Postriziny, Jiri Menzel’s much-loved nostalgic Czech film of 1980, based on Bohumil Hrabal’s much-loved comic novel of 1976, was shot in a disused brewery in Dalesice, a better practical option than the operational brewery at Nymburk that was the real-life original setting for Hrabal’s story. So it was there that Maryska (Magda Vasaryova) was spanked by her husband Francin (Jiri Schmitzer) for getting her hair cut short, one of several scenes in the film that later became iconic.
The premises passed into new ownership in 2002, and brewing started up again. But the esteem in which the film is held makes it more than just a working brewery. Tourists come to visit the place, not just to see how beer comes into existence, but also where the film was made. Some try to match up scenes with their real-life locations.
Others come to get married, and, if they have a head for heights, daring brides and grooms and guests are allowed to reenact another of the film’s famous moments:
Visitors can also enjoy a display of props and costumes from the film, and the scale of enthusiasm for the spanking scene in particular is apparent from the fact that one of the exhibits is:
A close look at the lace trim will reveal something unexpected – that these are not in fact the original panties that graced the bottom of Magda Vasaryova in the movie:
Though you will be seeing the exhibited pair again, being put to their proper use, if you pay close attention to what follows.
The panties are, in fact, such a popular feature of the spanking scene that another of the brewery’s sidelines is selling souvenir reproductions, which romantic young men buy for their best beloved! (If you want a pair for yours, go here.) It’s reasonable to suppose that the gift may sometimes have led to a private reenactment of the original scene, but it’s also reasonable to observe that lovers can do that no matter what undies she happens to be wearing:
And that’s fortunate, because the firm that makes the reproduction panties often can’t supply enough to meet demand at the brewery!
But for renactments on site at Dalesice, maybe a degree of respectful authenticity is called for…
And the spanking is indeed reenacted there quite often. It so happened that in 2007, the tenth anniversary of Hrabal’s death coincided with the formal launch of the reproduction panties. So on March 9, to mark both events, the brewery hosted an open-air performance of the spanking scene on the very spot where it was filmed 27 years before. Maryska was played by local waitress Jana Pasekova, who seems not to have actually committed the hair-cutting misdeed for which she was spanked!
Of course she’s wearing the panties that are being ‘christened’ (in the smallest of the five available sizes), and we are told that she thoroughly enjoyed playing the part!
Now we slip forward in time seven years to another Hrabal anniversary: the 2014 centenary of his birth. Someone had a bright idea: a special nocturnal tour of the brewery, showing visitors the parts that other tourists cannot reach, with actors from the local amdram company performing key scenes from the film as visitors passed through each location. The event, called Hrabalovska Noc (Hrabal Night), took place in September and concluded with the spanking of Maryska, played on this occasion by Magdalena Potuckova:
Was that good or bad news for her? Who knows… but it was good for the newspapers:
The event was such a hit that the brewery decided to do it again the following year. Here’s the troupe that took part at the end of August 2015:
The one who most interests us is the one who’s most interestingly dressed there. Her name’s Kristyna Bazalova, and here she is, wearing a little more and gearing up for her big scene.
The actors rehearsed in the daytime, before the visitors arrived.
But as before, the actual performance was at night.
And so the Hrabalovska Noc began to turn into an annual tradition. It ran again in September 2016, with another different cast, including the lovely Libuse Jonasova.
Here she is arriving with that fatal haircut:
And this is what it earned her:
For a better look, here’s the daytime rehearsal:
And since you can take a better look, pay close attention to those panties – again, they’re a pair from the brewery’s range of reproductions!
And just to prove that she enjoyed it, really, here’s the reverse angle:
Does that mean there were so many amateur lady actors, all eager to be spanked, that they had to take it in turns? Maybe, but we now come to one who played the part two years running. Here she is in 2017:
Here’s the video.
And now in 2018, she’s back:
And so is her hat, which saved her from having to cut her long hair short.
The event happened again in 2019 on the last day of August, and this time Barbora Potuckova played Maryska, but sadly there aren’t any pictures relevant to our theme; and then 2020 saw an enforced Hrabalovska hiatus…
The world got back on track in time for the summer of 2022. And as usual, the highlight of the event is Maryska, this time played by Simona Pechova…
Also as usual, there’s a prominent emphasis on Maryska’s panties. Of course, there has to be: quite apart from the authenticity, there’s the marketing to consider!
And now for Maryska’s reaction:
She’s enjoying it… a lot. Enjoying it so much that…
Surely she isn’t reaching back to… But take another look over on the other side: she is!
And that’s really quite, quite remarkable. In recent years you often find professional productions erring on the side of modesty in this scene, with oversized, full-cover bloomers or a staging choice that ensures the audience sees relatively little, as in Olomouc’s operatic version of 2021, or even, as at Pilsen in 2019, a skirt that simply stays down. You don’t often see a pro attempt the original movie Maryska’s invitation to take things further:
But here’s an amateur Maryska going several inches beyond even what Magda Vasaryova did, all the while knowing that there’s a working video camera behind her looking straight at the bottom she’s starting to bare! (The video is here.)
There was an extra event in 2023. In the spring, the brewery enhanced its tour with a new multimedia element, and the local amateurs were invited back to celebrate its launch…
in the traditional Dalesice way!
And for those who are interested in such matters, a closer look will reveal two things to the discerning eye:
that the panties were fresh out of the packet just before she started the scene and (the logical corollary) she has her own modern bikini panties on underneath.
The main 2023 event featured the same performers in mostly the same costumes, the main differences not being visible here:
She’s wearing a different pair of panties, apparently a size smaller,
and you still can’t see the other difference, the absence of the second, personal pair underneath.
This time round, Maryska’s desire to be spanked on her bare bottom is repesented differently: her panties don’t go down but up, as she wedgies herself to expose some skin.
Dalesice hasn’t entirely cornered the market in Postriziny tourism. The brewery at Nymburk, Hrabal’s childhood home where the original novel was set, also celebrates its connections with the story and its author. Come back next week to see how they do it!
Vanilla Spanking 