The Road That Leads Nowhere (video)

Apparently, both the wacky professor you'll meet at the beginning of this hour long film and the curmudgeonly older women see eye to eye on the straight path for Czechoslovakia's youth: they both warn their two young cousins about the evils of long hair, rock and roll and singing in English.  Not quite sure if that's exactly what's going on, but that sort of satire would explain why the film was blacklisted by the Czech government until the Velvet Revolution and saw it's first public screening in 1990.  Now that the film's politics are no longer threatening, it's all super cute!  In between charming music videos, each with a nice little premise, the cousins play pranks on their uncle, dress up like Indians and do other little silly things.  It's all very much Beatles both in terms of music and cinematography (plenty of Chaplin type slapstick too), and it's about as far out as you might expect from derivative culture circa 1968.  I just wish I had a translation for Jaroslav Hutkas' song at the end - I'd guess he's talking about politics, since everything but the hair appears Dylan enough.  All in all, you'll see performances from Atlantis, Synkopy 61, Nonsens, Olympic, Rebels, Prúdy, Jaroslav Hutka and Luda Svabensky Trio.  Directed by Jiri Vanysek.  Even though these were prominent Czech acts of the time, not too much is on the internet about any of them - still, some digging won't let you down.  If you'd like to download the full flv file, click here.

Comments

[Denise]

"Velvet Revolution and saw *it's* first public screening in 1990"
IT'S = IT IS

[Y.U.Vulva]

did you know that just up until the "revolution" kids were forced to spy on their parents... This was one of the lessons taught at schools... my, how times have(n't) changed.

[Jeff]

Although in a sense 'derivative' (as the Beatles and Stones were also), some of these songs are as creative as what was going on in Great Britain at the time - some of these groups were doing more sophisticated vocal harmony than most of what we were hearing on the radio at the time. And the group about a third of the way (beginning with a string arrangement) in seem to prefigure the prog group Gentle Giant...

It's a fascinating piece of popular culture - I'd love to see a better version of it.