The Junk Shop
1965 film by Juraj Herz
The Junk Shop (Czech: Sběrné surovosti) is a 1965 Czechoslovak comedic short film directed by Juraj Herz, based on a story by Bohumil Hrabal called Baron Prasil. It is the very first film made by the director. Though his very first film, it displays his knack for bizarre, disquieting and creepy visuals that will become more prominent throughout his career. This film was originally intended to be part of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep but it was excluded due to its running time being too long. The film follows a group of comical patrons and shopkeepers at a local junk shop, including Hanta (Václav Halama), the titular Baron Prasil, a pervert, comedian and scoundrel who is missing his front teeth, his boss Bohoušek (František Ketzek), a straight man who is constantly aggravated by the odd personalities at his shop and Mařenka ( Bobina Maršatová ), a beautiful woman who lives on the next floor who Bohoušek admires. Hedvicka is another young woman Bohoušek admires though she offends him when she mentions the scale he steps on lists his weight as 364 pounds. "Cleo" is another patron, an older Hindu woman with facial hair growing in who constantly irritates Bohoušek with tales of her former youth and beauty. The cast is largely non-professional actors which is not unusual for the Czech new wave.
Cast
Václav Halama as Hanta
Frantisek Ketzek as Bohoušek
Bobina Maršatová as Mařenka
Libuse Palecková as Pepicek's angry mother
Plot
Bohoušek works at his junk shop dealing with very odd people all day. He mentions he would like to win a car in the new contest.
“The Junk Shop” enters the record as 1965 film by Juraj Herz. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Junk, Shop and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7429555. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Junk Shop” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.