90 Degrees in the Shade DVD, 1965

A rare gem of a film that was a British/Czech co-production, 90 Degrees in the Shade was filmed in Prague before the Soviet clampdown of 1968 and nominated for the 1966 Golden Globe award for Best English Foreign Language film. Vorell (James Booth) is a flighty married man with little concern for anyone other than himself. He has recently ended an affair with co-worker, Alena (Anne Heywood), the manageress of a liquor store in communist Prague, but when a government inspector, Mr Kurka (Rudolf Hrusínský), arrives to check their inventory, it soon becomes apparent that Vorell is running a scam to sell liquor on the black market.

Scared for his job and reputation Vorell leans on Alena, reigniting their affair under the watchful and lecherous eyes of the emasculated Mr Kurka, whose wife (Ann Todd) is an alcoholic unwilling to have sex with him. As the temperature of Prague’s summer reaches ninety degrees in the shade, the heat of lust and envy in the liquor store inevitably leads to violence and death…

Directed by Jiri Weiss (Romeo, Juliet and Darkness).