Froma Zeitlin The Fifth Horseman is Fear is one of those remarkable classics of the Czech so-called New Wave film making, until it was suppressed by the Communist government (and this film, incidentally was banned there). This is one of my most favorite films and I have been waiting and waiting for it to become available (it used to be distributed by Orion Films). Finally, the DVD was issued, and I discovered that one of the key scenes is omitted. This scene, the protagonist's visit to a Nazi brothel (in the course of his search for morphine for the wounded resistance fighter) was one of the original highlights of an already wonderful film. So what happened? Was it censored in the copy that the DVD people used? If anyone has any information about this or as to how I can find the "real" thing, I'd be grateful.

Timothy Damon A prophecy in Zechariah 6: 1-3 mentions red horses, black horses, white horses, and grey horses riding out into the world with no real mention of their riders. But in Revelation 6:2-7 in a description of the Apocalypse the riders are given some characteristics: the white horse has a rider with a bow who "went out conquering and to conquer"; the rider of the red horse takes peace from the earth and is given a great sword; the rider on the black horse has a balance and illustrates the calamitous rise in prices of scarce and necessary food; and the rider of the pale horse's name is Death.Any type of war engenders cruelties. But when hope is displaced by fear, survival is surely threatened. As a fellow doctor tells Dr. Braun, in search of morphine to abate the pain of a wounded man on whom he has operated "We have up to 20 Jewish suicides a day - we manage to save most of them." Certainly a society that has placards proliferating everywhere admonishing "Inform promptly and accurately and insure your own safety," along with the 44811 informer number to call would not give much cause for hope. But Dr. Braun does not seem to give up hope completely - even when all is dark he says "A man is as he thinks - you can't change that." And yet Dr. Braun is assailed by fear also. More than once we hear martial music without seeing a band and Dr. Braun also sees a man with some sort of van who is there one moment and gone the next. Do we see what we fear most? It's hard to tell.I found the musical score very intriguing - starting off before the opening credits was a brass fanfare, merging into flutes and then saxophones (and/or other reed instruments) and then back to brass and flutes throughout the opening credit sequences against a backdrop of massed notices on walls. The succession of one type of instrument being replaced by another was continued throughout the film.I was limited to what the different wall placards were saying by occasional subtitles. It would have been interesting to know if the placards dealt with more than just informing. There was one word seen repeatedly - it seemed to start out "PYSA" or "PYHLA" or perhaps "PYKASRA" - the font type made it difficult to decipher . . . and my Czech is rather minimal, ah no . ..The film music ends much as it began with brass playing to images of trains, then flute and then brass with images of cars then more flutes followed by piano with views of crowds and then ending with the brass section again."Death's a trifle if it's not my own."But Dr. Braun carries on as best he can - "A man is as he thinks - you can't change that."

honza-tesa Really great Czech film of the 60´s. I think the best picture by the director Zbynek Brynych. Armin Braun (performed by Miroslav Machacek) is a doctor of Jewish origin. In spite of the fact he could be killed by the Nazis and the whole block-of-flat with him, he is performing an operation of an injured revolter. While the operation is finished he has to find morphine to give it to the revolter because of big pains he has after the medical help.We can see the excellent performance of Miroslav Machacek in the monologue part (by the way which lasts 3 minutes!!) in which he is deciding to help or not to help. I can recommend this movie to everyone who likes great acting in a good story.

LONNISAN I remember seeing this film when I was much younger and was so taken / moved by it that I've been trying to find it to own. The depiction of the main character's descent into near madness by the evil Nazi occupiers is probably one of the finest performances ever! This movie should DEFINITELY be taped and released as soon as possible.