Milos Forman's 1963 debut BLACK PETER presages the Czech director's lifelong thematic obsession with precocious, disgruntled outsiders waging war against social conformity and authoritarianism (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, AMADEUS, THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT). This time the protagonist is Petr (Ladislav Jakim), a sullen Czech teenager seeking solace in the dancehalls of Bohemia after being forced by his overbearing father (Jan Vostrcil) to take a demeaning job spying on potential shoplifters at a grocery store. Both a darkly comic observation of adolescence and a subtle allegory of Communism's intrusive politics, this influential film ushered in a Czech New Wave that flourished until the Soviet invasion forced Forman and other dissident intellectuals into exile.