In the mid-1950s, mayor Zwischenzahl is killed on the day of his inauguration in a West German town. The killer is Ruth Bodenheim, a Jewish woman, who wanted to avenge the death of her parents. Zwischenzahl, a former SA member, was apparently involved in the deportation of her parents to a concentration camp during the war. Ruth cannot bear the horrible events and the death of her parents and wants to open the eyes of the town′s residents.

A 50-year-old foreign trade executive meets a 20-year-old student at a trade fair in Brno. The relationship triggers confrontational memories of his own youth and ideals...

Vera, wife of the plumber Simandl (Josef Somr), is found murdered in the cinema next to the IDOC (Information and Documentation) agency where she worked. Police captain Marha (Frantisek Nemec), who is leading the investigation, is informed by Simandl that on the day of the murder Vera promised to bring home fifty thousand crowns to buy a car. Marha's primary suspects are the three men working at the agency: deputy editor-in-chief Brandl (Jirí Pleskot) and editors Pernata (Eduard Cupák) and Remes (Ludek Munzar, and of course also Simandl.

The Ronov castle has been changed into a hotel, offering stylish facilities to its guests: weddings in the torture chamber, a Black Lancer kidnapping brides, a night's lodging in a family tomb etc. The reformed petty swindler Felix Pacínek (Bohumil Smída) runs the hotel. The business is far from thriving; the place is half-empty, and the jazz band Skeleton, together with their singer Zuzanka (Jaroslava Obermaierová), decide to leave. Nobody in the hotel has any idea that the band is in fact a gang of thieves who have just robbed the Prague State Bank, taking two million crowns from its vaults.

In the morning twilight of Prague, the dead body of the safe-breaker Toufar is found floating on the river Vltava with a knife in his back. Police inspectors visit Toufar's lover, the prostitute Anna Kulatá (Jirina Bohdalová), nicknamed Umbrella, and it is apparent that the moment before she opened the door of her flat, someone fled through the window. Umbrella is summoned for examination to the head of the criminal police - Police Councilman Vacátko Jaroslav Marvan, but although shocked by the photograph of the dead man, she does not confess to anything. Before Toufar, Umbrella lived with the safe-breaker Penicka (Radoslav Brzobohatý), who loved her very much and made her quit her street trade. But when he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, Umbrella began to live with the brute Toufar, who chased her to street again. In the case of the murder, Penicka is therefore the prime suspect.

Thirteen-year-old Vendula dozes off at school and dreams about her parents riding in a carriage dressed in their wedding clothes. The young teacher is angry with the girl who has already failed a year, and has no idea that she is looking after three younger half-brothers. They all have a different father and their mother comes home noisy and drunk every day, often accompanied by a man...

Antonín Kachlík wanted to make committed films about the moral dilemmas of the working class, but in the era of normalisation, he could only proclaim how faltering individuals would eventually come to the desired thinking. This is also true of the adaptation of Jiří Švejda's book about the wavering career of a young brickmaking technologist - the simplistic drawing of characters and plots, the posterishly lifeless language and the textbook discussion of social ills are all objectionable; the ideal becomes the code of the socialist builder.

Biography of the life of Guillaume Apollinaire.

During the Second World War, an old fortress is transformed into a detention camp for arrested allied generals who the Germans provide with every possible comfort. In the nearby garrison camp, however, hundreds of captured private soldiers try to survive hunger and cold.

The short story explores the often tragic impact of prejudice or suspicion that relies on the appearance of the human face. Guests in a remote pub recount their own experiences of such cases, furthermore influenced by their experiences in the First World War...