The Firemen's Ball is a 1967 comedy film directed by Miloš Forman, his last movie made in his native country. It is set at the annual ball of a small town's volunteer fire department, and the plot portrays the series of disasters that occur during the evening. The film uses few professional actors – some firemen portrayed are played by the firemen of the small town where it was filmed. In its portrayal of the prevailing corruption of the local community, and the collapse even of well-intentioned plans, the film has been interpreted as a satire on the Communist system by foreign film critics. The Firemen's Ball was the last film Forman made in his native Czechoslovakia before going he relocated to the United States. It is also the first film he shot in color as well as a milestone of the Czechoslovak New Wave.
Plot
The volunteer fire department in a small Czechoslovak town decides to organize a ball in a townhall with raffle and a beauty pageant. The firefighters also plan to present a small ceremonial fire axe as the birthday gift to their retired chairman who has cancer. During the ball, three of the members of the firefighters' committee look for eight candidates for the beauty contest, but they have difficulty finding enough of them. A man continues to buy drinks for the committee members to persuade them to include his overweight daughter among the candidates. During the ball the raffle prizes start to disappear from the table, fine consumables first. Josef, one of the firefighters, knows the prizes have been stolen, but is unable to recover them, and even finds out that his wife is involved in the theft. After much trouble, enough candidates for the beauty contest are found, and they are told that the winner will present a gift to their honorary chairman after the end of the contest. However, when the contest begins, the girls decide not to participate and lock themselves in the bathroom. Consequently, the crowd uses force to draw the replacement candidates to the stage. Soon afterwards, the siren sounds because a house of an old man is on fire. All people immediately begin to leave the townhall without paying for the drinks they consumed. With the fire engine stuck in the snow, the firefighters manage to save some furniture from the house, but are unable to extinguish the fire. To help the old man who lost almost everything in a fire, the people donate their raffle tickets to him. However, it is soon discovered almost all of the prizes had been stolen during the ball. The firefighters order the unknown thieves to return the stolen prizes once they turn off the lights, but during the period of darkness the remaining items are also stolen. Realizing this, the firefighters' committee moves backstage to discuss what they can do to save the reputation of the department. Deciding to do nothing, they return to the now empty hall, where only their retired chairman remains. The committee presents him the gift box, but when the box is opened, it turns out that the axe itself has also been stolen.
Cast
Background
After the success of Loves of a Blonde, Forman, along with fellow screenwriters Ivan Passer and Jaroslav Papoušek, could not concentrate on their follow-up screenplay and so went to the small north Bohemian town of Vrchlabí to hole up in a hotel and concentrate on writing. "One evening, to amuse ourselves, we went to a real firemen's ball," Forman recalls. "What we saw was such a nightmare that we couldn't stop talking about it. So we abandoned what we were writing on to start this script." The movie was shot in a typical local Palace of Culture "Na střelnici" in Vrchlabí. Most of the actors were not professional actors. To shoot the natural sound of their voices it was necessary to have silence on-set, so, during the actors' dialogue scenes, the band merely pretended to play, and the dancing couples wore woollen socks or slippers.
Controversy
Forman has commented on the issue of whether his film should be seen as an allegory of the larger society of the time: The film generated considerable controversy on its release. Among other things, fire companies across Czechoslovakia protested that the film was an attack on their integrity, to the extent that Forman and his team felt obliged to tour the country dispelling this literal reading. The Czechoslovak Communist party members took exception to the film's cynical tone. However the film became a big hit in Czechoslovak cinemas, selling over 750,000 tickets. Carlo Ponti, the film's Italian producer, also took umbrage at the film and pulled his financing, leaving Forman to face a possible 10 years imprisonment for "economic damage to the state". Forman drove from London to Paris to meet Claude Lelouch who once promised him he'd buy international rights for any movie Forman would make. Unfortunatelly at that time Lelouch was in Morocco. By chance Forman met with Claude Berri who contacted François Truffaut and after watching the movie they both agreed to buy the international rights. Contrary to many claims the film wasn't banned in Czechoslovkia and was broadcast on Czechoslovak Television in May 1969.
