One of the defining features of Czechoslovak cultural life in the 1960s was the close relationship between filmmakers and writers. At the Barrandov Film Studios, many prominent writers (such as Ludvík Aškenazy, Jiří Brdečka, Bohumil Hrabal, and Milan Kundera) served on the ideological and artistic councils attached to individual creative groups. Their role was to evaluate scripts from both artistic and ideological perspectives, oversee daily production, and comment on the results of filming. These exchanges extended beyond the Studios: in the Film Club at the Adria Palace (Filmový klub, Palác Adria), filmmakers and writers came together for lively cross-disciplinary discussions.
It was only natural that the novelists of the period saw their works adapted for the screen and often contributed directly to the scripts. Bohumil Hrabal co-wrote the screenplay for Closely Observed Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky), Arnošt Lustig for Diamonds of the Night (Démanty noci), Ladislav Fuks for The Cremator (Spalovač mrtvol), and Eva Kantůrková for Funeral Ceremonies (Smuteční slavnost). Josef Škvorecký (1924–2012) also maintained close ties with cinema. A member of the ideological and artistic council, he was active as a critic and commentator on contemporary film production, as well as a scriptwriter and occasional actor. After his emigration, Škvorecký lectured on film at the University of Toronto. His reflections and recollections on the Czechoslovak New Wave would later form the basis of his book All the Bright Young Men and Women (Všichni ti bystří mladí muži a ženy).
Škvorecký might have become even more deeply involved in domestic film structures had he pursued studies at The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), which he reportedly considered immediately after the school’s founding in 1946.[1] He is said to have even applied for the entrance exams, but ultimately did not attend – fearing rejection, convinced that his knowledge of film was insufficient. What film education he did have came largely from his frequent visits to the Bio Sokol cinema operated by his father, where as a boy he absorbed American slapstick and screwball comedies, and from his avid reading of the film magazine Kinorevue. He even contributed a few readers’ letters to the journal, one of them a declaration of his admiration for the American child star Freddie Bartholomew.[2]
For his ‘father’s’ cinema in the town of Náchod, Škvorecký also produced slides and programmes.[3] In his memoir-like collection of essays called Samožerbuch (The Book of Self-Praise) he specifies that, alongside comedies, he was also drawn to films inaccessible to young people, which he had to ‘climb through the gymnasium window to see, and, when the Sokol custodian wasn’t looking, slip through the door into the auditorium and hide in the front row’.”[4]
Instead of attending FAMU, Škvorecký pursued English and philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. After a brief period of teaching at schools in East Bohemia, he completed his compulsory military service and went on to work as an editor at the Odeon publishing house. During this time, he wrote poems, short stories, and social novels, some of which, such as The Cowards (Zbabělci) and The Republic of Whores (Tankový prapor), would wait a decade or more before publication.
One mystery reader’s ideas
Škvorecký engaged deeply with the detective genre, both in practice and theory. Alongside a series of his own detective stories, he published the essayistic Reading Detective Stories (Nápady čtenáře detektivek ) in 1965 in which he reflected on the genre’s underlying principles. The book’s seventh chapter, cataloguing different types of murder, inspired Václav Táborský’s 1966 short parody film of the same name. Rather than presenting a coherent narrative, the film offers a playful exaggeration, flipping through a catalogue of murder techniques and plot clichés borrowed from English detective fiction.
Detective fiction also provided Škvorecký with a pathway into feature film. In the 1960s, production planning increasingly shifted toward greater genre diversity and broader audience appeal, and the detective story achieved emancipation as an independent genre.[5] Lacking a strong domestic tradition, opportunities were therefore extended to younger writers who had some familiarity with crime fiction and understood its conventions. As a connoisseur of foreign detective literature, Škvorecký appeared an ideal candidate. Unlike many other writers and screenwriters, however, he tended to modify the genre’s rules – turning them on their head and blending them with the conventions of other genres rather than adhering to them strictly.
