Green Gold (1964)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Brilliant and touching

Absolutely the worst movie.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Spoiler Alert! This review contains a spoiler. If you are a West Side Story fan and you loved the singing and dancing mixed with youthful rebellion and angst, then you'll enjoy Czech-made Starci na Chmelu (Called Green Gold or The Hop Pickers in English), a 1964 musical filmed in the hop fields of then called Czechoslovakia.The film feels very West Side Story-ish and about the harvesting of hops by the hop brigade. The hop brigade was mandatory. High school students had to attend and no one was exempt. The hops used to be town off their tall pillars manually. One brigadier would tear and cut it down, while two others, sitting on a cart pulled by a tractor would break down the hop vines. Others would then carry on the next steps in much like an assembly line.Called zelené zlato, or green gold, the hops are harvested to make famous Czech beer. The hop brigade students were separated with boys in one area and girls in another. Their teachers were the most likely chaperon's. They slept on mattresses and mats in the gym and there was a strict curfew at 10 pm. They were served breakfast, lunch and dinner and they dined communally, using their stack-able metal lunch containers to eat from. Often referred to as the first Czech musical comedy, this film deals with adolescent morality and the accompanying bureaucracy without being overly forceful or heavy-handed. It takes place in the summertime where a group of teenage boys and girls have been sent to pick hops for the summer. A very nice communist way of making forced child labor feel more like summer camp. When we heard about the film, we were expecting a communist musical, whatever that may look like. But it's a sweet love story so typical for the youth of the time, wherever in the world they may be. The film is about a boy named Filip (Vladimír Pucholt) who prefers great writers to hanging out with the other boys up to no good takes refuge in the attic where he has made himself a wonderful room, a kind of secret hideaway where he plans to spend the summer. Being different than the other boys, the teacher (Irena Kačírková) is always suspect of him and he has the unlucky habit of showing up at the wrong time, usually placing him at the scene of trouble.He has a jealous classmate named Honza (Miloš Zavadil) who is always trying to beat him up. Honza seems to have all the luck, riding his motorcycle around, having visits with his "aunt" and getting other people to do his work. He is the resident bad boy pretending to be a good guy. Honza spends most of his time being a bully with the help of his two friends. Eventually, he tells the teachers about the boys hideaway, jealous that he didn't make it his own. The jealousy undoubtedly springs from the fact that Hanka, of of the prettiest girls in school (Ivana Pavlová) favors the boy and his brains over Honza's brawn.An innocent puppy-love blossoms in the attic while the other students sing songs about making beer, dance to catchy pop tunes with their comrades, pick hops and try to figure out what is really going on in the attic. Their behaviors invite both conflict and debate among the other characters and we see that emerge in each member of the school as well as feel it in Czech society. By the end of the film, the two students are suspended from school and sent away from the camp. The punishment leads to them forming a stronger bond and you see them happily leaving the place, heading back to the city. Meanwhile, the jealous informant who is even more jealous to see them go while he remains stuck at the camp literally has everyone at the camp turn their backs on him as he is ostracized for his behavior.The film is directed by Ladislav Rychman, who went on to be cited as being "indispensable" as the founder of Czech music clips which were basically very short films with a central musical performance very similar in length and style to modern music videos. The three guitarists who start the movie off and then pop up throughout the film look so contemporary and reminded me of so many MTV videos that came many years later. This is a wonderful and quirky film that takes place during the swinging 60s and it has the vibe of the typical American musicals of the time. It's filled with music, singing, dancing, color and emotion and even has the voice of Karel Gott singing the male lead. Choreographed dance scenes dominate the film and make it look like one big summer party!We thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful technicolor journey back in time to Czech innocence and are so happy my mother decided to share it with us, along with her memories. And of course, we're happy that the films ending is more positive than in West Side Story.We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the harvesting of the hops used to make world famous Czech beer and the beautiful blue sky of summer in so many of the colorful scenes and upon dosing some research we found out that while these days most of the work is completed by machines, certain parts still require a human hand and summers still look somewhat the same near the hop fields. Students and others can now attend willingly for a three week stay. Some women attend, but most of the work is done by young men. They still have lunchboxes and sing songs to make the time pass by, and who knows maybe they even find love under the summer sky.

Taking a look at IMDb's Classic Film board,I spotted a post from a fellow IMDber about a 60's Czech Musical! Since having gathered up a number of Czech Sci-Fi flicks,I decided that it was the perfect time to take a detour to the swinging Czech's.The plot:Working on the hops fields gathering hops for beer, Filip catches a glimpse of fellow worker/"comrade" (!)Hanka and falls for her.Trying to keep their love secret from the field owners,fellow worker Honza becomes jealous of Filip having a romance with Hanka,which leads to Honza deciding that he will feed the hop field owners Hanka and Filip's secret romantic hops. View on the film:Pushing the films message of "happy workers" and off the cuff dialogue with the word "Comrade" as far to the sidelines as possible,the screenplay by co-writer/(along with Vratislav Blazek) director Ladislav Rychman bubbles up fizzy Pop hits with Broadway Melodrama numbers.Welcoming the workers with a guitar playing Greek chorus,the writers blend the delightfully sweet romance with wonderfully quirky touches,as the movie joyful swigs from songs about making beer,to Filip and Hanka's romance being sent over the horizon.Swaying behind the Iron Curtain with catchy pop tunes,director Rychman & cinematographer Jan Stallich tap into swinging 60's Czech with a delicious atmosphere,thanks to Rychman and Stallich painting dazzling blues,yellows and reds over Filip & Hanka blossoming Broadway romance,and brings it to vivid life.Taking on a stunning Ivana Pavlová as Hanka and a wide-eyed innocent Vladimír Pucholt as Filip, Milos Zavadil grabs a role originally offered to Josef Abrhám,and strikes Honza with a devilish charm,as Zavadil wraps Honza with a wide smirk over catching the romance,as Filip & Hanka try to hide their love in the hops.