Country girl Tonka, after arriving in Prague, becomes a prostitute in a brothel. But she misses home. When she gets time off she goes back to see her mother. At home she meets her former boyfriend Jan again. He still loves her and wants to marry her. Tonka is content with him but is tormented by memories of her whorehouse past. She does not want to make Jan - who does not suspect she is a harlot - unhappy and so she returns to the bordello in Prague. The police arrive in search of a prostitute who is willing to spend the night with a condemned murderer who is to be executed the following morning. Tonka feels sorry for the doomed man and agrees to sleep with him. But when she goes back to the brothel afterwards, everybody spurns her contemptuously. She is thrown out and starts to walk the streets, sinking ever lower into depravity. One day Tonka sees Jan who has come to Prague to look for her. In her confusion Tonka gets involved in a vicious street fight and is shoved into the path of a hackney carriage. Mortally injured, she dies in Jan's arms.
The film was made as a silent movie. A sound track was added in France after a fire at Kavalírka in the year 1929. Versions of the film were also made in Czech (Tonka Šibenice) and German (Der Galgentoni). Only a French version is stored at the National Film Archive Prague.
prostitutka Antonie Havlová zvaná Tonka Šibenice
Tončina matka
odsouzený vrah Ferdinand Prokůpek
drožkář
majitelka nevěstince
prodavačka kaštanů
mistr popravčí
hausírník
opilec
pasák
návštěvník v nevěstinci
služka u majitelky nevěstince
první tajný
druhý tajný
vězeňský dozorce
nevěstka
host v hostinci
host v hostinci
Egon Erwin Kisch (Nanebevstoupení Tonky Šibenice – povídka)
Jaroslav Krampera (vrchní osvětlovač), Willy Ströminger (fotograf)
Bedřich Smetana (Má vlast /Vltava/), Antonín Dvořák (Slovanské tance), Richard Wagner (fanfáry)
francouzští hudebníci z pařížských divadel a symfonických orchestrů (Music Conducted by Erno Košťál)
Song Composer Erno Košťál
Singer Ita Rina [dab]
Song Composer Karel Hašler
Tonka Šibenice [francouzská verze]
Tonka Šibenice [francouzská verze]
Tonka of the Gallows [French version]
Tonischka
film
featuretheatrical distribution
drama
Czechoslovakia
1930
1929—1930
date of censorship (nepředloženo cenzuře)
projection approval 1963
withdrawal from distribution 30 June 1990
premiere (neproběhla)
premiere abroad 6 March 1931 (Paříž, Francie)
premiere 1 October 1963 /unsuitable for youths/
feature film
82 min
2 324 meters
35mm
1:1,19
black & white
sound
RCA Photophone
French
French
without subtitles
French
French