''Bad Luck'' ( pl, Zezowate szczęście) is a 1960 Polish
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a seriou ...
film directed by
Andrzej Munk. The screenplay is based on
Jerzy Stawiński’s novel ''Six Incarnations of Jan Piszczyk'' (1959).
[Bren, 2012: “Munk's…overtly comic Bad Luck, is adapted from Stawiński's 1959 novel, Sześć wcieleń Jana Piszczyka (Six Incarnations of Jan Piszczyk), its title accurately suggesting the film's episodic line.”]
''Bad Luck'' was entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.
Plot
''Bad Luck'' reflects the episodic source material by novelist Jerzy Stawiński from which it is adapted. Jan Piszczyk is petty bourgeois Jew and son of a Warsaw tailor. The story opens when the middle-aged Piszczyk is laid off from a job, and bemoans his fate. He provides a retrospective on his life in a series of flashbacks, spanning the history of Poland from the rise of fasict anti-Semitism during the 1920s to the postwar Stalinist period. Piszczyk emerges as a political and social chameleon, willing to accommodate himself to any situation. His opportunism propels him repeatedly into ludicrous and pathetic failures.
Cast
*
Bogumił Kobiela
Bogumił Kobiela (31 May 1931 – 10 July 1969) was a Polish stage and film actor. He was an actor of , Ateneum Theatre in Warsaw, Komedia Theatre in Warsaw, Bim-Bom student theatre, Kabaret Wagabunda and Kabaret Dudek. He suffered serious i ...
– Jan Piszczyk
*
Maria Ciesielska – Basia
*
Helena Dąbrowska
Helena Dąbrowska (26 June 1923 – 31 May 2003) was a Polish actress. She appeared in more than twenty films and television shows between 1954 and 1981.
Selected filmography
* '' Night Train'' (1959)
* '' Bad Luck'' (1960)
* '' Black Wings ...
– Wychówna
*
Barbara Lass – Jola Wrona-Wrońska (as Barbara Kwiatkowska)
*
Krystyna Karkowska – Wrona-Wrońska
*
Barbara Połomska
Barbara Połomska (9 January 1934 – 28 July 2021) was a Polish actress. She appeared in more than twenty films since 1955.
Selected filmography
References
External links
*
1934 births
2021 deaths
Polish film actresses
Actors fr ...
– Zosia Jelonkowa
*
Irena Stalończyk – Irena Kropaczynska
*
Tadeusz Bartosik – Wasik
*
Henryk Bak – Director
*
Mariusz Dmochowski
Mariusz Dmochowski (29 October 1930 – 7 August 1992) was a Polish actor. He appeared in more than 45 films and television shows between 1958 and 1992.
Partial filmography
* '' Eroica'' (1958) - Lt. Korwin Makowski (segment "Ostinato Lugu ...
– UB Officer
*
Aleksander Dzwonkowski – Cezary Piszczyk
*
Edward Dziewoński
Edward Dziewoński (16 December 1916 in Moscow, Russian Empire – 17 August 2002 in Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish stage and film actor, and theatre director.
He studied acting at Państwowy Instytut Sztuki Teatralnej and debuted at the Sy ...
– Jelonek
*
Tadeusz Janczar
Tadeusz Janczar (; 25 April 1926 – 31 October 1997) was a Polish film actor. He appeared in 26 films between 1952 and 1983.
Partial filmography
* ''Zaloga'' (1952) - Brzozowski
* ''Zolnierz zwyciestwa'' (1953) - Franek
* '' Five Boys fro ...
– Ens. Sawicki
*
Stanisław Jaworski – Watchmaker
*
Andrzej Krasicki – Witold Kropaczyński
*
Wojciech Lityński – Young Jan Piszczyk
*
Kazimierz Opaliński
Kazimierz Opaliński (22 February 1890 – 6 June 1979) was a Polish stage and film actor. He appeared in more than forty films between 1936 and 1975.
Selected filmography
References
External links
*
1890 births
1979 deaths
Polis ...
– Prison Governor
*
Jerzy Pichelski – Maj. Wrona-Wronski
*
Adam Pawlikowski
Adam Pawlikowski (1925–1976) was a Polish film actor.
Selected filmography
* '' Kanal'' (1957)
* '' Lotna'' (1959)
* '' Bad Luck'' (1960)
* '' Goodbye to the Past'' (1961)
* ''Ashes and Diamonds
''Ashes and Diamonds'' ( Polish original: ''Po ...
– Ens. Osewski
*
Witold Sadowy
Witold Sadowy (7 January 1920 – 15 November 2020) was a Polish film and theatre actor as well as publicist and columnist of the ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' daily and ''Życie na gorąco'' magazine.
Life and career
He was born on 7 January 1920 in Warsa ...
– soldier pretending to be Adolf Hitler
*
Wojciech Siemion
Wojciech Juliusz Siemion (30 July 1928 – 24 April 2010) was a Polish stage and film actor. He studied law at the Catholic University in Lublin from 1947 to 1950. At the same time, he attended acting classes at a local theatre. He enrolle ...
– Józef Kacperski
*
Maria Kaniewska
Maria Kaniewska (27 May 1911 in Kiev - 11 December 2005 in Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the R ...
- Anastazja Makulec
*
Jan Tadeusz Stanisławski – Chief Scout
*
Tadeusz Waczkowski
''Tadeusz'' is a Polish language, Polish first name, derived from Thaddeus, Thaddaeus.
Tadeusz may refer to:
* Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski (1895–1966), Polish military leader
* Tadeusz Borowski (1922–1951), Polish writer and The Holocaust survivo ...
– Manager Kozienicki
Continuation
In 1988, the film ''
Citizen Piszczyk
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
'' was made, directed by
Andrzej Kotkowski.
Jerzy Stuhr played the main role.
References
Sources
*Niemitz, Dorota. 2014. ''The legacy of postwar Polish filmmaker Andrzej Munk.'' World Socialist Web Site. 13 October, 2014. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/13/munk-o13.html Retrieved 08 July, 2022.
External links
*
''Bad Luck''at the Filmpolski.pl
1960 films
1960 comedy films
1960s Polish-language films
Polish black-and-white films
Films directed by Andrzej Munk
Polish comedy films
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