Josef Abrham’s role in Vrchní, flee! almost didn’t get: Pro…

Perhaps the most well-known and popular audience role played by the recently deceased actor Josef Abrhám in the 1980s is the role of Dalibor Crow, a bookseller, in the legendary film Vrchní, prchni !. But few people know that Zdeněk Svěrák, who wrote the screenplay for the film, initially saw a completely different face in the role of the impostor. But the director Ladislav Smoljak had the last word.

Today, the cult comedy Vrchní, flee! is one of the most valuable jewels of Czech cinema, and rightly so. The film about the bookseller Dalibor Vrán, who definitely solves his bad financial situation by becoming a fake waiter and collects the expenses of guests of various Prague restaurants in his pocket, the audience still loves after forty years since its launch. And not only because of the elaborate story and inimitable comic situations, but mainly thanks to the amazing Josef Abrhám, who perfectly portrayed Dalibor Crow. Originally, however, the title tasks were to be performed by someone completely different.

Zdeněk Svěrák wanted Petr Nárožný

Actor and screenwriter Zdeněk Svěrák interviewed for Czech radio Hear that when writing the screenplay for the movie Chief, Flee! he saw Petr Nárožný in the title role. “When the screenplay reached Láď Smoljak as a director, he chose Pepík Abrham as a comedian, his inconspicuous comedian suited him better,” Svěrák let himself be heard, who absolutely did not regret the director’s decision. “He was a comedian without grimace and intonation. He knew that the text was comical itself – and it was enough to say it properly, “he added.

It hasn’t been him in a long time

Of course, Josef Abrham’s death affected not only Czech film fans, but also his loved ones and his colleagues. Many of them already knew that the end was near. In the end, many of them try to find a positive side when he goes to acting. “It’s the pain we’re feeling now. ‘But Josef Abrham has not been Josef Abrham as we knew him for a long time, so let’s say he’s with Libuška again,” Svěrák said sadly.

Actor Josef Abrhám was very ill in the last years of his life. He was even in a wheelchair most of the time. When his wife Libuše Šafránková died last June, his world collapsed. He met his lifelong love on the other side less than a year after her death.

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