Ninety Degrees in the Shade

Ninety Degrees in the Shade
Ninety Degrees in the Shade
	Film poster
Directed by	Jiří Weiss
Written by	Jiří Weiss; David Mercer; Jiří Mucha;
Produced by	Raymond Stross
Starring	James Booth; Anne Heywood;
Cinematography	Bedřich Baťka
Edited by	Jan Chaloupek; Russell Lloyd;
Music by	Luděk Hulan
Production; companies	Filmové studio Barrandov; Raymond Stross Productions;
Distributed by	Unger Films (US)
Release date	1 October 1965 (Czechoslovakia);
Running time	78 minutes (Czech cut); 90 minutes (English cut);
Countries	United Kingdom; Czech Republic;
Languages	English; Czech;

Ninety Degrees in the Shade (Czech: Třicet jedna ve stínu) is a 1965 British-Czech drama film directed by Jiří Weiss.^[1]

Plot

It's very hot, putting a strain on everyone. A beautiful woman works in a shop in Czechoslovakia during the Communist era. She is in the late, disillusioned stages of an affair with a married man. Two government inspectors arrive to carry out an audit. The shop sells expensive alcoholic drinks. One inspector is relaxed, an old hand, but the other is a newcomer and meticulous. The heroine's boyfriend has stolen some bottles with her compliance. She manages to hide this from the meticulous inspector during the first day of the inspection. That night she and her boyfriend raise money and buy bottles to replace those he stole. That night also, we see the unhappy home life of the meticulous inspector - his alcoholic wife and lazy son. We are led to wonder if he has feelings for the heroine (the shop worker). On the second day of the inspection, the relaxed inspector of the pair drops a bottle and it breaks, leading to the discovery that almost all the bottles have had their contents stolen and are filled with tea. The film ends with an ambiguous act by the heroine, her motives unclear.