Schweik's New Adventures

Basically a sequel to Jaroslav Hasek's famed comic novel The Good Soldier Schweik, but without a British-made forerunner (a German production, THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK, was made later and released in the US in 1963), this updated the silly-shrewd soldier's adventures to WW II, with the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis. Hasek had actually published a pamphlet subsequent to the occupation of his country which bore the title "How to Speak German." Inside, the pamphlet contained the story "Schweik Against the Gestapo." It was a best-seller in the occupied land. The film is introduced by Czech elder statesman Masaryk, who explains that the low slapstick to...