[In the following excerpt, Hartung offers a positive assessment of Forman's casting choices in Loves of a Blonde.]

Now in general release is Loves of a Blonde, the Czech movie that opened the New York Film Festival in September and won huzzas from most of the reviewers. Perhaps the critics, impressed with the glamor of this opening night, let some of their enthusiasm spill over into their reviews of this heart-warming and unpretentious little picture about romance-hungry adolescents. In any case, audiences can now judge for themselves—and they will find Loves a well directed movie with a slight plot, some sharp character portraits, and a few delightfully realistic scenes. But for all its assets, a masterpiece with depth and scope it is not; and for my money, Intimate Lightning, another Czech comedy shown at this year's Festival, has greater humor, understanding and universality.

In telling the tale of Andula, a naive and romantic blonde who works in a shoe factory in a small town where there's a shortage of boys, director Milos Forman does come through with universal touches; and as you watch Andula and her girl friends and some of those boy friends, you begin to wonder if young people aren't pretty much alike the world over. Forman by no means limits himself to youngsters in showing their relationship to the not-so-young and to next-generation oldsters. His cast, in all ages, is fine, and he has directed them expertly—although only the two leads are professionals: Hana Brejchova as the dreamy, not-too-pretty Andula who has only vague notions about what she wants but is certain, at this stage of her life, she wants male companionship; and Vladimir Pucholt as the young pianist who's beginning to feel his oats and definitely knows what he wants from Andula and the other girls.

Although Loves lags from time to time, it has three hilariously funny scenes that are worth sitting through the slow stretches for: the episode in which three soldier try to date Andula and two of her pals at a dance; the sequence in which the pianist takes Andula up to his room and unsubtly goes about the seduction—although seduction is hardly the word for what goes on with the girl naked as a newborn babe, still saying, “I don't trust you” and then insisting he draw the window shade; and finally the episode in which Andula goes to Prague to visit her love, pops in on his bewildered parents, and later is put to bed in the living room while the parents make their son sleep with them. Although this scene is the film's funniest as the mother keeps them all awake with her cliches and scolding, it is also the most poignant as Andula realizes the boy hardly remembers her. The film's finale makes it clear that Andula hasn't learned very much or lost her romantic notions. Parents, seeing the new films about the younger generation like Loves of a Blonde and Masculine Feminine and Georgy Girl may be more befuddled than ever about kids today and may ask with this boy's mother, “Where will all this end?” or with Georgy's father, “I sometimes wonder to what this country's coming.”