Panenka

Considering it's a studio television play, the result is more than good. Ed McBain guarantees high quality, so the script based on his work is worth it. Compared to the average detective genre of the time, represented by a long series of stereotypically filmed TV movies about detectives watching over the people in socialist Czechoslovakia, this is a masterpiece. The production has a quality cast, with the traditionally excellent Josef Abrhám and the interesting casting of Jana Šulcová, who played a sadistic psychopath. This is probably the only outright villainous role I can recall for her. Miloš Kopecký is also very good - as expected - as one of the detectives. Svatopluk Skopal played an unstable, flawed member of the police team who causes serious problems for his colleague. And in a small role, Naďa Konvalinková appears as a flirtatious nymphomaniac. The play stands up to comparison with today's productions from, in many respects, surpasses them. Overall impression: 75%. (2009.05.26)