Lemonade Joe (1964)

What a beautiful movie!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

One user here wrote in his review that Lemonada Joe is not subtle. I couldn't disagree more, but I can understand his statement. Lemonada Joe is in fact so bound to Czech culture that translation of it's subtle poetry to another culture is very hard. For us it's a clever game with (communist) propaganda and our rather naïve image of wild west, liberty and honesty. Lemonada Joe is not satire "per se", it's not just slapstick fun and it's also not a simple critique of early capitalist society but rather cinematic pastiche or cinephile comedy with relativist look on morality (idealism is possible only in a silly movie). Brdečka's script uses a lots of puns and witty humor. For example when Lemonada Joe calls his enemy "smrdutý oposume", the meaning in English is just rough "stinking opossum". But in Czech language it's much more hilarious and refined because it connects rather obsolete adjective and a little known zoological term. In Lemonada Joe are tons of similar nuances in language and cinematic style. I, like others Czechs, has grown up with movies like this. It's part of my childhood, my Czech soul. In an original book the final end of Lemonada Joe is absurd and dark. At his fiftieth birthday he will be drown and overcooked during a visit of a fruit factory in a barrel of hot lemonade. Into his grave is buried a bottle with this delicious drink. Yes, we Czechs understand this dark end very well.

I am happy to find out that also in USA, where the parody aims to, are people that find the movie funny. It is a bit different view to Europeans and American westerns, using distinctive style of humor. I am not kind of people who would laugh from the beginning to the end, but i can see it many times and I find always the style of humor interesting and i enjoy the seeing. There are a bit slower parts what can someone understand as an attempt for seriousness in the movie but it really does not compete with real western movies.For the people writing here about the projections in USA with English dubbing. There is out a DVD with both English and Czech tracks. {published by www.filmexport.cz, but quite expensive}

"Limonadovy Joe" is part of the golden fund of Czech cinema; it is broadcast every year on TV and you find it in most Czech households on VHS. The fact that this movie was made in the Communist times and that it is a parody to Wild West pictures, does not mean that "Limonadovy Joe" is an ideological trash; I am sure Wild West lovers would not feel offended by this movie. It is a skeptical and self-ironic piece, but in my view, still rather homage to western. 60-ies were the best time for Czech cinema. `Limonadovy Joe' fits into those liberal years of good movies. It is a family comedy with cheerful, but still intelligent humor. Joe remained the only important role for Karel Fiala, but guaranteed him a life-long popularity in his country. Please note excellent performance of actors in episode roles, like e. g. Vladimír Mensik in the role of barman. Also the graphical aspect of the movie is worth mentioning; it is stylized in retro black and white, whereas each scene is colored to another color.

Although this film is (obviously) all in Czech, most English speakers won't have any trouble figuring out the story, since it's an extremely broad parody of a genre most people are familiar with. The hero is dressed all in white, the bad guys wear black and skulk around like Snidely Whiplash. On the women's side, we have your basic saloon girl with a heart of gold and the virginal ingenue, who we know will eventually end up with Lemonade Joe. Considering this movie was made under Communist rule, it's a pretty dead-on satire of the American Western.