Last week, Second Run continued on their mission to rediscover seemingly forgotten cinematic gems from late twentieth century Eastern Europe and present them to our modern day Western eyes with the release of The Hop-Pickers (known as Starci na chmelu in its Czechoslovakia), a film that has been labelled the first Czech film musical. It was West Side Story that inspired filmmaker Ladislav Rychman and screenwriter Vratislav Blažek to introduce the musical genre to their native Czech cinema. A smash hit upon its release in 1964, the film is set during the annual summer hop harvest and focuses on the lives and loves of the nation’s youth, assembled into the socialist agricultural brigade to bring the harvest in.
On the surface, The Hop-Pickers looks not unlike the 60s Hollywood musicals such as the aforementioned West Side Story, or its British counterparts, Summer Holiday and The Young Ones, both vehicles for Cliff Richard and his backing band, the Shadows. Indeed, The Hop-Pickers deploys a trio of taciturn looking, black-clad guitar pickers not unlike the Shadows, who serve as the narrative’s Greek chorus. Exuberant, colourful and rebellious, with a string of catchy songs and sequences, what’s remarkable about The Hop-Pickers is that it really did come from nothing; there was no precedent for a film musical in the Czech film industry. The Cassandra Cat had, the previous year, introduced the splashy, technicolour dance sequences of MGM, whilst Lemonade Joe, also released in 1964, was a satirical send-up of both the Hollywood musical and Western, depicting a clean-living socialist cowboy hero at odds with capitalist decadence. Yet Rychman creates it from scratch with such commitment, flair and passion that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was one of a number successful Czech musicals.
Its uniqueness isn’t the only surprise here. When approaching Eastern European films of this era—mindful of how these territories were controlled by the USSR—you might expect one of two things. The first is that these films would be propaganda pieces extolling the virtues of the socialist program. The second, increasingly common throughout the 1960s (as any readers of my many previous reviews of Second Run releases will attest), is that filmmakers, dissatisfied with the oppressive regimes they operated under, began delivering much more subversive takes on the state—works that often resulted in these films being “banned for life.”
The Hop-Pickers begins with a sequence of healthy and happy youths picking and collecting hops. In reality, these Czech youths were students who formed the agricultural brigade workforce each summer and were often anything but happy. Forced to work long, arduous, backbreaking hours in the fields in the name of socialist productivity, their experience was far from idyllic. Yet here, director Ladislav Rychman depicts their efforts as virile and joyful, with the sun breaking on their backs as they toil effortlessly for the greater good. When one of their number, the strapping, vest-wearing Honza (Miloš Zavadil), climbs a telegraph pole to announce the end of the workday, the group happily marches and skips into the film’s first proper musical sequence. At this point, you might think you’re watching a pure piece of propaganda.
This feeling intensifies in the next scene, set in the canteen. Hanka (Ivana Pavlová), an attractive young woman, enters the room dressed in distinctive fashions, immediately standing out from her hale and hearty comrades. Her haughty, individualist persona is rebuked by a comrade who asks if she purchased her clothes from Tuzex (a store selling rare Western goods for the privileged in Czech society). Honza escalates the confrontation by tipping his evening meal down her dress. Filip (Vladimír Pucholt), a sensitive and bookish youth, rushes to Hanka’s defense, starting a fistfight with Honza—a clash humorously narrated by a Greek chorus of guitar players, who describe it in song as “a healthy exchange of views.”
The Hop-Pickers asks them to consider the nation’s children to perhaps remember their own youthful exuberance and rebellion, and to appreciate that something has to change. You didn’t get that from your average Cliff musical!
From this moment, you might expect the film’s battle lines to be drawn: Hanka, the spoiled princess, must have her self-centeredness quashed by the majority before it taints the doe-eyed Filip. That’s how a propagandist might tell the story—but Rychman and co-writer Vratislav Blažek are not dealing in propaganda. Their film may be set in the summer, but it predicts the Prague Spring—the reformist movement led by Alexander Dubček, whose “Socialism with a human face” sought to challenge the USSR’s dictatorial control.
Surprisingly, Filip and Hanka emerge as the film’s sympathetic protagonists. While flawed—Hanka is somewhat haughty and self-absorbed, and Filip shares a similar self-interest, hoarding private quarters above the gym while his fellow hop-pickers bed down en masse—they feel real. They are socialists with a human face. Filip’s cherished, cobbled-together library of works by Marx, Lenin, Seneca, and Masaryk prominently displayed in his quarters reflects Dubček’s vision of socialism. As their bond deepens into romance, their relationship sparks controversy within the brigade and with the authority figures, such as Josef Kemr’s cooperative president and Irena Kačírková’s strict supervisor. The latter reveals her ideological zeal when curtly dismissing Filip’s inquiry about the existence of God, reinforcing the atheist Communist system’s rigidity.
Together, Filip and Hanka’s love highlights the latent integrity beneath their individual flaws. This individualism also characterizes the antagonist, Honza, albeit differently. While Filip and Hanka challenge the status quo, Honza manipulates the system for his gain. Applauded as a model worker by the cooperative president, he has mastered the art of doing just enough to stand out and reap rewards, secure in the belief that “the dullest pull the cart, the smartest enjoy the ride.” His athletic, poster-boy image helps him thrive within the system without defying it.
Honza’s hypocrisy is laid bare when the burgeoning romance between Filip and Hanka causes turmoil within the brigade and earns condemnation from the cooperative seniors after Honza orchestrates their expulsion. Meanwhile, his own illicit affair with an older, married woman—whose husband is a Czech officer—goes unnoticed and unpunished.
Ultimately then, The Hop-Pickers is a film that defies the state regime. As it becomes clear, I’m reminded of the opening sequence of our Greek chorus, appearing over the brow of a hill and standing to the right of frame. From their hilltop position they effectively explained to us what the movie purports to be. It is, they sing, a story of “your sons or daughters”. In their address to the older members of the audience, The Hop-Pickers asks them to consider the nation’s children to perhaps remember their own youthful exuberance and rebellion, and to appreciate that something has to change. You didn’t get that from your average Cliff musical!
Presented to Blu-ray with a HD transfer of a new 4K restoration from the Czech National Film Archive, The Hop-Pickers also contains several archival documentary extras relating to the Czech brewing industry; 1932’s Gift of the Earth, 1952’s One Hundred and Ten Years of the Pilsen Brewery, and 1964’s The Processing of Hops. The release is concluded with a 24 page booklet featuring new writing from Jonathan Owen on this rediscovered summery musical from the Eastern Bloc.
The Hop-Pickers is out now on Second Run Blu-Ray
Mark’s Archive – The Hop-Pickers (1964)
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