In the second half of the 1960s, although three detective films were produced based on Škvorecký’s ideas or scripts, none of them could be considered pure or fully serious entries in the genre. At the time, the detective line was represented, for example, by Petr Schulhoff’s Fear (Strach, 1963), The Murderer Hides His Face (Vrah skrývá tvář, 1966), and On the Trail of Blood (Po stopách krve, 1969). Meanwhile, Škvorecký’s anthology film Crime at the Girls School (Zločin v dívčí škole, 1965) leaned toward comedy, Crime in the Night Club (Zločin v šantánu, 1968) toward the musical, and Six Black Girls (Šest černých dívek aneb Proč zmizel zajíc?, 1969) was described by director Ladislav Rychman as ‘an Art Nouveau detective story with elements of horror,’[6] although in fact it combined a mélange of additional genres and motifs.
The first of these projects, Crime at the Girls School, consists of three short stories linked by the common figure of Lieutenant Borůvka. The film was completed in 1965; however, Škvorecký’s literary short stories, on which it was based, were not published in book form until the following year, in the collection The Mournful Demeanour of Lieutenant Boruvka (Smutek poručíka Borůvky). A. J. Liehm described them as ‘well-written literary anecdotes on a detective plot.’[7] In a similar vein, a trio of directors – Ivo Novák, Ladislav Rychman, and Jiří Menzel – approached the film adaptations. They did not follow the rules of the genre rigidly, but rather with a sense of perspective. This flexibility becomes increasingly apparent from story to story: from the psychological Death on a Needle (Smrt na Jehle), through the humour-tinged cabaret murder of How a Woman Bathes (Jak se žena koupe), to the grotesque Crime at the Girls School (Zločin v dívčí škole).
Even Inspector Borůvka, played by Lubomír Lipský in all three stories, is not a brilliant, self-assured logician in the style of Sherlock Holmes, but a comical bungler who speaks faster than he thinks and stammers in the presence of women.[8] This warm-hearted yet somewhat inept detective fits most naturally into the world of the final, least serious story, in which – despite its title, adherence to the detective framework, and observance of investigative procedures – the focus is less on the crime itself (lost money for a school trip) than on the moral failings of various characters. According to Gustav Francl, Jiří Menzel – who directed the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Škvorecký – most successfully managed to ‘reconcile the story’s contradictory elements, where the small-town atmosphere alternates with exaggeration and black humour.’[9]
Škvorecký was pleased with the result of his collaboration with Menzel, and the two agreed to work on another film. After Closely Observed Trains and Capricious Summer (Rozmarné léto, 1967), Menzel wanted to make a commercially successful movie. For Škvorecký, it was an opportunity for free-ranging storytelling and drawing on his love of lowbrow genres and American cinema, from Chaplin and W. C. Fields to Jean Harlow.[10] The result was Crime in the Night Club (1968), a situational comedy featuring gags, chases, songs, and absurd twists. At the centre of the plot is the theft of a pearl necklace belonging to the cabaret singer Regina, played by Eva Pilarová. Popular figures of Czech pop culture, such as Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr, who wrote songs and composed music for the film, also appeared in supporting roles. Škvorecký himself took a small part as the university rector.
Critics perceived the familiar faces as the main attraction in an otherwise uneven work that aimed to provoke both laughter and suspense, but which, according to contemporary responses, mostly elicited embarrassment. ‘Škvorecký knows every conceivable detective situation, Menzel masters his craft, yet if the audience is entertained, it is primarily because they can watch the performances of their favourites – Pilarová, Suchý, and Šlitr,’ Drahomíra Novotná assessed.[11] The film’s genre ambivalence, its attempt to entertain while also conveying something significant about contemporary life, was seen as problematic by Vojtěch Měšťan as well: ‘Especially at the beginning, the script visibly hesitates over what to do – whether to develop suspense, comedy, or cabaret – even though it is clear that it is meant to be all of these together.’[12]
The last of the partially detective films Škvorecký wrote in the 1960s was also criticized as a jumble of seemingly incompatible themes and elements. The film Six Black Girls, based on the literary story Crime in the Manuscript Library (Zločin v knihovně rukopisů), can be considered a sequel to Crime at the Girls School. Once again, it plays with the conventions of the detective genre, featuring Lieutenant Borůvka and a cast of beautiful young women. The horror-tinged plot, centred on the disappearance of a senior lecturer who was the only person able to read a 12th-century psalter housed in the university library, was initially developed by Škvorecký together with Menzel immediately after Crime in the Night Club. However, due to the lengthy process of assembling the cast, the project was put on hold, and Menzel directed Capricious Summer in the meantime. The direction of Six Black Girls was then taken over by Ladislav Rychman.
