At the age of 28, Jiri Menzel's debut feature, "Closely Watched Trains" (1966), one of the important films of the Czech New Wave, was award the Best Foreign-Language Academy Award. Menzel's vision combined a devotion to the poetry of the commonplace with his own special brand of slapstick.Menzel's first outing as a director was the episode, "The Death of Mr. Baltazar," in "Pearls of the Deep" (1965), devoted to the work of Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal. Another episodic film, based on works by writer Josef Skvorecky, featured a Menzel-directed title episode, "Crime at the Girls School" (1965),
