Viktor Ocasek Movies

Lemonade Joe is a sweet-natured Czechoslovakian spoof of Hollywood westerns. Hero Lemonade Joe (Carl Fiala) is so named because he refuses to drink the "hard stuff" when he saunters into the local saloon. The plot exaggerates all the supposedly standard cowboy cliches, including dance hall girls with golden hearts, masked rustlers, and the sundown showdown. Halfway through, director Oldrich Lipsky (a graduate of Prague's Satirical Theatre) has nowhere further to go and begins repeating himself--then finds that he has to take certain plot threads seriously in order to expedite a happy ending. Nonetheless, the overall cheerfulness and virtuosity of the project won Lemonade Joe plenty of critical praise in 1966 (the year of its American release, though it actually was made two years earlier). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ghetto Terezin is an uncompromising re-creation of concentration camp life in wartime Czechoslovakia. The story concentrates on one unfortunately Jewish family: father (Victor Ocasek), mother (Z. Baldova) and daughter Hanna (Blanka Waleska). Though the daughter is able to escape the fate of other Czech Jews by marrying an Aryan (O. Krejka), her parents are not so fortunate. Many of the more poignant and horrifying setpieces in Ghetto Terezin were later restaged in the landmark TV miniseries Holocaust. The grim events depicted in the film are complemented by a melancholy, jazzlike musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi