Alfons Zitterbacke (film)

Movie
Original title	Alfons trembling cheek
Country of production	GDR
original language	German
Publishing year	1966
length	68 (87) minutes
Age rating	FSK 6
Rod
Director	Konrad Petzold
script	Joachim Düring Konrad Petzold Werner Beck (Dramaturgy)
production	DEFA , Artistic Working Group "Berlin"
music	Gerhard Rosenfeld
camera	Eberhard Borkmann
cut	Thea Richter
occupation
Helmut Rossmann : Alfons Zitterbacke Claudia Mögenburg : Micki Günther Simon : Father trembling cheek Angela Brunner : Mother trembling cheek Helge Vollbrecht : Mäxchen Uwe Pietsch : Peter Wolfgang Behrendt : Bruno Detlef Wallenschuß : Detlef Erik S. Klein : Alfred Evamaria Bath : Alfred's wife Marion Niklaus : Ilse Alois Herrmann : Grandpa Thielecke Werner Lierck : owner of the ghost train Hans-Edgar Stecher : truck driver Werner Kamenik : Gas station attendant Otto Zedler : counter clerk Hans Maikowski : Policeman Else Wolz : Woman in the ghost train Beate Hanspach : receptionist in the outpatient clinic Horst Jonischkan : Teacher Giertzig Sina Fiedler : woman in the tram Horst Kube : Carousel Man Justus Fritzsche : Policeman Fredy Barten : Man with a fruit box Nico Turoff : Dentist Trude Brentina : Mrs Deep Drink

Alfons Zitterbacke is a children's film of the DEFA from the year 1966th

action

Ten-year-old Alfons Zitterbacke goes to the fair with his best friend Micki. There he has to prove his courage in front of her because a classmate teases him that he is afraid of going into the ghost train. On the journey in it, Alfons is afraid and causes chaos.

Alfons is not always understood by those around him and it seems to him that he is haunted by bad luck. In particular, it annoys him that his surname is repeatedly made fun of. When he mentions his dissatisfaction with the name to his father, the latter is angry with his son. Alfons can never please his father in other ways either, be it fishing or diving. It turns out, however, that Alfons is soon better than him in some ways.

Only Micki always sticks to him, even if she can't always understand his ideas. So Alfonso decides, for example, cosmonaut to be, and invents a kind of cosmonaut training. The tests include, among other things, “cosmonaut food”: Alfons assumes that cosmonauts do not consume solid food during the space flight, but only eat from tubes, and tries mustard, toothpaste and anchovy paste . He also tries to train for weightlessness - through ten continuous laps on the chain carousel. Ultimately, he stuffs cotton wool in his ears to find out what it's like to hear nothing more. This leads u. a. conflicts in school because communication is not working. Even Micki is gradually finding Alfons too strenuous that he has to continue with his training alone.

Finally, the two of them set off to Moscow to enter the cosmonaut school there. You have enough money for a short train ride within the GDR . Then a truck driver takes them with him, who quickly notices that the children have run away from home. While he is on the phone with the police, the two runaways flee. Eventually she finds Alfons' father and drives her home. But Alfons is not discouraged by mishaps and already has new imaginative ideas.

production

Jena served as the backdrop for the film , including the north school in Dornburger Strasse, which still exists today. The Zitterbacke family's apartment was located in the city center on the historic Eichplatz / Johannisstrasse , which was demolished in 1968/69 and where the JenTower (popularly called the Uniturm or “biscuit roll”) now stands. Only the houses in Johannisstrasse are still standing today. The bronze sculpture “Playing Children” can also be found in the immediate vicinity, but no longer in a fountain, but on a separate base. The scholarly monument was a set of scenery specially made for the film. The outdoor pool scenes were filmed in the Pankow summer pool in Berlin.

The film premiered on February 27, 1966 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin . By 1998 the film saw 2,565,125 visitors.

The film was based on the children's books of the same name by Gerhard Holtz-Baumert . Individual episodes of the books were used for the film, but new people were also invented. The finished film was shortened by approx. 20 minutes in response to the “ Kahlschlag-Plenum ” at the end of 1965, because scenes no longer seemed appropriate under the changed conditions. This concerned u. a. the episode that involuntarily led Alfons Zitterbacke to the dentist's chair, which was criticized as undidactic. In protest, director Konrad Petzold had his name removed from the opening credits of the film.

criticism

"An episodic children's film that only approaches the originality of the humorous-satirical original."

- film service

literature

• F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 24-25 .

Web links

• Alfons Zitterbacke in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Alfons Zitterbacke at filmportal.de
• Alfons Zitterbacke at the DEFA Foundation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Eichplatz and the colors black-red-gold: Saturday is the day of the city's history. In: jena.otz.de
2. ↑ Michael Pilz: "Alfons Zitterbacke": How to remake an Eastern classic - film start and trailer . April 11, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed April 12, 2019]).
3. ↑ Habel, p. 25.
4. ↑ Alfons trembling cheek. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .