What would Christmas day be without perhaps the most popular fairy tale Three Nuts for Cinderella. Actor Vítězslav Jandák (77), who played a member of the prince’s entourage, recalled the filming for Seznam television. writes .
Jandák played the prince’s friend Kamil. “The truth is that the entire filming was one big fun. For example, riding a horse. For example, no horse was born for Honza Libíček (he played a preceptor in the film, editor’s note), so the production got him a Hucula (a primitive breed of horse, whose body structure is not suitable for sports use, editor’s note). They put Honza on the hucul, and after a while the poor hucul’s legs moved forward and backward. That’s why Honza Libíček has a lot of horses walking everywhere, in almost all the shots,” he recalled with a smile.
The fairy tale is not only popular in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany, but also in Spain, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Norway. Not all actors came from Czechoslovakia. The characters of the stepmother, the king and the queen were played by German actors and Jandák revealed that there were differences between them. “Otherwise, I also remember how we had small fees compared to German actors,” he said surprising information.
Not all moments were pleasant. “When I trained on horses in Stromovka, we joked that someone would always fall, because the person who fell had to give the bottle. I always held on, even when the horse was throwing up, but once I landed on a pear (part of the saddle, p. ed.) and broke my coccyx. That was the worst pain I have ever experienced. So one of the doctors on the set gave me painkillers during the whole filming,” he described the unpleasant injury.
Back then, they fought the winter with thick layers of clothing and alcohol. “We had stockings on the bottoms and more stockings on the stockings and then there were costumes,” continued Vítězslav. Director Václav Vorlíček was not angry when the actors were insulted. During the scene, when Cinderella was trying on her petticoat together with Vladimír Menšík, who played the character of Vinck, instead of the text from the script, they shouted: “Long live Angola!”.
Jandák also remembered Droběna, played by the late actress Helena Růžičková († 67). “It was also fun with Helenka Růžičková. At the ball, she surprised us all when, during the filming of the scene at the ball, she spontaneously grabbed Pavel Trávníček (prince, editor’s note) and carried him across the dance floor. That was not in the script,” added the actor.