In a contemporary interview, Rychman indicated that he wanted to tell the story ‘in a mode of playful irony and whimsy’ and emphasized that neither he nor Škvorecký sought to maintain ‘strict detective logic.’ He described the film as a series of situations in which the characters find themselves, sometimes grotesque, sometimes serious, frightening, or erotic.[13] It was precisely this logic, which the creators did not aim for in any form, that critics found lacking. The reviews of Six Black Girls frequently used descriptors such as ‘illogical,’ ‘confused,’ and ‘incoherent.’ Ivo Hepner devoted special attention to another recurring feature of Škvorecký’s literary and film work: a certain lasciviousness in his treatment of female characters:
‘Alongside black humour and crazy comedy, we also find a very naïve attempt at parodying the flood of erotic and sexual scenes that proliferate in nearly every contemporary film. The so-called “sexy scenes” with Iva Janžurová as a nymphomaniac secretary are unfortunately only a pitiful confirmation of the rule that eros and sex have never been a strong point of Czech films – neither in parody nor taken seriously, although we have seen a few honourable exceptions.’[14]
Films with subplots
The premiere of Six Black Girls took place on October 31, 1969, by which time Škvorecký was already in the United States. Shortly thereafter, he and his wife Zdena Salivarová decided to settle in Canada. To follow the next, more intellectually significant line of Škvorecký’s film work, however, we must return to 1965, when Jan Němec was shooting the allegorical film The Party and the Guests (O slavnosti a hostech). In a cast made up of representatives of the contemporary cultural elite, Škvorecký played one of the nameless, silent guests. His role is not important in itself, but his encounter with Evald Schorm, which took place on the set of Němec’s film, is.
During breaks in filming, Škvorecký had ample time to recount to Schorm the story of a swindler who, for eight months, successfully posed as a priest in an East Bohemian village. This laid the foundation for the film The End of a Priest (Farářův konec, 1968). The literary screenplay, which would later be fictionalized, was already published in April 1967 in the Sešity pro mladou literaturu (Journals for Young Literature) magazine. In writing it, Škvorecký drew inspiration from classic Czech “village novels.”[15] The characters have no names but are stylized into general types: the talkative teacher, the drunken wanderer, the dashing farmer.
The protagonist of this cruel farce, structured on a New Testament framework, is the Sexton (played by Vlastimil Brodský), enthusiastically welcomed by the villagers as their new priest. He accepts the role of a clergyman after initial hesitation, as it grants him immense power. The film then depicts the clash of two ideologies. The local teacher promotes atheism, but the villagers begin to turn away from it upon the arrival of the false priest. The teacher therefore seeks a way to gain the upper hand over his rival and to reclaim his previously influential position of power.
‘As for my part […], I contributed to The End of a Priest primarily with the plot, more precise characterizations, and gags; when it comes to what in literature is called the subplot, Schorm has a lion’s share,’ Škvorecký explained the authors’ collaboration.[16] In another recollection, he specified this change further, noting that Schorm ‘deepened the story, making it resonating with the echo of some interesting cellar.’[17] A comparison of the screenplay with the finished film indeed shows that Schorm shifted the story’s impact from a straightforward village fresco to a multilayered allegorical statement with numerous religious, philosophical, and political connotations. The realization of such a delicate subject was, however, delayed by the tightening of cultural policy after the Fourth Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers in June 1967. Škvorecký therefore began negotiating the production with an American producer. In the meantime, political tensions in Czechoslovakia eased, and the filming could take place domestically.
