Customer Reviews

Lemonade Joe

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

One of the best czech comedies ever made (in 1964). DVD version contains full lenght (100 mins) widescreen 2.35:1, original czech language and english dubbing (partly subtitles due a shorten english dubbed version) - but only in Czech republic

This is a Czech spaghetti Western from 1964, one of the greatest movies of all time! It is full of witty dialogues, clever satire and wonderful cinematography. It is much more than just a spoof of Hollywood westerns -- the movie also does a wonderful job of social criticism of many aspects of Western society. Particularly what happens to laws, government, community, public good, etc. when money is at stake. The fun and lighthearted approach (the movie's full title is "Lemonade Joe or Horse opera" -- and they do horse around) make the satire truly enjoyable.

The hero Joe (pronounced Yo-eh) is the fastest gun in the West and never misses his target. While he enforces the law and defends the common good as he travels across the West, he is also a sales rep for his father's company selling Kola Loka. Then he arrives in a frontier town of Stetson City where the Badman brothers (Doug and Horace) run the Trigger Whiskey Saloon. The two sides spar most of the movie with guns, fists, singing (yes, you also have to spoof the musicals) but also -- and more importantly in marketing and advertising to promote their business. For as it often goes in our Western world, the common good is where the money is....

In the end, and against all odds, Joe defeats the Badman brothers and as a bonus gets the pretty girl. Of course, before they get engaged the two lovebirds negotiate over the percentage of profits from the Kola Loka company that the bride is to receive. To make the satire complete, the Badman brothers turn out to be Joe's long last brothers (lost in a tornado before Joe was born) as all the children from Joe's family have a birthmark on their forearm of the size of the Mexican dollar. Anyway, upon this news Joe's father accepts the Badman brothers back into the fold, saying that there is room and need in the family business even for their kind and especially with their experience.

There are many great actors in the movie who truly perform brilliantly in this movie. Whether it's Karel Fiala as Joe or Milos Kopecky as Horace Badman a.k.a. Hogo Fogo or Hana Hegerova as the bad girl Tornado Lou this is a great cast! Even many supporting actors such as Josef Hlinomaz, who chews up a violin as one of the toughest guys in the West, they all deserve a big thumb up.

Brilliant and very funny.

Watch this with Cat Ballou and Blazing Saddles to watch the old West go up in gun-smoke. Lipsky is a great director...

"Lemonade Joe" is a movie that came out of Communist Czechoslovakia back in the 1960s. It's a brilliantly entertaining spoof on the genre of American Cowboy Westerns made during the 1920s thru 1940s period. I saw an excellent English dubbed in version of this film many years ago. Is this version available on video?

I just can't fathom how this is being treated as a "spoof on Westerns" when it's actually an overt and uproarious spoof on the West--one that would almost certainly work well with the Michael Moore crowd, except I doubt they would have ever encountered anything so perceptive AND so much fun before (and so well-scripted and crafted).

American directors who attempt this sort of social and political satire tend to sacrifice lightness-of-touch for over-earnest political point-making; in American hands a satire like Lemonade Joe would have eventually descended into un-funny grinding blackness or overreachings at profundity. Americans (like Moore) think that killing the fun is making the "point." I'm thinking of awful films like "C.S.A." and even Moore's "Canadian Bacon." Lemonade Joe is an excellent example of how to do engaging social criticism.

While watching it I also felt myself dearly missing the Commies. They were superb opponents for the West, consistently and accurately pointing out the flaws and hypocrisies of Western political and economic systems. Unlike the modern Left and the Politically Correct they believed in the idea of progress and made no apologies for cultures they saw as "backward"--Commies couldn't be cultural relativists. They also maintained Western intellectual traditions, finding their roots in their own cultural history. Again, they were incapable of throwing the cultural baby out with the bath-water, as many modern West-hating Leftists now do. Only a good Commie could have made a flick this good.

[Oddly, mainstream Hollywood often did a much better job at fun social criticism. Wilder's "One,Two,Three" immediately comes to mind and that film would be an appropriate companion to Lemonade Joe]

As I started watching "Lemonade Joe" it was clear the film was a Czechoslovakian spoof of Hollywood westerns, with a heavy influence from silent films that were obsessed with tinting. However, I kept having the feel that there was perhaps some deeper socialist satire of the decadent west going on here. Of course, once I paid attention and discovered this film by director Oldrich Lipsky was released in the United States in 1966 (but filmed two years earlier), clarity descended upon me. This would have been two years before Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, which means "Lemonade Joe" might be propaganda, but it affection for the West dressed up as a socialist satire. I know it makes you head hurt to think of such things, but that is pretty much what we have here.

Lemonade Joe is the name of our white haired hero, played by Carl Fiala. Joe earned his name because he refuses to drink liquor when he saunters into the local saloon, the Trigger Whiskey Saloon, where bad girl Tornado Lou sings tawdry songs of love. Fortunately Joe is the best shot around, so nobody picks on him for long. The plot basically exaggerates every single western cliche you can come up, which is evident as soon as you find out the names of the characters. There are dance hall girls with hearts of gold, mustache twirling villains, and the mystery of what happened to Joe's family when that hurricane blew them all to the four corners of the Earth. Hogo Fogo is the lecherous villain, who wants to destroy Joe and win the affections of Winnifred, the virgin temperance advocate played by Playboy covergirl Olga Schoberova. Lipsky, a graduate of Prague's Satirical Theatre sets up all the bits and pieces, but then does not have a clear idea of what to do next. Then suddenly, a happy ending emerges and the film ends with a general reconciliation that transcends even death (even death caused by a corkscrew).

True, "Lemonade Joe" is unable to sustain its initial moment, but besides "Airplane" few satires do successfully. This one is of great interest simply because it shows us how American Westerns were viewed in Eastern Europe. After all, you have to know the rules to be able to do a successful spoof. The cast of this 84-minute film includes Kveta Fialova, Rudolf Deyl, Karel Effa, Karel Gott, and Josef Hlinomaz. The Czech title for this film was "Lemonade Joe a Horse Opera." This film, which won the Silver Seashell at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, is one of five Czech New Wave films released by Facets Video.

When I saw Lemonade Joe in the late 60's it was in English and was funny.

Although this DVD is region 1 for the US it is in Czech
and the only 2 options are 1) play movie or 2) scene selection.

I made a mistake assuming (yes I know) it would include the
English dubbing. No English dub is available.