Taking Pleasure Until Broad Day

The literary output of Vladimír Páral offered interesting inspiration for both seventies and eighties filmmakers. Antonín Kachlík was one director who adapted Páral material for the screen. In 1978, he directed Radost až do rána (Taking Pleasure Until Broad Day), a relationship drama set in Most, north Bohemia, and founded on a screenplay written in collaboration with the author. The humorous narration tells the story of unsuccessful student Viola and former train guard Kazan Neburka. Neither protagonist has a job or money, neither tries to give meaning to life. The dream of having a car as a means of escape from cruel reality merely remains an illusion. But finally, the couple have to face reality… This film, in which Páral humorously affirms the conformism and consumer reality of the 1970s, responded to the public appetite. Kachlík cast Eva Tučková (Viola) and Josef Somr (Kazan), who appeared in the first cinematic adaptation of Páral – Hynek Bočan’s Soukromá vichřice (Private Gale, 1967).