According to Škvorecký’s recollections, the chilling comedy owes much to Schorm, as it did not merely transplant traditional village literature characters into unusual situations. Like other Schorm films, it thematizes the conflict between truth and pretence, faith and hypocrisy, and invites reflection on the Czech national character. Some critics, however, attributed the film’s multilayered quality to Škvorecký. ‘The duality between tragedy and comedy, beauty and ugliness, monstrosity and pathos is characteristic of Škvorecký’s work,’ writes Jan Dvořák in the Film a doba (Film and Times) magazine.[18]
The final scenes of the film were shot on the eve of the Warsaw Pact invasion in mid-August 1968. The premiere took place in December of the same year, by which time Škvorecký already suspected that, like for many other artists, it would be much more difficult for him to get his own books or screenplays published. Nevertheless, before emigrating, he managed (together with Zdeněk Mahler) to adapt one more of his works. He had begun writing the novel Miss Silver’s Past (Lvíče) in 1963, when he officially started his career as a professional writer. The book about an opportunistic poet and editor and the influence of politics on contemporary publishing practices did not reach readers until 1969, by which time the film A Flirt with Miss Stříbrná (Flirt se slečnou Stříbrnou) was already in production.
Václav Gajer’s film primarily emphasizes the relational line of the experimentally inclined source material: the flirtation between editor Karel Leden and Miss Lenka Stříbrná, who, like most of Škvorecký’s female protagonists, must make do with being beautiful and somewhat mysterious. The story, originally set at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, was updated and stripped of the main character’s internal monologue. Compared to the book, in which several narrative and thematic levels intertwine, the film is noticeably flatter. Nevertheless, an important motif – the Holocaust – was preserved: Lenka’s sister was deported to a concentration camp because of her Jewish origin.
Gajer also respected Škvorecký’s postmodern blending of genres. A Flirt with Miss Stříbrná is primarily a love story, but it also contains elements of social critique and detective fiction. However, the execution of the ‘experimental exercises’[19] that Škvorecký was known for was only partially reflected in the film. According to contemporary reactions, the cleverly structured book became a lightweight, emptied-out entertainment. Moreover, the film, which premiered in September 1969, did not stay long in cinemas. After Škvorecký’s emigration, censorship confiscated the second edition of Miss Silver’s Past, and a few years later A Flirt with Miss Stříbrná ended up on the banned list.
The Cowards and other unproduced projects
Škvorecký’s emigration also meant the end of hopes for filming several other of his story ideas or works which were at various stages of development. Shortly after the publication of The Cowards in 1958, the young writer was approached by Miloš Forman, a recent FAMU graduate. Škvorecký already knew him by sight from Náchod where Forman had spent part of his childhood. The young filmmaker wanted to adapt Škvorecký’s short story Slovo nevezmu zpět (later retitled Eine kleine Jazzmusik), which was stylistically and thematically connected to The Cowards. Young people, music, and the effort to organize a swing concert despite Nazi regulations, these were the motifs that attracted Forman.
In the early 1960s, Škvorecký and Forman even wrote a screenplay titled Music in a Suitcase (Noty v kufru), subtitled An Anti-Militarist Musical Comedy (Protimilitaristická hudební komedie), intended for production within the Šebor–Bor creative group. The tone was originally an even zanier comedy set during the Protectorate years than Josef Mach’s Nobody Knows Anything (Nikdo nic neví, 1947). Over the course of subsequent dramaturgical revisions, the comedy alternated between tragedy and farce. However, the project was never realized, allegedly due to a direct intervention by President Antonín Novotný, who, based on a radio report, believed that the controversial Cowards were to be filmed at Barrandov. Attempts to conceal Škvorecký’s co-authorship and submit a revised version under the title The Band Won (Kapela to vyhrála) were also unsuccessful. Thirty years later, the story was finally adapted for television by Zuzana Zemanová-Hojdová.
After this experience, Forman temporarily abandoned the idea of adapting The Cowards. He and Škvorecký only revisited the project in the summer of 1968, when, according to the writer’s memoirs, they drafted a treatment. The treatment was approved, and filming was planned to begin the following summer in Náchod. However, by that time, political and practical circumstances made the production impossible. Škvorecký was also unable to advance the project in North America, where he sought an investor; Forman reportedly advised him against filming outside Czechoslovakia.
