Useful Genre of Detective Films. How Changes of Cultural Values Influenced the Reception of Detective Films in the Era of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

During the era of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, four films that were perceived by film critics and various dramaturgy departments were made - Pelikán má alibi (Pelikán Has an Alibi), Těžký život dobrodruha (The Hard Life of an Adventurer), Čtrnáctý u stolu (The Fourteenth at the Table), and Paklíč (Skeleton Key). A detailed look at these films as fragments of contemporary cultural life and politics allowed us to distinguish changes in the value orientations of culture functionaries, film producers, dramaturgists, or film journalists. Nevertheless, it was also necessary to take into account the rapid changes that occupation brought about - a virtually instantaneous change in the range of choices available to social actors, as well as significance of these choices. As a result, not only differences but also striking similarities in the argumentation and values of the actors, who belonged to very different political currents (conservative-nationalist, left-wing, fascist), were made visible. In a situation where these three completely dissimilar value systems coincided in rejecting "aimless" genre entertainment, there was very little room for the detective genre.
For the two dominant discourses of the Protectorate era, the conservative and the fascist, the parodic detective films served to protect their values and ideals: the well-nurtured Czech national body and cultural spirit on one hand and the "New Europe" on the other. In contrast, "serious" detective film projects did not have a chance to materialize until the end of the Protectorate, and the police films, which were widely produced in the Third Reich Cinema, were not made at all - such films would require an active celebration of the repressive apparatus of the Protectorate regime, and that would far exceed the respect for the Czech police (desired even by figures as Vladislav Vančura) toward collaboration.

Keywords: detective film, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, World War II, Nazi occupation, film criticism, film production