Acting
The exemplary accountant Antonín Safránek lives his orderly life as a citizen of a small town. His wife Eliska brings up their three children and desperately tries to get by on her husband's low salary every month. At the same time, she sadly watches the luxurious life of their neighbor and other people like him who have no qualms about improving their standard of living by cheating. One day, the infallible Safránek makes a mistake in the cash clearance and there are nine one-hundred Crown bills left in the safe. An unexpected company control carried out the next day passes without problems and the account is closed. The temptation is too strong. The insufficient control enables Safránek to gradually steal one million Crowns.
Jurácek's feature debut is shot in two parts. In the first, a corporal accompanies a new recruit with a sore Achilles tendon for his physical, and all the girls or young women they see are played by the same actress (Ruzickova). In the longer second segment, shot with the help of the Czechoslovakia army, the soldiers pass the time during basic training and maneuvers by talking about girls.
Children's detective stories were very successful in the 1960s, and the stories of Martin the criminal even had several sequels. In this film, Martin investigates a mysterious ancient crime in a castle where today the guide mentions this fact only as a curiosity. He is led to this by a broken display case on which he finds a child's handprints. And in a seemingly mundane red slide, easily mistaken for a rare diamond, he finds an important clue...
