A pair of restocks came in today, one from Arrow in the UK (“The Firemen’s Ball” by Milos Forman) and the other from Australia (Phillip Noyce’s “Blind Fury”).
After his feature length debut “Black Peter,” Czech filmmaker Milos Forman rocketed to international success with “The Loves of a Blonde.” For his next picture, “The Firemen’s Ball,” the film received $80,000 from Italian producer Carlo Ponti, an infusion of capital that seemed to quell the Party officials’ concerns about the proposed film’s content. However, once the finished product was screened the film was banned by the Czech Communist Party, only to be given a release during the Prague Spring of 1968 before being banned again (this time “forever”) after the Soviet invasion. Ironically, the film’s Italian producer disliked the film for the same reason as the communists: he felt that it “mock[ed] the common man.” When Ponti demanded his money back, Forman was told that he would be charged with causing economic damage to the state and sent to prison for 10 years. Fortunately, a group that included French directors Francois Truffaut and Claude Berri was able to save Forman by raising the money to pay Ponti back.