(Lasky jedne plavovlasky). If there were any gentlemen in this film, they would certainly prefer Andula (Hana Brejchova), a young provincial blonde of what Forman called “unrepeatable beauty,” a kind of rough-hewn attractiveness. Andula lives in a small factory town where the girls outnumber the boys sixteen to one. To promote contentment, the factory manager gets an army reserve unit assigned to the town, but he finds the troops are mainly married men with promiscuous paws. Andula quickly opts for a young piano player (the dopey but dashing Vladimir Pucholt) in town for the big dance. Again Forman proves his understated brilliance for plumbing the pathos of post-adolescence, this time with Ivan Passer also contributing to the script. An incurable romantic, our eponymous blonde follows her callow lover-boy to Prague, only to encounter his thoroughly scandalized parents. The dance of beds and bores that follows is a generational slapstick that locates the heart inside the heartlessness.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Forman, Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papousek. Photographed by Miroslav Ondricek. With Hana Brejchova, Vladimir Pucholt, Vladimir Mensik, Jiri Hruby. (88 mins, In Czech with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, From Janus/Criterion Collection)