Powder and Petrol

Voskovec and Werich wanted to make a movie... But they should have spent some more time working on the script rather than making this flimsy patchwork. I have read most of the plays of the Liberated Theatre and Powder and Petrol is not up to the standards of even the few weaker ones, unfortunately. There are bright moments, but they are at best laughable rather than funny. Most of all, I appreciate Ježek's music, the scene with napnelism and candy and the (related) documentary value of the film. (01/10/2015)

Powder and Petrol is the first cinematic taste of the V+W duo in a time of dying poetics, and it must be said that its poetics seem to have been somewhat marked by this fact. The good and humorous in the film is the product of the Liberated Theatre and the ingenious poetic puns of a pair of legendary comedians (the puns from the vest pocket do not age, like great songs with memorable melodies by Jaroslav Ježek and equally brilliant lyrics). Unfortunately, the theatrical sketches are connected by very sparse scenes that are naïve but not funny, and equally attempts at sound grotesque do not seem dazzling due to the clumsy direction of Jindřich Honzl (the fact that theatre is not a film is felt quite strongly). But I still like watching this film, if only because it is one of the few more complete visual proofs of the form of the productions of the Liberated Theatre. Later films, thanks to their intensifying ideological subtext, represent much more sovereign works in terms form and content. (06/22/2005)

Voskovec and Werich demonstrate that their strength was not only in verbal humor, although Werich especially became famous for his words, but also in classical slapstick, which Powder and Petrol certainly is. I particularly liked the slapstick charm of it, sometimes even enhanced by the absence of sound. I must rate their first film production quite highly because of this. (12/17/2014)