Jiří Menzel directs Václav Neckář, Jitka Bendová and Josef Somr in this Czechoslovak New Wave comedy about a teenage virgin who suffers from premature ejaculation when he starts working at the local railway station.

And this is more Carry On than kitchen sink. It is hard to see what the sniggering, horny fuss is all about until the second half. The seduction by rubber stamp and the fallout where an irate mother displays her “defiled” daughter to every man of authority is probably the satirical highpoint. There is some pessimism and fatalism that you’d never find in an American Pie sequel… not yet. The resistance / sabotage subplot is no more hard hitting than ‘Allo ‘Allo! Maybe the reason Sixties Czech filmmakers were so interested in one recent occupation was it gave them the chance to comment on another, more current regime indirectly? Still, you’d struggle to see what the Criterion release and Oscar win were all about going in cold in 2024?

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Perfect Double Bill: The Cremator (1969)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/