History Film / TheFiremensBall

* BuxomIsBetter: The firemen are obsessed with breasts. When they're scouting the crowd at the ball for beauty contestants, one says "We're going to have to go to the balcony to see real busts." When they do, the same man sees a large and massively endowed older woman and calls her "a queen!"

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

''The Firemen's Ball'' was the first film Milos Forman made in color and the last that he made in his native country. It was part of the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_New_Wave Czech New Wave]]", an explosion of creativity in Czech film that coincided with a period of political liberation that culminated in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring Prague Spring]] of 1968. When the Prague Spring was crushed by Soviet tanks, Milos Foreman and his fellow New Wave directors defected to the West. ''The Firemen's Ball'' ball was immediately banned and would remain banned in Czechoslovakia until the VelvetRevolution and the fall of Communism in 1989.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Although the radar in 1967-68 was weaker than it had been for twenty years before and would be for twenty more years after. The firemen are authority figures who wear uniforms. They are also clueless bumblers who can't even put on a ball without screwing everything up. And they are authoritarian clueless bumblers, who think nothing of grabbing a reluctant young girl and manhandling her onto a stage. They are obvious stand-ins for Communist Party oppression and incompetence in Czechoslovakia.

The firemen in some small Czech town are honoring one of their oldest colleagues, who is 85 years old and has terminal cancer, although apparently nobody's told him. They elect to hold a ball in the local dance hall, with prizes to be raffled off and a beauty contest. Unfortunately, the ball is a series of disasters. The elaborate banner that the firemen meant to hang from the rafters catches fire and burns up. The prizes are stolen, one at a time, right from under the noses of the chagrined firemen. The contestants for the BeautyPageant turn out to be a bunch of mostly homely girls who are unwillingly drafted into the competition--and when the girls literally run away at the start of the pageant, a riot breaks out.

* AmateurCast: A hallmark of the Czech New Wave. All the actors in the film were amateurs.

KeepCirculatingTheTapes, as this film hasn't been released in any video format since a bare-bones Criterion disk early in TheAughts.

The firemen in some small Czech town are honoring one of their oldest colleagues, who is 85 years old and has terminal cancer, although apparently nobody's told him. They elect to hold a ball in the local dance hall, with prizes to be raffled off and a beauty contest. Unfortunately, the ball is a series of disasters. The elaborate banner that the firemen meant to hang from the rafters catches fire and burns up. The prizes are stolen, one at a time, right from under the noses of the chagrined firemen. The contestants for the beauty pageant turn out to be a bunch of mostly homely girls who are unwillingly drafted into the competition--and when the girls literally run away at the start of the pageant, a riot breaks out.

''The Firemen's Ball'' is a 1967 film from Czechoslovakia, directed by Creator/MilosForman.