Bad Luck (1960 film)
Bad Luck (Polish: Zezowate szczęście) is a 1960 Polish black comedy film directed by Andrzej Munk. [1][2] The screenplay is based on Jerzy Stawiński’s novel Six Incarnations of Jan Piszczyk (1959).[3][4]
| Bad Luck | |
|---|---|
 Original Polish poster | |
| Zezowate szczęście | |
| Directed by | Andrzej Munk |
| Written by | Jerzy Stefan Stawiński |
| Starring | Bogumił Kobiela |
| Cinematography | Jerzy Lipman Krzysztof Winiewicz |
| Edited by | Jadwiga Zajiček |
Production companies | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 92 minutes |
| Country | Poland |
| Language | Polish |
Bad Luck was entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.[5]
Plot
Bad Luck reflects the episodic source material by novelist Jerzy Stawiński from which it is adapted. Jan Piszczyk is petty bourgeois Jew and son of a Warsaw tailor. The story opens when the middle-aged Piszczyk is laid off from a job, and bemoans his fate. He provides a retrospective on his life in a series of flashbacks, spanning the history of Poland from the rise of fasict anti-Semitism during the 1920s to the postwar Stalinist period. Piszczyk emerges as a political and social chameleon, willing to accommodate himself to any situation. His opportunism propels him repeatedly into ludicrous and pathetic failures.
Cast
- Bogumił Kobiela – Jan Piszczyk
- Maria Ciesielska – Basia
- Helena Dąbrowska – Wychówna
- Barbara Lass – Jola Wrona-Wrońska (as Barbara Kwiatkowska)
- Krystyna Karkowska – Wrona-Wrońska
- Barbara Połomska – Zosia Jelonkowa
- Irena Stalończyk – Irena Kropaczynska
- Tadeusz Bartosik – Wasik
- Henryk Bak – Director
- Mariusz Dmochowski – UB Officer
- Aleksander Dzwonkowski – Cezary Piszczyk
- Edward Dziewoński – Jelonek
- Tadeusz Janczar – Ens. Sawicki
- Stanisław Jaworski – Watchmaker
- Andrzej Krasicki – Witold Kropaczyński
- Wojciech Lityński – Young Jan Piszczyk
- Kazimierz Opaliński – Prison Governor
- Jerzy Pichelski – Maj. Wrona-Wronski
- Adam Pawlikowski – Ens. Osewski
- Witold Sadowy – soldier pretending to be Adolf Hitler
- Wojciech Siemion – Józef Kacperski
- Maria Kaniewska - Anastazja Makulec
- Jan Tadeusz Stanisławski – Chief Scout
- Tadeusz Waczkowski – Manager Kozienicki
Sequel
In 1988, the film Citizen Piszczyk was made, directed by Andrzej Kotkowski. Jerzy Stuhr played the main role.
References
- Niemitz, 2014: “tragicomedy…”
- Zelman, 2013: “The tragi-comedy Bad Luck (Zezowate szczęście, 1960)..."
- Niemitz, 2014: “Bad Luck (1960), based on Jerzy Stawiński's novel Six Incarnations of Jan Piszczyk (1959), like Man on the Tracks, is a retrospective on a life.”
- Bren, 2012: “Munk's…overtly comic Bad Luck, is adapted from Stawiński's 1959 novel, Sześć wcieleń Jana Piszczyka (Six Incarnations of Jan Piszczyk), its title accurately suggesting the film's episodic line.”
- "Festival de Cannes: Bad Luck". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 2009-02-19.
Sources
- Niemitz, Dorota. 2014. The legacy of postwar Polish filmmaker Andrzej Munk. World Socialist Web Site. 13 October, 2014. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/13/munk-o13.html Retrieved 08 July, 2022.