Honestly, I have nostalgia goggles the size of monster truck wheels for this one! Lemonade Joe, or the Horse Opera came out in 1964 but my entire generation can quote it to no end. It falls into the perfect timing of being a new film for our parent’s childhood and old enough to be cool for our own. So within the Czech culture, this film is a classic.
Even so, I was afraid to revisit it. Many films from my childhood didn’t age well and I was afraid the same would happen here. What didn’t help was a vague memory of blackface and some of the timeless quotes feeling kind of tired after the last fifteen years of repetition.
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But I was pleasantly surprised. The film has an energy that most modern comedies long for. Lemonade Joe falls into the Crazy comedy genre, popular in the Czech Republic, which includes titles such as Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet or The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians. In American cinema, it would be a mixture of Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles and John Landis’ The Blues Brothers. It takes the nonsensical, absurdist plot and the song breaks from Blues Brothers and the setting with quick-fire jokes and slapstick from Blazing Saddles. It might be surprising to some that it’s older than both…
Continue reading “Lemonade Joe (Limonádový Joe) – Oldřich Lipský, 1964”
Czech Film Review 