Mistress of the Dead City
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Mistress of the Dead City |
| Original title | Yellow sky |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1948 |
| length | 96 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | William A. Wellman |
| script |
WR Burnett Lamar Trotti |
| production | Lamar Trotti |
| music | Alfred Newman |
| camera | Joseph MacDonald |
| occupation | |
| |
Mistress of the Dead City (original title: Yellow Sky , alternative title Nevada and - in Austria - glowing earth ) is an American western film by the director William A. Wellman . The leading roles are played by Gregory Peck , Anne Baxter and Richard Widmark . First performance day was February 1, 1949. The plot is probably inspired by The Tempest by William Shakespeare .
action
Arizona , 1867: A group of outlaws rob a bank in a small town. The outlaws are led by Stretch and Dude. On their escape from the cavalry they find themselves in a salt desert. The first differences arise after dividing the small prey.
At the end of the salt desert, as a last resort, they discover a dead gold mining town , which was formerly called 'Yellow Sky', as a last resort before dying of thirst . Only an old man and his granddaughter Constance Mae, called Mike, still live here. The old man has a considerable amount of gold buried somewhere, which the gang learns pretty quickly. The old gold prospector and his granddaughter are supposed to dispute their hard-earned treasure. Stretch, who fell in love with the girl, takes the “fair” point of view of sharing. The opposing party leader, dude, wants it all.
In the meantime, the Apaches occupy the abandoned city, but the old man manages to persuade the Indians to withdraw. The bandits split into two camps after they cannot agree and finally attack each other. Because Dude wants the gold for himself, there is a final exchange of fire in the saloon, which Stretch can win.
Stretch eventually returns the stolen money to the bank and rides off with Mike, the old man, and the two surviving gang members.
Synchronizations
In 1950, Kaudel Film GmbH Berlin produced the first dubbing for the cinema, directed by Karl Metzner, based on a dialogue book by Erika Görner . Berliner Synchron GmbH produced a second synchronization in 1964 under the dialogue direction by Dietmar Behnke based on a dialogue book by Fritz A. Koeniger .
| role | actor | Voice actor 1950 | Voice actor 1964 |
|---|---|---|---|
| James 'Stretch' Dawson | Gregory Peck | Friedrich Joloff | Gert Günther Hoffmann |
| Constance Mae 'Mike' | Anne Baxter | ? | Claudia Brodzinska |
| Dude | Richard Widmark | Bruno Fritz | Michael Chevalier |
| Lengthy | John Russell | ? | Hans Walter Clasen |
| Half pint | Harry Morgan | Dietrich Frauboes | Arne Elsholtz |
| grandfather | James Barton | Walter Werner | Heinz Klevenow |
| Bull Run | Robert Arthur | ? | Alexander Welbat |
| walrus | Charles Kemper | ? | Rainer Brandt |
criticism
According to the lexicon of international film, the "masterfully staged film [...] merges the mythical elements of the Western with careful psychological drawings into a powerful fable about the conflict between good and evil."
Variety magazine praised Wellman's direction as "energetic"; he manages to bring out the suspense and action elements of the plot. Peck, who shines in his role, is also praised.
