The Ideal Schoolmaster

Martin Frič was still in an intensive collaboration with Karel Lamač in 1932. After he first became independent as a director in the late 1920s, he withdrew again with the advent of sound film and became Lamač's regular assistant. Now it was also time for Karel Lamač's debut as an actor in a sound film, and it was most logical to repeat their distribution of roles like in the case of Father Vojtech (1928). To achieve the ideal symbiosis between Karel Lamač, the film actor and his film character, his professor Suchý was also Karel. He thus continued the tradition of his characters from other films. The story of The Ideal Schoolmaster is derived from Adela Červená’s 1917 book "Všední příhody nevšedního člověka." Anny Ondra became the student Věra Matysová, and at the time Anny was the star of the latest German, Austrian, and French co-productions A Night in Paradise (1931) and The Cruel Girl Friend (1932). She thus gave her permission to make the final chapter of the favorite love story of Czech cinema of the 1920s. In the supporting roles of The Ideal Schoolmaster, in addition to the famous Lamač-Ondra pair, the film also included Frič's favorite line-up, led by Oscar Marion, Světla Svozilová, Valentin Šindler, and last but not least, Pištěk and Nedošinská, as well as the episodic actors Šlégl, Speerger, Kysilková, and Balek-Brodská. When all of this is also underlined by Šváb-Malostranský’s penultimate role and four successful great performances by Jaroslav Mottl and Jára Beneš, I can’t help but be satisfied. (02/14/2009)