Description:
In the 19th century, the Havels had a big mill in Prague but by the time Milos Havel was born on 3rd November 1899 it was long gone. His father, ing. Vacslav Havel (1861-1921), was a businessman, a builder, well connected to a number of leading members of Czech society of his day. He was also the financial director of the National Theatre in Prague, the focus of cultural life of the Czech nation. But Prague lacked a modern multifunctional cultural center thus ing. Vacslav Havel built one in the center of Prague and called it Lucerna. It included Bio Lucerna, the first truly permanent cinema in Prague, opened on 3rd December 1909
In the 19th century, the Havels had a big mill in Prague but by the time Milos Havel was born on 3rd November 1899 it was long gone. His father, ing. Vacslav Havel (1861-1921), was a businessman, a builder, well connected to a number of leading members of Czech society of his day. He was also the financial director of the National Theatre in Prague, the focus of cultural life of the Czech nation. But Prague lacked a modern multifunctional cultural center thus ing. Vacslav Havel built one in the center of Prague and called it Lucerna. It included Bio Lucerna, the first truly permanent cinema in Prague, opened on 3rd December 1909. The other cinemas in Prague at that time were Ponrepo, Orient, Variete and Franz Josef Oeser's Kinematograph which was situated in a circus tent. Oeser then moved to Bio Lucerna, equipped it and rented it for a year.
In 1912, Milos' father took over from a certain Mr. Pech a film production company called Kinema and renamed it Lucernafilm. Milos was very much involved with Lucernafilm during the First World War when he organized documentary filming of national representatives who demanded more autonomy for the Czech lands. Polykarpovo dobrodruzstvi (1916) with Marie Vitkova and directed by dr. J. S. Kolar was one of Lucernafilm's early feature films. Later Lucernafilm became dormant for many years. Milos Havel became the manager of Bio Lucerna in 1917 when he was hardly 18. He ran it until his mother's death in 1926 when he and his older brother inherited their parents' business and renamed it "Bratri Havlove - Praha Lucerna" (Havel Brothers - Prague Lucerna). But first, after the war, Milos went to Paris to buy American serials The Red Ace (1917) and Bull's Eye (1918) and other films for Bio Lucerna and then started a company in Prague called Americanfilm to rent the films to other cinemas. Milos was the first to show a film with sound (on synchronised gramophone records) in Czechoslovakia, Show Boat (1929).
Americanfilm (capital A) later merged with Biografia (B) to form a film company A-B for which Milos built film studios in Barrandov. That was after Milos' brother, Václav M. Havel (1897-1979) (father of Václav Havel, playwright and later President of Czechoslovakia and of the Czech Republic) developed from scratch a whole new exclusive suburb of Prague called Barrandov, named after an engineer and scientist Joachim Barrande (1799-1883) who spent 40 years in Bohemia.
To keep the film studios busy, a number of films were made with Milos' involvement, e.g. Volga in Flames (1934). When the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, they took over A-B's Barrandov film studios, leaving it to the Protectorate's Czech "government" to give Milos some compensation. It was also allowed that, sometimes, Lucernafilm (re-born in 1937) could use the studios. To do that, Milos had to deal with the Nazis but he remained a Czech patriot and was even prepared to take serious risks, e.g. when helping a German-speaking "Dr. Holm", in fact an anti-Nazi agent Paul Thuemmel, who was later arrested by the Gestapo and executed.
Films made by Lucernafilm were 'Za tichych noci', 'Panenstvi', 'Krok do tmy', 'Slecna matinka' ('Parizanka'), 'Jarka a Vera', 'Soud bozi', 'Vesela bida', 'Humoreska', 'Kristian', 'Svatek veritelu', 'Ohnive leto', 'Eva tropi hlouposti', 'Divka v modrem', 'Stesti pro dva', 'Panna', 'Maskovana milenka', 'Palicova dcera', 'Hotel Modra hvezda', 'Nebe a dudy', 'Jan Cimbura', 'Preludium', 'Muzi nestarnou', 'Tajemstvi Macochy', 'Ryba na suchu', 'Okouzlena', 'Prijdu hned', 'Zlate dno', 'Ctrnacty u stolu', 'Tanecnice', 'Stastnou cestu', 'Mlhy na Blatech', 'U peti veverek', and 'Rozina sebranec'. Altogether, Lucernafilm made 36 Czech films, including the famous Babicka (1940) and Nocní motýl (1941). A number of outstanding Czech artists worked for Lucernafilm, e.g. the excellent Karel Höger first appeared in the film Turbína (1939). The films helped to keep up the morale of the nation and also gave employment to a number of people who would otherwise have to work for the Germans or might even find themselves sent to work in Germany. A remake of 'Svatý Václav' strongly demanded by the Nazis was started in 1942 but was never completed!
When the war ended in 1945, the film industry was nationalized and Milos was pointedly excluded from it by the communist Minister of Information, Václav Kopecky. Milos was investigated for his dealings with the Germans and finally found innocent only in December 1947. The ambassador of Israel, Mr. Avriel, offered Milos a contract to build film studios in Israel. However, Milos was not allowed to leave Czechoslovakia. He illegally crossed the border to Austria but was returned by the Russians to Czechoslovakia where he was imprisoned until December 1951. In August 1952 he left Czechoslovakia again using a false passport.
In West Germany he secured an agency for American-made blue jeans while he led court procedures against the German film company Ufa for a compensation for Barrandov during the war years. He won the case and received 380,000 marks in 1955. After a period in Import-Export, and unfortunate involvement in a restaurant Goldene Stadt, he opened his own restaurant Zur Stadt Prag in Munich in 1963. He died in Munich on 23rd February 1968, leaving his family 171 marks.
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