An aging Jewish doctor is forbidden to practice medicine in Prague during the Nazi occupation. He is employed in a warehouse as a clerk, cataloguing confiscated Jewish property. When a partisan is wounded, the doctor reluctantly agrees to treat him. The doctor hides him in his run-down apartment buiding as he sneaks through the black-market underworld of Prague in search of morphine to ease the man's pain, ever fearful of informant neighbors and vigilant authorities. Within a historical context, director Zbyn*ek Brynych creates a thinly-disguised allegory about contemporary communist Czechoslovakia that is rich in atmosphere and dark in tone. The expressionist cinematography and stellar performances make this lost masterwork an unforgettable viewing experience.