Teresa (film)

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Movie
German title Teresa
Original title Teresa
Country of production United States
original language English , Italian
Publishing year 1951
length 100 (German), 102 (original) minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Fred Zinnemann
script Stewart star
production Arthur M. Loew Jr.
music Louis Applebaum
camera William Miller
cut David Kummins
Frank Sullivan
occupation

Teresa (Alternate title: The story of a bride ) is a 1950 by Fred Zinnemann turned and on April 5, 1951 New York City premiered American society drama with Pier Angeli and John Ericson starring a young American-Italian love couple at the beginning difficult hurdles to overcome in his marriage. The film opened in the Federal Republic of Germany on November 30, 1951.

action

New Yorker Philip Cass, soft and weak in decision-making, is a GI who has returned from the European battlefields of World War II and can no longer find his way back home in the USA. His mother is extremely dominant and patronizes him. He despises his level-headed, calm father, who is regularly killed by his mother, as a weakling. The family lives in poor conditions in a cramped rear building. As a “souvenir” from Europe, Cass follows the very pretty and very young Italian Teresa, a war bride whom he married on site in Italy and who hopes for a better future at the side of an American.

Across from a psychologist in New York, Cass recalls why his life seems so messy. In Italy his constant fears of life held him in a stranglehold. His unit encountered a German patrol while advancing. Cass lost her nerve and put his own people in extreme danger. In the hospital he was certified as having an anxiety neurosis. When he woke up there, he was informed that his GI comrade Sgt. Dobbs had been killed as a result of Cass's loud panic attacks, which had warned the German patrol. Cass met Teresa in the village where his unit was quartered. The shy, fearful American soon fell in love with the delicate, but much stronger-willed Italian, and they married.

Back in New York, the new civilian Cass soon finds himself in the mill of everyday life. He can't find a job. His mother mocks Philip's father and contemptuously calls him “such a jellyfish”. Sue clings to the son she adores in hysterics. Only Philips little sister Susan appears in the severely disturbed family as a happy, carefree person. He hides the marriage that had already been concluded in Italy from his mother, who has very specific ideas about Philip's future wife, in order to avoid any conflict with her. When the mother accidentally discovers a wedding photo of the two of them before Teresa's arrival in America, she has a hysterical screaming fit.

Arrived in New York and picked up by Philip at the port, the war bride is a little disappointed. She hadn't expected the family's poor accommodation, her mother-in-law welcomed her with cramped friendliness. Teresa urges her largely unknown husband to be more proactive. She finally wants her own apartment, "get away from the many people and get away from her ..." (meaning the mother-in-law), as she confesses to Philip with a touch of desperation. Philip's mother, however, begins to bind her son to herself by all means. When he wants to apply for a job as a representative, she laughs at him in front of Teresa: "I think you will never be a representative". Teresa protects Philip from her and is then subtly sniffed by her mother-in-law: “I don't know why you're driving him, Teresa. Always drifting, drifting Teresa. "

While Philips' first efforts as a representative then actually fail and he returns home completely depressed, Teresa learns from her gynecologist that she is pregnant. A family trip to the sea together turns into a disaster. Tormented by his memories of his war experiences, harassed by his supermother and full of contempt for the weak father, in whom Philip believes he is recognizing himself more and more, he runs away one evening during a trip to the beach. When he returns home drunk, Teresa gives him an ultimatum. She wants to go, and immediately. When she revealed that she was expecting a child from him, he replied that now was an inopportune time. He's so weak-willed that he just lets his wife go. Teresa takes the initiative and actually leaves him.

Philip finally realizes that he has to change his life. His mother puts tremendous pressure on him when he finally decides to move out. She begs and screams: "Do you want to kill me?" The supposedly weak father proves to be sensible and encourages his son to finally take his life into his own hands. Philip takes a job. Philip's father finds out which clinic Teresa is in for delivery and informs his son about it. Together they rush to the hospital. Some time later, the young couple left the clinic with their newborn child in their arms and moved into their first apartment together.

Production notes

Zinnemann shot his drama, next to William Wyler's masterpiece The Best Years of Our Lives , another excellent example of a film about the Lost Generation , who after returning from the war can no longer find their way in civil life at home in the USA, in semi-documentary style at original locations ( Italy, New York). As in The Drawn, he includes naturalistic and veristic stylistic elements - here: the Italian deserts of rubble as a result of the war and the cramped structural driftiness of the New York lower class - as a strong point in the plot. The credibility and realism of his story is increased, among other things, by the fact that Zinnemann allows all dialogues between the Italian actors to be conducted in the original language at the beginning of the film.

Fred Zinnemann, who has repeatedly worked with debutants - such as Marlon Brando in Die Männer - gave the native German John Ericson his first film role here. Pier Angeli made her English-language film debut in Teresa and then stayed in Hollywood . Rod Steiger , who can be seen in one of the first scenes as the psychologist Frank, also made his debut in front of the camera in Teresa .

Arthur Hayes and Stewart Stern received an Oscar nomination for their story .

At a re-performance in the Federal Republic of Germany, the film received the second title The Story of a Bride .

The FSK released the film from the age of 12.

criticism

The reviews of this semi-documentary film were almost consistently positive. Zinnemann's empathy in drawing the characters and his instinct for the choice of authentic locations were praised.

The film's large lexicon of people described Teresa as a “cautious self-discovery drama” and praised the acting power of the main actors, especially the Ericsons: “John Ericson gave an impressive performance by a weak-willed young man who, disgusted by his ineffective father, in which he sees his reflection, cannot break away from the dominant mother and thereby endangers his still young and extremely fragile marriage to an Italian soldier's bride ”.

Halliwell's Film Guide found Teresa : "Careful, sensitive, intelligent variation on a problem frequently considered by films of this period."

The Lexicon of International Films praised Teresa : “Even more convincing than the psychologizing act is the unconventional, undisguised view of American reality. Careful in image, dialogue and representation, Zinnemann's film is just as sensitive in its loathing of war. "

Only the Movie & Video Guide complained a little: "Intriguing, but superficially told, story of WW2 veteran Ericson who returns to US with his Italian bride, encountering home town prejudice".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kay Less : The large personal dictionary of the film . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 2: C - F. John Paddy Carstairs - Peter Fritz. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 577.
  2. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, p. 999, New York 1989
  3. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films, Volume 5, p. 2658. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987
  4. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1305

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