Lemonade Joe 1964

In the frontier town of Stetson City in 1885, business is booming at the Trigger Whisky Saloon. Tornado Lou, Květa Fialová, belts out a sultry ballad that draws in the patrons, while the saloon’s owner, Doug Badman, Rudolf Princ, tries in vain to win her attention. Two evangelists, Ezra Goodman, Bohuš Záhorský, and his daughter Winnifred, Olga Schoberová, step into the bar to drum up interest in their temperance movement, but the hard-drinking cowboys aren’t listening. Into this clash of saloon culture and reform bursts a stranger: Lemonade Joe, Karel Fiala, a lone cowboy who sings the praises of Kolaloka, a non-alcoholic soft drink (the Czech word for lemon soda, limonáda’s playful twist). Joe’s sharp gunplay and self-assured charm quickly convince the crowd to embrace teetotalism.

Joe teams up with the Goodmans, begins courting Winnifred, and soon the cowboys swing their support to a new, almost reverent Kolaloka saloon—“Arízona, to je pravých mužů zóna.” Yet Doug Badman’s fortunes take a turn with the arrival of his brother Horác, known as Hogofogo, the Master Criminal of the Wild West. In a dramatic public appearance, Hogofogo rallies the Kolaloka customers back to Trigger Whisky, and the old saloon streets are alive again with whisky-fueled chatter: > Whisky to je moje gusto.

Unaware of the new rival, Joe rides out across the prairie, following a mirage that hints at Hogofogo’s hidden plans for Winnifred. Joe’s quick rescue of Winnifred from Hogofogo’s clutches reveals a far odder twist: his account book—his professional records for Kolalok & Son—falls into her hands, exposing Joe as more than a white-hatted hero; he is a traveling salesman for Kolalok & Son. Winnifred’s reaction shifts from admiration to affection as she discovers the truth. Yet Tornado Lou—who has also fallen for Joe—imagines him as a dream lover who could make her “different, better.”

Back in town, Joe returns to the Kolalok-dominated saloon circuit and, with a flair for gunmanship, wins the customers away from whisky once more. Hogofogo, now in disguise, makes a second bid to shoot Joe, but the confrontation evolves into a chase through Stetson City as Joe tries to force Hogofogo to sign a testimonial in favor of Kolaloka. Hogofogo appears to have the upper hand with a swagger and Horácova polka, but Tornado Lou intervenes and attacks Hogofogo, saving Joe’s life. Joe, however, remains distracted by the business and romance dynamics around him, and dismisses Lou’s feelings.

As the plot thickens, Tornado Lou decides to aid the Badmans in luring Joe to his death. Hogofogo, now posing as a blind piano tuner, kidnaps Winnifred as bait to draw Joe to Dead Man’s Valley. There, Grimpo’s henchmen capture and torture Joe, but Lou’s renewed loyalty saves him again, reuniting him with Winnifred. Hogofogo lingers, waiting for his moment to strike, while Joe—at last moved by a sense of justice—compels Hogofogo to sign the testimonial. In a savage twist, Hogofogo ambushes Joe with gunfire and leaves him dead.

The town reels when Hogofogo reappears in Winnifred’s cemetery pursuit, and Tornado Lou, now resolute, stops him—only for Hogofogo to kill her. Doug Badman retaliates in vengeance, shooting Hogofogo, and Hogofogo, in a final act, takes Doug with him. In a startling turn of fate, Lemonade Joe returns alive and well. Studying the fallen trio’s birthmarks, he realizes they are his long-lost siblings, and he revives them with the same medicine that resurrected him: the miraculous Kolaloka. The curtain lifts on a happy ending as Mr. Kolalok himself, the owner of Kolalok & Son, arrives. Villains and heroes join forces and merge their businesses to create a new drink—Whiskola. With Winnifred and Joe now married, the entire Kolalok clan rides off into the sunset in a stagecoach as the town cheers, the barrier between temperance and temptation finally dissolving into a shared, celebratory future.