Maybe a strange observation, but feels a wee bit English to me. It's not that there is a 50's franticness or a 60's anger about it - indeed, the opposites apply. It's maybe just the social-club feel with it's drinking and smoking, dancing and courting.So, what's it about? A blonde girl falls for a young musician who knows how to make the most of his charms. He then just wants to move on to his next affair, but she has decided that they are in love, and tracks him down to his parent's house. That's about it, and this is where Forman is clever - biting off only what he can easily chew, a simple situation that most adults can relate to, adorned with comedy, romance and, for those not Czech, a wee bit of foreign curiosity.It's genuinely funny, engaging, light and gentle.

With still having strong memories about being caught completely by surprise from Milos Forman's far better than expected 1984 epic Amadeus,I was thrilled to recently discover that a fellow IMDb'er had shared a link to a Youtube page of an early Forman movie from a film movement that I had recently been hearing quite a bit about called the Czech New Wave,which lead to me excitingly getting ready to surf the wave for the first time.The plot:Fearful over their being not enough boys for girls to fall in love for in his village,due to their only being one man to every 16 women in the village,a local businessman decides to do a deal with a military general,which will allow for restless soldiers to pay a visit to the town,in the hope that they end up becoming romantically involved with the residents.Attending a late night party with her dormitory friends,Andula tells her friends to ignore the advances that are getting made to them by a group of old,worn down soldiers.Leaveing her friends behind on the watchful gaze of the army men,Andula secretly pays a visit to a guy called Milda,who along with having played with played in a band earlier in the night,is also someone who Andula is starting to develop a real crush for.Half-heartedly accepting Milda's invitation for her to pay a visit to his room,so that Milda can read her palms,Andula soon begins to find out what direction her palm lines,and her life are heading in.View on the film:For the relationship between Andula (played by a cute,wonderfully uncertain Hana Brejchová) and Milda (played by a very good,manipulative Vladimír Pucholt),the screenplay by director Milos Forman and co- writer's Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer and Václav Sasek use Andula's wish for the relationship to work as a sly way to include some subtle commentary on the communist regime of the time,with Andula working in a shoe shop factory making identical pares of shoes,being connected to the owner of the business trying to get all of the women of the village to settle down with men from the country's old,rusting military.Continuing on the films theme in his directing style,Forman and cinematography Miroslav Ondrícek show in stark black & white everything that Andula is up against in her desire not to conform,from Andula's village looking like a wasteland,and Forman placing the viewer in Andula's corner when a vote is taking at her dormitory for no boys to be allowed in the building.Forman also expertly reveals the full Horror's of what Andula is going against,when after making her first ever visit out of the village to see Milda's parents,Andula is met by the hard stare of Milda's mum,who openly tells Andula that she does not trust any outsiders.

In Loves of a Blonde Milos Forman continued dealing with the same subjects he did in his first feature film Black Peter (1964); the aimless youth and the Czechslovakian society. After Loves of a Blonde he started working on his next film, The Firemen's Ball (1966). Once the film was released it caused an incredible strife; over ten thousand firemen announced a strike and Milos Forman was about to get sentenced to jail for 10 years. Fortunately Francois Truffaut, the master of Nouvelle Vague, helped Forman out of the trouble and, so Forman went to United States where he has made some of his most remembered films such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus.Loves of a Blonde is often overlooked even that it is one of the finest representatives of Eastern Europe new wave or Novi-film. Alongside with Yugoslavian Dusan Makavejev and Czechslovakian Jiri Menzel, Milos Forman was an integral auteur for the movement. It had the same cheer that the Nouvelle Vague did but the Novi-films were much more politically bold and took clear statements against the Communist government - due to which many of the films got banned.Loves of a Blonde is a cheerful tragicomedy. Its protagonist is a working-class girl, Andula who works at a shoe factory. One day she becomes acquainted with a young pianist to whom she falls in love with. The film is quite ruthless but also humane and Forman treats his characters with warm love. He accepts his characters as they are, with their flaws and controversies. In the beginning he portraits a group of three middle-aged army men who try to hit on three teenage girls. The soldiers are portrayed as dumb and self-thinking but also as humane, sympathetic characters.It's strongly a social film. It portrays the 60's Czechslovakia as a dull place with nothing to do; so people try to find their amusement from sexuality and other pleasures. The officers are stupid and selfish, as is the society. The teenagers are also naive but try their best to survive. The first sequence where the men try to hit on the girls is brilliant and full of significance; one man takes a wedding ring off his finger, drops it and follows it as it goes through the dancing floor. The men try to send a bottle to the girls but the waiter messes up and takes the bottle to the wrong table. Nothing works.Loves of a Blonde is an ironic social film but also a warm story about love and soul searching. Its characters are lost in a country which has lost its course as well. Whether it's the middle-aged men or the teenage girls, or the young pianist, no one really knows who they are. This is a basic tragicomic element in the films of the new wave. The film is clearly naturalism as it describes Czechslovakia as realistically as possible; mud, old clothes, bad wine and cruddy vehicles. It's paradoxically truly a melancholy love story but also a cheer comedy.

I was channeling surfing when I came across this movie. I was apprehensive at first when I realized it was a Czech film. I'm glad I gave it a chance. The conversations were amusingly realistic. I enjoyed the parents bantering about their son and his women. The easy flow of the story line and character development is something I like in my films. Woody Allen's black and white films came to my mind while I was taking in this undiscovered gem. I was only familiar with Milos Foreman's American releases such as Cuckoo's Nest and Hair. Now I will need to seek out his early overseas releases. The black and white celluloid accompanied with the 60s Czech background music made this a nice find.