Lemonade Joe

1964
7.4| 1h39m| en| More Info
Released: 11 November 1964 Released
Producted By: Filmové studio Barrandov
Country: Czechoslovakia
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A satire of the Great American Way, with Lemonade Joe a "clean living" gunfighter who drinks only Kola-Loca Lemonade and convinces everyone else in town (with his gun skills) that all "real men" drink ONLY lemonade!

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Reviews

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Dalbert Pringle Before sitting down to watch Lemonade Joe, you really have to be in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate this film in all of its eccentric quirkiness. And, it would also help if you were something of a fan of Hollywood, B-Westerns from the 1940's, as well.Opening with one of the absolute, best, over-the-top, bar-room brawl scenes that I have ever seen in any Western, I found Lemonade Joe's cartoon-ish surrealism to be very entertaining, for the most part.This 1964 Western from Czechoslovakia was, of course, a total spoof of the genre. And, from my point of view, it certainly hit its intended mark more often than it missed.Featuring some really outlandish stunts (worthy of The Three Stooges), lots of interesting camera-work, and a non-stop barrage of exaggerated characters (including a nasty villain named Hogofogo), Lemonade Joe (set in 1885 in the lawless town of Stetson, Arizona) was very competently directed by Czech film-maker, Oldrich Lipsky, who obviously must have watched a helluva lot of Hollywood B-Westerns in his youth.
winner55 For forty years (oops, revealed my age, oh well), I have been trying to track this down. I first saw this film at age twelve, in a drive in theater, on a double bill with (I think) a re-release of "The Great Race". Historical note: the version I saw was dubbed, not subtitled (I long thought it Italian in origin); the tinting was not sepia with yellow highlights, it was just glaring yellow; and it was called "The Lemonaid Kid" not "Lemonaid Joe" (hence part of the difficulty tracking it down). (Since this release title is reminiscent of "The Lemondrop Kid", I can imagine paranoid lawyers at MGM giving this film's release a lot of hassle, which may explain how it got so buried.) I thought it the funniest thing I had ever seen and that impression stuck with me as I grew older and developed a taste for the more absurdist and aggressive style of comedy, e.g., the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, etc. i knew I had seen something very special in "Lemonaid", but found no references to it in movie catalogs like the Maltin book, and nobody who knew films seemed to know anything about it - and I come from Rochester, NY, home of the second largest collection of film in the country, the Dryden-Eastman collection. People there know film. But nobody knew this film.This film had a major impact on a very young man and changed his taste in comedy forever, and perhaps changed all of his perceptions, insofar as humor is one of the most important responses we make to the world. That says a lot for the power of this film. I certainly hope another viewing will justify my warm memories of it.Note added August 26, 2009:Well, I finally found it - it is currently available in 10 chapters at Youtube.It is not only everything I remember it for, but far more - one of the wildest visual comedies of its era and one of the sharpest satires I have ever seen.The only weakness is the ending - while it makes its point, it's too blunt and too easy.But the rest of the film is basically Brecht-Weill remaking "Support Your Local Sheriff" (which hadn't been made yet, of course) - absolutely incredible mix of pop culture and art-house comedy styles, as unforgettable now as it was 40 years ago (well beyond mere 'camp,' it hasn't aged a bit), decidedly one of a kind.(PS - I've read Leone fans wondering if this film references "fistful of Dollars" - oh, no - Leone, Corbucci, and other Italian directors were almost certainly influenced by this.)
antos It is known that Henry Fonda watched this title at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) and declared it as the greatest enjoyment for the long time. And he did not know the Czech actors playing in the movie! This Czech elite made one of the most unforgettable happenings of all the time, and also the collaboration of director Oldrich Lipsky and the writer Jiri Brdecka made one of the best (not only Czech) parodies I have ever seen.
funkyfry An excellent satire of the Great American Way, with Lemonade Joe a "clean living" gunfighter who drinks only Kola-Loca Lemonade and convinces everyone else in town (with his gun skills) that all "real men" drink ONLY lemonade! The style of the film mirrors that of silent westerns, including humorous sped-up bar brawls and color-tinting (!). You can either root for Joe or his whiskey-drinking adversaries; it's clear that although the town "bad girl" adores Joe and wants him to "change" her, he is only using her for his cause, as indeed he is using everyone for his opportunistic goals. Worth a look for western fans looking for a spoof that goes beyond "Blazing Saddles" and adds satire to the mix, or for anyone interested in Euro-Westerns in general for an Eastern European take on the genre. A funny, charming, and even sometimes graceful film.