''Romeo, Juliet and Darkness'' () is a 1960

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Jiří Weiss. Inspired by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

Romeo and Juliet ''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...

'',Howard, Tony "Shakespeare's Cinematic Offshoots" in Shaughnessy, Robert (ed.) "The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture" (Cambridge University Press, 2007, ) p.297 the film is about problems experienced by a young Jewish woman who is hidden from the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

by a student lover. In 1997 a TV adaptation of the same name was directed by Karel Smyczek.

Plot

In Nazi-occupied

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

in May 1942, Pavel ( Ivan Mistrík) hides the young Jew Hanka ( Daniela Smutná) to keep her from being sent to a

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

. Over the following three weeks the two fall in love. But when Hanka is discovered and Pavel is threatened, she flees into the streets in the middle of Operation Anthropoid—the Czech

government-in-exile A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovereign state or semi-sovereign state, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile usu ...

's plot to assassinate

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( , ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a German high-ranking SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He held the rank of SS-. Many historians regard Heydrich ...

—and is killed.

Cast

* Ivan Mistrík as Pavel * Daniela Smutná as Hanka * Jiřina Šejbalová as Pavel's mother * František Smolík as Grandfather * Blanka Bohdanová as Kubiasová * Eva Mrázová as Alena * Karla Chadimová as Josefka * Miroslav Svoboda as Würm

Reception

''Romeo, Juliet, and Darkness'' won the Golden Seashell at the 1960 San Sebastian International Film Festival. It also won the Grand Prix at the 1960 Taormina International Film Festival.

Notes

External links

*
''Romeo, Juliet and Darkness'' at AllMovie
1960 films 1960 drama films 1960s Czech-language films Films directed by Jiří Weiss Czech war drama films Films based on Romeo and Juliet 1960s war drama films Czech World War II films Czechoslovak World War II films 1960s Czech films {{War-drama-film-stub