The Doll (Panenka)

This television film, based on a novel by an author of many pen names, including „Ed McBain,“ is an example of, in the Czechoslovakian context not entirely common, adaptation of a foreign story. So maybe it is a little jarring to see prominent figures of Czechoslovak cinema address each other with English names, but the creators have fairly successfully managed to deal with constructing a space evoking a North American city even beyond the script. Doll doesn’t avoid tougher topics and imagery – the murder, for example, is accompanied also by drug addiction. This adaptation is not entirely alone in our cinema – McBain’s work was also adapted as TV films 87th District (1970) with primarily Slovak cast and The Puzzle (1991) and Shotgun (1992) in the 1990s, where Jiří Bartoška took on the central role of Steve Carella, who was portrayed by Josef Abrhám in Doll. (bk)