- A volunteer fire department throws a party for their former boss with the whole town invited, but nothing goes as planned.
- The volunteer fire department in a small town is having a big party when the ex-boss of the department celebrates his 86th birthday. The whole town is invited but things don't go as planned. Someone is stealing the prizes to the lottery and the candidates for the Miss Fire-Department beauty contest are neither willing nor particularly beautiful.—Mattias Thuresson
- The members of a Czechoslovakian town's volunteer fire brigade have organized a ball for the town, it which will include lotteries for a number of prizes that are prominently displayed on a table, the prizes guarded by one of their elderly members. At the center of the ball will be a presentation made to the now eighty-six year old former chair of the brigade of an ornamental ax. While they have long thought about giving him such a gift for his service, they don't want the appearance that they are only doing so now because he has cancer, the diagnosis about which they know but something they believe he himself has not been told. With a photograph in hand of all the young ladies of the town, most of who are at the ball, the "entertainment committee" comes up with an idea to hold a beauty pageant, choosing only eight of the young ladies in attendance to compete - they scanning the room to make their selections - with the ultimate winner of the pageant having the honor of making the presentation of the ax to the former chair. As the evening progresses, one thing after another goes wrong with the ball itself, with the organizers determined to go on as planned, even as disaster of a nature associated with them strikes outside of their four walls.—Huggo
- Key to understanding this movie is Milos Forman's own filmed "introduction" where he responds with faux seriousness to "the protests by firemen around the country and around the world" to his movie. He begins saying, "well you know it's really about firemen, it's about society ..." and then stops, smiles and says "But you know what? It _really is_ about Firemen." This movie was made in the last years before the beginning of the Prague Spring ...
Now for the plot. A group of firemen at a station in a nondescript town somewhere in (still Communist) Czechoslovakia decides to honor its retiring chief at the upcoming firemen's ball. The planning committee for dance is hoping to put on a good dance, livening things up with a few small innovations. A raffle of prizes is promised as well as beauty pageant.
Well, the committee proves to have no idea how to run a beauty pageant and as the dance continues the door prizes progressively get stolen. Finally, a fire strikes a house near the station. Distracted by the dance, the firefighters can't even get the fire truck out to the fire in time. The older man and his family who had lived in the house that has now largely burned down is found simply praying the "Our Father" as the helpless and rather embarrassed firefighters stand helplessly by...
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