Adventure in the Red Sea

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Movie
Original title Adventure in the Red Sea
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1951
length 80 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Hans Hass
script Hans Hass
production Hans Haß-Filmproduktion, Vienna
music Bert reason
camera Hans Hass
Leo Rohrer
cut Ilse Selckmann-Wienecke
occupation

The film Adventure in the Red Sea is a documentary report with a feature film about the expedition of diving pioneer Hans Hass in 1950 to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. The thread of the plot is the search for the legendary manta and the approach to the whale shark . Lotte Hass plays the leading role . The film is one of the most important contributions to underwater film today .

action

Port Sudan is the starting point for the expedition to the Red Sea. Oppressive heat lies over the port city. In the middle of the hustle and bustle on the market square, Lotte Hass (at that time still assistant and not yet Hans Hass's wife) negotiating the price of fish - with her long blond hair and trousers, a very noticeable figure among Muslims. The locals crowd around them curiously.

The first days pass with small diving trips and excursions in the area. In the ruined city of Suakin, Lotte swims between the coral reefs and ensures that she can use a diving device like the other expedition members. You dive for mussels and corals, harpoon groupers, go on excursions to a bird island or take camels to a village.

Suddenly the adventure begins: the fisherman Machmoud reports on a legendary water monster that keeps the fishermen excited. Hass begins the search with a charter ship. At first encounters with sharks, the effect of in-depth sound recordings is tested. During a Johann Strauss waltz , schools of curious fish circle the loudspeaker. Even divers cannot escape the music: they dance an underwater ballet. Unnoticed by the group, Lotte discovered a shipwreck and found herself in a dangerous situation from which she was able to save herself.

Machmoud's “monsters” have finally been found: whale shark and manta. The giant whale shark hovers quietly in the water while the divers swim around it in a film, and can even touch it. These recordings make expedition and film an extraordinary experience. Lotte's life is in danger again. Two large manta rays are coming straight towards you! Eduard Wawrowetz in the boat pulls up the rifle and pulls the trigger. The projectile slams through the surface close to Lotte Hass and hits one of the aggressive animals. The monster roars directly over the fearless Lotte in an angry rage. Happy ending to the expedition.

background

The images above water were shot with the 35 mm Arriflex camera, the underwater images with 16 mm Siemens cameras. The film is in black and white throughout.

The expedition members played themselves in their respective roles. They were amateur actors , none of them had any acting experience.

Hass was able to sell the world rights to RKO Pictures . The German and English versions of the film differ in details, e.g. B. the opening scene on the market was minimally cut or cut. In addition, the English version appears to have been re-cut for the US audience. In the English version, the commentary is also spoken by Hans Hass himself.

The premiere in Germany was in September 1951; the Austrian premiere took place on September 21, 1951 in the “Urania”, Vienna.

Together with Hass' Menschen unter Haien (1951) and the works of Jacques-Yves Cousteau ( The Silent World , 1956; World Without Sun , 1964), adventure in the Red Sea is now one of the most important contributions in underwater films.

Awards

“Adventure in the Red Sea” received the International Prize for Long Documentary Films (“Premio Internazionale del Documentario di Lungo metraggio”) at the 2nd Mostra Internazionale del Film Scientifico e del Documentario d'Arte in Venice in 1951. This film festival for scientific, cultural and documentary films was a sub-category of the Venice International Film Festival until 1950, before it was spun off as an independent competition and run independently of the Venice Biennale .

The FBL awarded the film the title valuable , the State of Berlin declared it free of cultural taxes.

Dispute over fees

In the face of the great success that the film had worldwide, two of the expedition members felt they had been cheated. Both of them sued Hass at the Vienna Labor Court in early 1953 for payment of almost 95,000 schillings in fees and fees for their participation in the film. As a lawyer they chose the star lawyer and later Austrian Minister of Justice Christian Broda . The dispute was carried out in public, attracted a lot of attention and went through newspapers and gazettes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for weeks. Although Hass at first completely refused to conclude a settlement, it finally came about - Hass had to pay 40,000 schillings as a subsequent “hazard allowance”. When this amount was announced, a third participant also filed claims. In order to avoid a second lawsuit, Hass paid him a "hazard allowance" which covered all further claims.

Others

In 2007, Thomas Ballhausen dealt with the scientific and philosophical classification of the film “Adventure in the Red Sea” as part of the Vienna symposium “Boundaries of the Sea”.

literature

Michael Jung: Hans Hass. A lifetime on an expedition , Stuttgart, 1994

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans J. Wulff: Underwater film . In: Thomas Koebner : Reclams Sachlexikon des Films . Stuttgart: Reclam, 2007. - ISBN 978-3-15-010625-9 . Pp. 707-708.
  2. ^ Alfred Bauer : German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 169
  3. ↑ "Hate Chants". To the trial of Hans Hass. In: Stern, Gruner + Jahr Verlag, No. 12 of March 22, 1953, pp. 6-7.
  4. ^ Statement by Dr. Hans Hass on his Vienna trial. In: Die Tat, Zurich, August 9, 1953.
  5. ^ Ballhausen, Thomas: Under the water line: With the Austrian film on diving station . In: Boundaries of the Sea . Edited by Thomas Brandstetter, Karin Harrasser and Günther Friesinger. Vienna, 2010. ISBN 978-3-85-132569-0 . Pp. 201-215