At the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, Škvorecký was apparently also involved in preparations for another Forman project, Lidice Will Live (Lidice budou žít). Forman intended to tackle the Lidice tragedy in a relatively daring manner, styled after Nazi propaganda films. Once again, the project did not come to fruition. Only a film treatment survives, on which Škvorecký was supposed to collaborate alongside Forman and his FAMU classmate Jiří Sehnal.[21] Later, based on a motif from the detective story Murder for Luck (Vražda pro štěstí) by Jan Zábrana and Josef Škvorecký, Forman and Škvorecký co-wrote a synopsis for a crime comedy set during the Great Depression, The Ostrozrak Detective Agency (Ostrozrak). The film was never produced, but in 2000 Karel Smyczek adapted the material into the television miniseries The Cases of the Ostrozrak Detective Agency (Případy detektivní kanceláře Ostrozrak).
The last unproduced screenplay by Josef Škvorecký worth mentioning was an excursion into a genre that, in 1960s Czechoslovakia, had an even shorter tradition than detective fiction. In 1967, together with Zdena Salivarová, he wrote a literary screenplay for the sci-fi story Irenka in Multiple Acceleration (Irenka v mnohonásobném zrychlení), based on H. G. Wells’ short story The New Accelerator. Its exaggeration and concept anticipate the later crazy comedies of Oldřich Lipský. The plot is set in a remote English town at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A pair of professors experiment with time: one invents a time-slowing device, the other a time-accelerator. When the inventions fall into the hands of children, a series of zany adventures ensues.
In the domestic context, the technically challenging screenplay was offered by the couple to foreign producers, but without success. Neither the English nor the German version found a buyer. In 2007, the screenplay for Irenka was finally published in a book form, in the 28th volume of Škvorecký’s collected works Crime in the Night Club and Other Film Stories and Screenplays (Zločin v šantánu a jiné filmové povídky a scénáře). It should be noted that Irenka was originally created as a final-year project by Salivarová at FAMU, bringing us back to the beginning of Škvorecký’s journey into Czech cinema. After a twenty-year hiatus, this journey resumed after November 1989, when several mostly television films and series were made based on his works. However, he no longer participated in these productions as a screenwriter.
Bibliography:
Jan Bernard, Odvahu pro všední den. Evald Schorm a jeho filmy. Praha: Primus 1994.
Radka Denemarková. Evald Schorm. Sám sobě nepřítelem. Praha: Nadace Divadla Na zábradlí 1998.
Jan Dvořák, Několik zvláštností Farářova konce. Film a doba 15, 1969, no. 2, p. 87.
Miloš Forman, Jan Novák, Co já vím. Autobiografie Miloše Formana. Brno: Atlantis 1994.
Gustav Francl, Flirt se slečnou Stříbrnou. Kino 24, 1969, no. 18, 04/09, p. 5.
Gustav Francl, Zločin v dívčí škole. Lidová demokracie 22, 1966, no. 54, 24/02, p. 3.
Ivo Hepner, Černé dívky pronásledují autory. (Nevydařené černé dívky.) Svobodné slovo 25, 1969, no. 256, 31/10, p. 4.
Jan Hořejší, Schormova (a Škvoreckého) ne tak zcela vymyšlená hra ze života. Květy 19, 1969, no. 10, 15/03, p. 54.
A. J. Liehm: Detektivky. Literární noviny 15, 1966, no. 6, 05/02, p. 8.
Jan Lukeš, Slovo nevezmu zpět: Nerealizované scénáře šedesátých let. Iluminace 8, 1996, no. 1, p. 9–44.
Vojtěch Měšťan. Zločin v šantánu. Večerní Praha 14, 1968, no. 233, 16/10, p. 4.
Drahomíra Novotná, Jít na Zločin v šantánu… Filmové a televizní noviny 2, 1968, no. 22, 13/11, p. 2.
Michal Přibáň. Errol. Josefa Škvoreckého život první 1924–1969. Brno, Praha: Host 2024.
Zdena Salivarová, Josef Škvorecký, Samožerbuch. Praha: Panorama 1991, p. 66.
Petr Szczepanik, Továrna Barrandov. Svět filmařů a politická moc 1945–1970. Praha: Národní filmový archiv 2016.
Josef Škvorecký, Jak to bylo s kapelou, která to nevyhrála. Iluminace 8, 1996, no. 1, p. 47–52.
Pepa Škvorecký, Individualista. Kinorevue 5, 1938/1939, no. 51, 09/08, p. 481–482.
