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Director: Oldřich Lipský
Screenplay: Jiří Brdečka
Based on the novel and stage play by Jiří Brdečka
Cast: Karel Fiala as Lemonade
Joe; Rudolf Deyl, Jr. as Doug Badman; Miloš Kopecký as Horace Badman/"Hogofogo";
Květa Fialová as Tornado Lou, the Arizona Warbler; Olga Schoberová as Winnifred
Goodman; Bohuš Záhorský as Ezra Goodman
[Spoilers Throughout]
Synopsis: In the western town of Stetson
City, Arizona, whiskey pours much to the sadness of teetotaller and Evangelist Ezra
Goodman (Bohuš Záhorský) and his
daughter Winnifred Goodman (Olga Schoberová),
their religious abstinence campaign failing miserably. To their rescue, with
his trademark Kolaloka lemonade his desired drink and perfect pistol aim, is
Lemonade Joe who soon cleans the town up. Owner of the Trigger Whisky Saloon Doug
Badman (Rudolf Deyl, Jr.) is not
impressed by this, hiring the legendary outlaw Hogofogo, alias of his brother Horace
Badman (Miloš Kopecký) to off
Lemonade Joe.
With Czechoslovakian cinema - Czech
and Slovakian alike - you will find the alchemist's stone of cinematic
invention. Where even the genre films had the same craft as important dramatic
works. Their history of stop motion both in stop motion and collage, is
impeccable, and even the general style of their films from historical drama to
science fiction is utterly unique. Cinema that is entirely unique and, even if
more sporadic in release after the country split into the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, still produces such films. Theirs, before and after becoming separate
countries, is barely scratched upon in terms of availability, allowing one to
uncover hidden gems easily to the point of practically falling over them by
accident. Take Lemonade Joe director
Oldřich Lipský for example. You have,
in one filmography, a Jules Verne adaptation
(The Mysterious Castle in the
Carpathians (1981)), Lemonade Joe,
the comedy sci-fi film I Killed
Einstein, Gentlemen (1969), and the truly bizarre Happy End (1966), a film told entirely backwards where a man goes
from his execution for murder to birth as an utterly unreliable narrator.
Lemonade Joe itself if not the only western made behind the Iron
Curtain. Not the only musical made behind it either. A comedy western musical
influenced by silent cinema techniques however is a one-off. Its desire to both
mock American capitalism, as Lemonade Joe is actually in the hands of the Kolaloka
Lemonade he drinks as a spokesperson, is yet tempered by it being openly
influenced by older American cinema. Singing cowboys were actually a subgenre
at one-point in Hollywood, particularly with Gene Autry, a singer-songwriter/film star/television and radio
star/business entrepreneur/rodeo performer. (Aptly too as Autry starred in the twelve chapter film serial The Phantom Empire (1935), a
western/scif-fi hybrid where he ends up in a secret underground world of robots
and subterranean people trying to invade the world above, which is as bizarre
as it sounds). Before Canadian film maker Guy
Maddin starting using silent film technqiues in stylised ways, and
uncovering old genres to use for his own ends, Lemonade Joe takes an era of westerns even older than the fifties
classics starring the likes of John Wayne
few talk of. The colour tints are from all genres of silent cinema too.
Blues usually for dark environments, yellow for outside or lit rooms. Speeding
up the film. Images superimposed onto scenes, such as the Egyptian pyramids in
the western mountains.
The artistry of older cinema -
built having to use its resources in mind of limitations - fits the style of
Czech cinema immensely, which has always had a craftwork above even some of the
best of industries like Hollywood. Used in a sound film, this style is incredible
idiosyncratic and allows for carte blanche in terms of what can be done. If
there's a contradiction between paying tribute to this type of cinema and its
jabs at America, think of it as admiration for the art turned into a custard
pie to the face. Apt as Lemonade Joe is a living breathing cartoon right down
to Joe and Hogofogo having a Tom and Jerry like relationship when the latter's
introduced. The greyness to this satire, if there is any morality, is actually
to the film's advantage, Lemonade Joe becoming as much a true hero as he is a
parody. Eventually the heroes and villains become farcical targets as Kolaloka
can even resurrect to dead, undermining the antagonism completely.
The performances are as energised
and help in Lemonade Joe actually working, characters who are as broad as
cartoons but with a tangibility to them so they are not hollow caricatures. Karel Fiala makes a great Lemonade Joe,
the perfect blonde and even naive gunfighter with a violent aversion to alcohol
and prone to bursting into song in accented English, helped by the fact he was
a real life operatic tenor as well as an actor. His could've merely been a
mockable character, but its testament to the film and Fiala's performance that the satire to do with his wholesome
personality doesn't stop him being a lovable figure you want with Winnifred
Goodman, even with showgirl Tornado Lou, the raven haired femme fatale whose
lusty demeanour is actually melted by Joe's existence is her life.
From http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F2Nh68GetKk/T6i8vjHpitI/ AAAAAAAAKdk/2pAtkohW5S8/s1600/ Lemonade.Joe.1964_snapshot_00.10.42_%5B2012.05.07_23.13.00%5D.jpg |
His mirror, played by a strong figure in Miloš Kopecký, is Hogofogo. A figure so evil he's charismatic and even gets his own songs, all of which are the best in the film. One lusting over how he loves to kill, but the other probably Lemonade Joe's best scene, an inexplicably serious and potent number which intercuts into an imagined version of Hogofogo's funeral, a full New Orleans mourner's parade with blues instrumentation. That its whilst dressed as an old man to kidnap Winnifred Goodman doesn't undercut the moment. The only sour point, and the only one in the whole film, is when Hogofogo abruptly appears in blackface, a pretty grotesque look as with black makeup on Kopecký does look like a horrible caricature, but it does feel less problematic than the film referencing old Hollywood films even if its troublesome to witness.
The music alongside the
production design is where Lemonade Joe
in its oddness. Breaking expectations of a stereotypical western where the
heroic gunslinger can hit a fly out of the air than (in English) sing a love
song rocking on a bar piano. The general absurdity manages to come off as
wholesome even when it still has characters die, someone getting a corkscrew in
the back, and is ultimately still a piss take on American culture. The fact
that this is film made in a communist country emphasising that its American
references are to be viewed as parodies of the country the other side of the
Iron Curtain. That it is sweet and playful is, yet, also for the better.
Cartoonish with exaggeration. Its silliness, taking the production seriously,
allows it stand out more.
Abstract Spectrum: Surreal
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium
Personal Opinion:
An undiscovered gem in Czechoslovakian
cinema. Again, how many musical cowboy films involving silent film techniques
actually exist? That it feels like a fully gestated, fully accomplished
production means that this enticing premise is even better as a result.
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