According to the original play by Dusan Kovacevic, the Topalovic family members are the following ages: Pantelija is 150,Maksimilijan is 126, Aksentije is 102, Milutin is 79, Laki is 44, and Mirko is 24.
In the scene where Olja gives old Maksimilijan a bath, him pulling her into the tub with him wasn't in the script. It was a prank that actor Milivoje 'Mica' Tomic pulled on actress Melita Bihali, and director Slobodan Sijan, who knew about it beforehand, left it in the film.
When Djenka arrives at the Topalovic home for the last time, he is first being chased by a stray dog and then when he knocks at the door the glass from the door collapses and crashes in front of him. Neither of these scenes were scripted or planned, but the actor Bora Todorovic's reactions were so natural that the scenes remained in film.
In a scene when Laki describes the crematoria as "the future", Djenka confirms it by claiming that he saw it on his previous trip to Germany. This is an obvious allusion on the first Nazi concentration camps, as well as on the centuries-long Serbian characteristic of looking to Germany's new tendencies.
The film is based on a popular play by Dusan Kovacevic, which was enacted in Belgrade in the early 1970s. The play was originally set in 1972, but Kovacevic decided to move the story of the movie to the 1930s, to get a darker, "gangster" feel, more suitable to its dark comedy.