In Arizona, Lemonade Joe (Karel Fiala), a singing cowboy, rides into the Trigger Whiskey Saloon and rescues a damsel and her missionary father from a band of hard-drinking, gunslinging goons. A teetotaler who derives his strength from Kolaloka lemonade (actually what Americans would call a soft drink, hence the 'cola' sound in "Kolaloka"), Joe establishes the damsel and her father as the proprietors of a rival tavern serving only soft drinks. But their competitors, Doug and Horace Badman (distant cousins to the Soviet Boris Badenov, perhaps?), force Lemonade Joe to confront the villains in a cemetery shoot-out.
Lemonade Joe opens with the message, "This film is dedicated to the rough diamond heroes of the Wild West who avenged wrongs and defended the law." The entire film is an equally sweet valentine to old-fashioned Westerns, totally unlike what Sergio Leone, Anthony Mann, Sam Peckinpah, and John Ford in his later years were doing with the genre. It is obviously indebted to the B-Westerns of Hopalong Cassidy, the straight-shooting heroics of William S. Hart and Tom Mix, and the singing cowboy movies of Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers. But it also makes many funny allusions to other classic Westerns. There is a villain who bears a resemblance to John Carradine in Stagecoach (1939), and Joe's tasseled, beige outfit brings to mind Alan Ladd in Shane (1953). One of the characters has a scene next to a cemetery plot - a classic John Ford element. And in a sight nod to one of the American Western's most famous shooting locales, Lemonade Joe rides through a "valley of monuments" such as the great pyramids, the Sphinx, the Parthenon and London Bridge. Even John Ford might've cracked a smile at that gag.
The screenplay was written by Jiri Brdecka, who wrote original stories with Lemonade Joe as the hero in the early 1940s, then adapted them into a stage play in 1946. He was also a leading writer and director of animated film and had scripted a puppet Western parody called Songs of the Prairie (1946). There are many cartoon elements in the film; dotted lines showing the trajectory of Joe's bullets; sight gags, such as a sign advertising the Acme Tool Company; smoke rings providing secret clues in a card game; and the absurd change in the speed of the action. Director Oldrich Lipský was a large part of this comic fusion of genres. He was a veteran in comedies, and worked with a number of leading Czech comic writers, including Milos Macourek (Gentlemen, I Have Killed Einstein, 1969) and Zdenek Sverak, author of Kolya (1996), Joachim, Put It In the Machine (1974) and Marecek, Pass Me a Pen (1976). Lipsky also worked with Jiri Brdecka on Adela Hasn't Had Supper Yet and A Mystery Castle in the Carpathians (1981).
Unfortunately for this little-known gem, Facets Video's DVD release is a splotchy mess. The subtitles are scattershot and there is no option to remove them, the transfer is diffused with bad positioning of the letterboxed image make things even worse. The bare-bones menu screen has as the only options "Start Movie" and "Scene Selection," the latter listed on the box as a "Special Feature"! Supposedly, there is an all-region DVD release of Lemonade Joe that is a much better presentation with numerous extra features. Regardless of Facets sub-standard DVD release, Lemonade Joe is unexpected fun.
For more information about Lemonade Joe, visit Facets Multimedia. To order Lemonade Joe, go to TCM Shopping.
by Scott McGee
