Lemonade Joe (1964)

Purely Joyful Movie!

A Masterpiece!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The most famous western spoof in history is Mel Brooks's "Blazing Saddles". Another one is Oldřich Lipský's "Limonádový Joe aneb Koňská opera" ("Lemonade Joe" in English). This one combines the western spoof with the Ostern, a western genre in the Eastern Bloc. Basically, these movies were westerns that took a swipe at the US. One that I've previously seen is the East German movie "The Sons of Great Bear", featuring an Indian as the protagonist.Anyway, "Lemonade Joe" pokes fun at the old western musicals. The main character is a jolly man trying to rid an alcohol-soaked town of booze in favor of a drink called Kolaloka (I see that they also decided to take a swipe at Coca Cola). In the process, Joe woos a young woman while fighting a dastardly villain.I should note that the movie is basically a slapstick comedy. They incorporate sound effects to add to the humor, and Joe occasionally breaks into song (sometimes in English!). It's a pretty enjoyable movie, understanding the propaganda factor. I suspect that they had fun making it. Olga Schoberová sure is a fox.I wonder if the Eastern Bloc ever made its own "Blazing Saddles"-type movie.

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.

"Lemonade Joe" is one of the funniest movies ever made. Certainly it is the funnest western. It is also a triumph of expressionism.The sequences are dazzling. The opening sequence catches you by surprise; you're watching the funniest western fight in a saloon without warning. Throughout, the film just explodes with these sequences that are hysterically funny and reflect a world gone mad.The last third of the film begins to slow down. It also becomes very expressionistic, which annoys people who do not allow themselves to appreciate disruptions to how they process their cinema.However, the film finishes very strongly. "Lemonade Joe" is a wildly adventurous and pleasurable experience.

"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.