With Anny Ondra, Karel Lamac. 75 min.
Made during the time of Czech cinema’s deepening crisis, the country’s film industry had big expectations from this American-style comedy, which did prove an instant box office hit. Depicting a wicked fantasy of a luxurious middle-class lifestyle, The Kidnapping has an excellent cast including Karel Lamac and Anny Ondra (star of Hitchcock’s Blackmail [1929] and The Manxman [1929]), and also features a unique cameo appearance by the fêted Parisian couturier Paul Poiret (as himself) who toured to Prague with his six mannequins, staging several bombastic fashion shows there in early December 1923.