AN ADVENTURE AT MARIENSTADT

(Przygoda na Mariensztacie, 1954)

   The first Polish film in color, directed by Leonard Buczkowski during the socialist realist period. Buczkowski's comedy proved to be one of the most popular films screened in Poland. Set in the destroyed postwar Warsaw, the film tells the story of Hanka Ruczajówna (Lidia Korsakówna), who moves to Warsaw from a small village, becomes a bricklayer in a females-only brigade, and falls in love with one of the handsome Stakhanovites, Jan Szarliński (Tadeusz Szmidt). Buczkowski's film depicts "the official optimism" of the Communist Party authorities. The film's narrative structure has all the components of a typical socialist realist drama: the Stalinist work competition portrayed with a melodramatic aspect, the postwar reconstruction of Warsaw, the social advancement of the working class, and new women who are not afraid of leaving their traditional roles to compete with men. Witty dialogue by Ludwik Starski and popular songs by Tadeusz Sygietyński helped the film's enormous popularity.

   See also Stalinism-Representation.

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof