The False Pussycat

Summary

This 1937 film from director Vladimír Slavínský is the second film to be based on an eponymous play by Josef Skružný – the first was directed by Svatopluk Innemann in 1926. But whereas the former comedy film was silent, this 1930s effort is a talkie. Once again, the central character is a doctor who seeks to marry a common woman. The doctor also has an admirer, a love-struck woman posing as a commoner to gain his affections. Jára Kohout takes over Vlasta Burian’s former role as drifter Pleticha, who teaches our heroine Míla (played by Věra Ferbasová) an entirely different set of manners. Housekeeper Amálka, who helps the factory owner’s daughter to attain her goal, is played – as in the silent original – by Antonie Nedošinská. Oldřich Nový offers a refined performance as our cock-eyed hero, passing himself off as Mr. Higgins from Pygmalion, while teaching the “common girl” acceptable social mores. (In the 1938 German-language version, Die Falsche Katze, directed by Carl Boese, this part went to Rolf Wanka.)

Synopsis

Note

This theme had already been treated in a Czech film under the same title (1926; directed by Svatopluk Innemann).