4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lemonade Joe a Western Hero, September 18, 2002
I just recently located and purchased Lemonade Joe. I saw the movie at a "fine arts" theatre when I was 26 and a graduate of "The University" in 1963. A young man with ambition and know how. I loved the movie back then and never heard of it again. Over the many years I've told sooooo many people about the film. How it was the greatist satire of the American western movies. I have laughed soooo much over the years and it has been the source of many good laughs as I told others about it. When I recently purchased it I realized over the years that I had mis-remembered (?} many things. I had forgotten that it was sub-titled and I had to watch very carefully what was being said. My memories about the different colored filters were not exact, but very close. All in all my memories were pretty good and it was still a hilarious spoof after 35 years... I still love the film for the enjoyment of telling others about it. No one Ive ever talked to about it had ever heard of it so it made me feel special that I could relate the enormous enjoyment I had. So from my point of view that I had so much enjoyment I rate it very high as a fun part of my life.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a Time Warp!, May 27, 2009
My husband and I watched this movie on late night TV many years ago, and laughed ourselves silly. What a treat it was to find it again, and laugh myself silly again, although sadly, all by myself this time. It is a great satire of our American Western movies and our commercial obsessions, as seen from outside.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Uniquely fascinating satire of old Westerns, June 18, 2009
This review is from: Lemonade Joe (DVD)
4.5 stars
Surprisingly enjoyable and engaging, Lemonade Joe is, to this fan of Westerns of all eras, one of the finest genre satires I've ever seen. It might even be funnier than Blazing Saddles.
Lemonade Joe starts as a spoof of silent Westerns, but it quickly becomes clear that Director Lipsky was a fan of Hollywood in general, as well as the newer crop of Westerns in the early 60s, and his satirical pistol fans out to take down these and many more subjects. From sepiatone to blue/white to color and back and forth; shifting angles and odd shots that presage some of Leone's spaghetti-western work (was he a fan of Lipsky?); mocking various cinematic cliches; and simultaneously deriding and celebrating many facets of the Bourgeois Capitalist West that some Czechs in 1964 clearly had much affection for, even before they were sucked into the USSR nightmare. The Puritan ethos juxtaposed with the frontier mentality, the patent medicine craze morphing into icons like Koka Kola, and so many more ironies are examined with tongue in cheek. No preaching, just amusement, and the fine musical score and visual sophistication hold it all together.
The whole film gives off an aura of love for all the things it satirizes, and that attention to detail as well as the one culture's eye for another's absurdities combine to make a truly unique movie that's a treat to watch.
I must say I'm jealous of those reviewers here who saw it back in the 60s with dubbing. Normally I prefer subtitles and hearing the original voice inflection (and the Czech and French here is sweetly mellifluous), but I was longing for some really good voices on this from the early 60s; Mel Blanc could have been the bad guy! The movie is so ripe for that What's Up, Tiger Lily? treatment that Woody did just two years after this.
Sooner or later Lemonade Joe will get the wider attention it deserves.
It should be on any Film Humor 101 syllabus, as it's much more than just a good spoof.
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