreetly. And so we meet one of the main characters of the film, a swindler, pickpocket and generally strange being Josef Kořínek alias Pépi. In addition to him, the story is populated by other characters from the Prague outskirts. Of course, the film also features the shrewd councilman Vacátko and his inseparable investigators Brůžek and Bouše. They have a sad duty - to track down the murderer of the collector Krále, who was found dead and who lost a sum of money on the way from the bank that could interest many people from his surroundings...

This exemplary "psychological drama" depicts the difficulties with which a new socialist mindset is born. Director Jiří Sequens warns against ill-advised marriages into the families of the defeated bourgeoisie, because the former royalty refuses to accept a man from a different social class. The heroes of this film will find out. The former owner of a pharmacy refuses to accept that his daughter has married a mere technical draughtsman. However, her father's hateful schemes cause the sensitive woman to attempt suicide.

Autumn 1944. A doctor is accused in the collaboration with the Nazis and found guilty...