During his teens Schránil was expelled from high school in Prague and was sent to study in Germany and later in Dijon, France.

After the recommendation from his cousin, a well-known film director Karl Anton, he was hired in Vlasta Burian's theatre in 1935.

During the German occupation he started his own cinema in Chotětov, which he patriotically named Vlast (lit."Homeland").

[1] Schránil was a member of the Czechoslovak resistance and he help two escaped British POWs to hide until the end of the war.

After the communist coup in 1948 he was put on the blacklist because of his bourgeois origin and was only able to perform with a small touring theatre company.