The Illustrierte Film-Bühne raved: “An adventure film full of greed and passion. Great shots from the salt desert. And a delicious, reconciling ending. "
Bertrand Tavernier emphasized the “careful” composition of each shot and noted that the “successful endeavor to achieve beauty” placed “a poetic sheen on the film.” The staging ensured that “in the course of the action, the decor became more important” "As the human beings who live in it". Amazingly, “because of this, the characters do not become impoverished”, but instead gain “such strength and a profile that they would be removed from any banality”: “Every blow and every duel is possessed by a ruthless violence, inhuman anger, which is hardly possible ever saw: The shot at a lizard seems like the prelude to a general massacre; The fatally wounded Widmark ran gold instead of blood, the horses break in again and again on a ground that cannot even carry a human. "
Uwe Nettelbeck regrets that the film “does not always keep what it promises with its grandiose beginning” and continues: “These scenes - the bank robbery and the chase into the salt desert, then the tired men in the middle of a vast, merciless landscape, the The brutality with which this is shown - must without a doubt be counted among the few in the genre who decisively outclass the usual average. "
In the period from 1972 is to be read, the film there is "actually consists of two beautiful Western. The first, bank robbery and escape into the desert, has been copied in its montage from all later desert dramas. The second part: reaching the abandoned gold digger village, the treasure of the veterans, purification of the hero and reckoning, has a poor stand compared to the formal rigor of the first part, but culminates in one of the most amazing showdowns in the western world. "
Awards
At the International Film Festival of Locarno of 1949, William A. Wellman named best director. A year later, the American Screenwriters Union ( WGA ) awarded Lamar Trotti the award for the best script for an American western.
literature
- Joe Hembus : The Western Lexicon. 1567 films from 1894 to the present day . [With a foreword by Sergio Leone . Extended new edition by Benjamin Hembus .] (= Heyne Filmbibliothek . No. 32/207). Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1995 [first edition 1976], ISBN 3-453-08121-8 , p. 456.
Web links
- Yellow Sky in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Yellow Sky in the AFI Catalog of Feature Films of the American Film Institute (English)
- Mistress of the Dead City in the German dubbing file , first version from 1950 for the cinema
- Mistress of the Dead City in the German dubbing file , second version from 1964
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tony Howard: Shakespeare's cinematic offshoots . In: Russell Jackson (Ed.): The Cambridge companion to Shakespeare on film . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-68501-6 , pp 303-323, here 305 and 315 of excerpts Digitalisat
- ^ [Entry] Mistress of the Dead City [1. Synchro 1950] . In: Deutsche Synchronkartei (http://www.synchronkartei.de/?action=show&type=film&id=6185, accessed on March 29, 2016); and: [entry] mistress of the dead city . In: Synchrondatenbank ( synchrondatenbank.de ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice . March)
- ↑ See: [Entry] Mistress of the Dead City [2. Synchro 1964] . In: German synchronous index ( synchronkartei.de ( Memento of the original of 4 November 2015, Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested Please review the original and archive link under. Instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved on 29 March 2016); and: [Entry] Mistress of the Dead City (new) - Nevada . In: Synchrondatenbank ( synchrondatenbank.de ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice . March 2016).
- ↑ Mistress of the Dead City in the Lexicon of International Films .
- ^ "The direction by William A. Wellman is vigorous, potently emphasizing every element of suspense and action, and displaying the cast to the utmost advantage. […] Peck shines as the outlaw leader ”. Review: 'Yellow Sky'. In: Variety , December 31, 1947 [recte 1948?]; quoted from: variety.com (accessed March 29, 2016).
- ↑ Mistress of the Dead City . In: Illustrierte Film-Bühne , No. 1052 ( film program booklet ), Munich 1950.
- ↑ Bertrand Tavernier. In: Études Cinématographiques . Quoted from the German translation of a longer passage in: Joe Hembus: Das Western-Lexikon. 1567 films from 1894 to the present day . [Extended new edition by Benjamin Hembus.] (= Heyne Film Library . No. 32/207). Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1995 [first edition 1976], ISBN 3-453-08121-8 , p. 456.
- ^ UN [Uwe Nettelbeck]: Film - about William A. Wellman. In: Die Zeit , No. 26/1964.
- ↑ BB [Barbara Buhl?]: Film tips - worth seeing . In: Die Zeit , No. 3/1972 (short review on Mistress of the Dead City ). The abbreviation B. B. was attributed to Barbara Buhl , as it can be found in: Thomas Koebner with the assistance of Kerstin-Luise Neumann (ed.): Film classics. Descriptions and comments (= RUB No. 9414–9418). 4 volumes. Reclam, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-15-030011-8 , Volume 1, p. 17.