Josef Škvorecký, Všichni ti bystří mladí muži a ženy. Praha: Horizont 1991.
Josef Vagaday: Šest černých dívek. Poručík Borůvka opět zasahuje – tentokrát ve filmu. Mladá fronta 25, 1969, no. 24, 29/01, p. 4.
Senta Wollnerová, Malá filmová konfese Josefa Škvoreckého. Filmové a televizní noviny 2, 1968, no. 18, 18/09, p. 5.
Notes:
[1] However, Škvorecký’s wife, Zdena Salivarová, enrolled at FAMU, where she studied screenwriting and dramaturgy. One of her lecturers, coincidentally also the notable writer Milan Kundera, reportedly had a significant influence on her.
[2] Pepa Škvorecký, Individualista. Kinorevue 5, 1938/1939, no. 51, 09/08, p. 481– 482.
[3] Senta Wollnerová, Malá filmová konfese Josefa Škvoreckého. Filmové a televizní noviny 2, 1968, no. 18, 18/09, p. 5.
[4] Zdena Salivarová, Josef Škvorecký, Samožerbuch. Praha: Panorama 1991, p. 66.
[5] Petr Szczepanik, Továrna Barrandov. Svět filmařů a politická moc 1945–1970. Praha: Národní filmový archiv 2016.
[6] Josef Vagaday: Šest černých dívek. Poručík Borůvka opět zasahuje – tentokrát ve filmu. Mladá fronta 25, 1969, no. 24, 29/01, p. 4.
[7] A. J. Liehm: Detektivky. Literární noviny 15, 1966, no. 6, 05/02, p. 8.
[8] In addition to the film Six Black Girls, Lipský reprised the role of Borůvka in the TV series Vědecké metody poručíka Borůvky (Scientific Methods of Lieutenant Borůvka, 1967). Škvorecký collaborated on the scripts for four one-hour episodes.
[9] Gustav Francl, Zločin v dívčí škole. Lidová demokracie 22, 1966, no. 54, 24/02, p. 3.
[10] Josef Škvorecký, Všichni ti bystří mladí muži a ženy. Praha: Horizont 1991, p. 178.
[11] Drahomíra Novotná, Jít na Zločin v šantánu… Filmové a televizní noviny 2, 1968, no. 22, 13/11, p. 2.
[12] Vojtěch Měšťan. Zločin v šantánu. Večerní Praha 14, 1968, no. 233, 16/10, p. 4.
[13] Josef Vagaday: Šest černých dívek. Poručík Borůvka opět zasahuje – tentokrát ve filmu. Mladá fronta 25, 1969, no. 24, 29/01, p. 4.
[14] Ivo Hepner, Černé dívky pronásledují autory. (Nevydařené černé dívky.) Svobodné slovo 25, 1969, no. 256, 31/10, p. 4.
[15] Jan Hořejší, Schormova (a Škvoreckého) ne tak zcela vymyšlená hra ze života. Květy 19, 1969, no. 10, 15/03, p. 54.
[16] Senta Wollnerová, Malá filmová konfese Josefa Škvoreckého, c. d., p. 4.
[17] Josef Škvorecký, Všichni ti bystří mladí muži a ženy, c. d., p. 157.
[18] Jan Dvořák, Několik zvláštností Farářova konce. Film a doba 15, 1969, no. 2, p. 87.
[19] Gustav Francl, Flirt se slečnou Stříbrnou. Kino 24, 1969, no. 18, 04/09, p. 5.
[20] Josef Škvorecký, Všichni ti bystří mladí muži a ženy, c. d., p. 88; Miloš Forman, Jan Novák, Co já vím. Autobiografie Miloše Formana. Brno: Atlantis 1994, p. 100–101.
[21] For a more detailed account of the unproduced projects by Forman and Škvorecký, see Jan Lukeš, Slovo nevezmu zpět: Nerealizované scénáře šedesátých let. Iluminace 8, 1996, no. 1, p. 9–44.
[22] Similarly, Škvorecký did not contribute as a screenwriter or in any other capacity to Radim Cvrček’s film Táňa a dva pistolníci (Tana and Two Gunmen), which was based on the children’s book of the same name written by Škvorecký and Jan Zábrana.
