Death of the Black King

Following the TV series Hříšní lidé města pražského (The Sinful People of Prague, 1968), director Jiří Sequens and screenwriter Jiří Marek revisited the Prague of the 1930s to create four crime comedies. The plot of this 1971 film focuses on a murder investigation team led by executive Vacátko. Like the previous features Pěnička a Paraplíčko (Burglar and Umbrella, 1970), Partie Krásného dragouna (Game of a Handsome Dragoon, 1970) and Vražda v hotelu Excelsior (Murder in the Excelsior Hotel, 1971), Smrt černého krále (The Death of the Black King, 1971) draws on the book Panoptikum hříšných (The Freak Show of Sinners) by Jiří Marek. Vacátko and his colleagues, Bouše and Brůžek, investigate the deadly robbery of money collector Král, who is entangled in a case of embezzlement. Jaroslav Marva, Josef Bláha and Josef Vinklář portray the First Republic police investigators in this routine feature film. Vlastimil Brodský plays Král, while his real-life wife Jana Brejchová stars as the collector’s daughter Magda.