Czech Pop! Music, Film, and Politics in 1960s Czechoslovakia

By Andrew Dearman

“Téma milenci v texaskách” (‘Lovers in Jeans’), Ladislav Rychman, Starci na chmelu (“The Hop-Pickers”), 1964.

The Hop-Pickers (‘Starci na chmelu’), 1964, is often regarded as Czechoslovakia’s first musical film and was described as such at the film’s most recent screening I attended at the 28th Made in Prague Festival, organised by the Czech Centre in London. A resounding success upon its original release, The Hop-Pickers not only solidified the musical film genre in Czech cinema, but also heralded the use of film and pop music to comment on the contemporary political climate. 

Following the 1948 communist coup d’état, Czechoslovakian society, like the other Eastern Bloc states, was confronted with political repression and censorship. However, this began to shift throughout the 1950s and 1960s when intellectuals and creatives successfully encouraged liberal thinking and sought democratisation to break away from the Soviet Union’s grip on Czechoslovakia. This period brought about a new and distinctly Czech youth culture that reflected desires for political freedom in popular music, films, television shows, and magazines. For instance, in Prague, several small theatres serviced the youth with diverse “cabaret-style” programmes of plays, comedy shows, dramatic poetry recitations, and live music. These places became sanctuaries for escapist pop culture, satirists, and the avant-garde.

Still from Dáme si do bytu, directed by Ladislav Rychman, 1958.

A further symptom of this new youth culture was the increasing presence of pop music on television, which may be traced to the rise in musical competition programmes and later television revues such as Vysílá Studio A (1964-67), a show created for members of the Rokoko Theatre troupe in Prague. Each episode would feature a selection of staged ‘TV Songs’ (songs retelling short stories), music videos, and live performances. Dáme si do bytu (1958), directed by Ladislav Rychman, is considered to be the first broadcasting of a ‘TV Song’ created to fill the remaining minutes of a New Year’s Eve television programme. The music video, featuring actors Irena Kacírková and Josef Bek, tells the story of a newlywed couple arranging their new apartment. It is inherently theatrical and cartoonish through the black-and-white 2D interior furnishings and the illusionistic cuts that enable the performers to interact with the camera, a defining feature of ‘TV Songs’. 

Still from The Hop-Pickers (Starci na chmelu), directed by Ladislav Rychman, 1964.

As the creator of ‘TV Songs’, it is no surprise that Rychman would go on to direct The Hop-Pickers. Inspired by the American film, West Side Story (1961), directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, the Czech film is driven by its musical sequences that follow two young students who fall in love during a summer hot-picking camp. However, their deep romance is challenged by a jealous suitor and their authoritarian professor. The Hop-Pickers typifies the burgeoning rupture of youth culture in Czechoslovakia and vibrantly showcases themes of teenage romance, youthful rebellion, and struggles with the generational gap. Rychman’s exploration of individuality versus the collective can be read as a critique of the communist state. Due to its light-hearted and joyous nature, The Hop-Pickers managed to avoid the discourse and censorship associated with more explicitly critical films from the Czech New Wave Movement, birthed during the political instability of 1960s Czechoslovakia. 

Still from Limonádový Joe (‘Lemonade Joe’), directed by Oldřich Lipský, 1964.

Surreal, cynical, and subversive, films associated with the Czech New Wave Movement employed absurd scenarios to satirise communist politics. Notably, Lemonade Joe (‘Limonádový Joe’), 1964, is a musical film that parodies Westerns and follows the titular cowboy, who attempts to persuade a town to start drinking a non-alcoholic soft drink, “Kolaloka”, instead of whiskey. The film is full of moral and political contradictions that are equally critical of American consumerism and cultural imperialism, as well as communist propaganda and censorship. Also released in 1964, the musical film If a Thousand Clarinets (‘Kdyby tisíc klarinetů’), directed by Ján Roháč and Vladimír Svitáček, presents a distinct anti-war sentiment. The plot follows an eruption of chaos on a military base when all weapons transform into musical instruments, which is inherently integral to the political commentary. Through the absurd introduction of music into a military setting, If a Thousand Clarinets satirises the army and authoritarian rule and critiques the use of violence and oppression in Czechoslovakia. The film’s status as a musical comedy likely helped avoid censorship. 

Still from Kdyby tisíc klarinetů (‘If a Thousand Clarinets’), directed by Ján Roháč and Vladimír Svitáček, 1964. 

The success of The Hop-Pickers (‘Starci na chmelu’), Lemonade Joe (‘Limonádový Joe’), and If a Thousand Clarinets (‘Kdyby tisíc klarinetů’) drew attention to the need for producing media for the forward-thinking Czech youth. Western-style pop music flourished and continued to infiltrate the film industry in Czechoslovakia to attract the younger audience and demonstrate the use of the creative arts to comment on the contemporary political climate. Look forward to my next column, where I shall consider the culmination of filmmakers’ efforts with the Czech musical production, A Song for Rudolf III (‘Píseň pro Rudolfa III’), 1968-69.