When I was dead

Movie
Original title	When I was dead
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	1916
length	36 minutes
Rod
Director	Ernst Lubitsch
script	Ernst Lubitsch
production	Paul Davidson; for projection group "Union"
occupation
	Ernst Lubitsch : chess player Ernst; Luise Scheurich : Paula; Helene Voss : mother-in-law; Julius Falkenstein : Paula's admirer;

When I was dead is a German silent film in three acts by Ernst Lubitsch from 1916. The film premiered under the censorship title Wo ist mein Schatz? .

action

Despite protests from his wife Paula and his mother-in-law, Ernst spends the evening in a chess club . Revenge follows when he comes home one night: his mother-in-law has presented the chain and Ernst does not come to the apartment. He undresses in the stairwell, where he sleeps and the next day flies a resident of the house when he sees him - the clothes with which he had covered himself at night have disappeared. Back at the apartment, Ernst is soon driven away by his nasty mother-in-law. Since his wife also informs him in writing that one of them has to leave the apartment forever, he finally fakes suicide : In a letter to his wife he writes that he will kill himself and leaves the apartment. The next time he savored his newfound freedom, but soon got tired of it.

Paula and the mother-in-law are looking for a servant in an advertisement, and Ernst, who reads the advertisement in the newspaper in his club, applies for the post. Both promptly cease to be serious in disguise. With all sorts of tricks he manages to disgust Paula's new admirer out of the house. He reveals himself to Paula, who is mourning him, at the end when he has chased away the mother-in-law, and it comes to a happy ending.

production

When I was dead , in December 1915 the censors complained: He was banned from young people and had to be given the innocuous title Where is my treasure? be renamed, under which it had its premiere on February 25, 1916.

The film was until the 1990s as missing . Robert L. Carringer and Barry Sabath suspected in 1978 that When I Was Dead is identical to the silent film How I Was Murdered by Louis Ralph in 1915, although this was no longer considered in the 1980s due to various censorship dates, among other things . At the beginning of the 1990s, an almost complete copy of When I was dead was found in the Slovenska Kinoteka in Ljubljana and shown for the first time in 1995 at the Le Giornate del Cinema Muto silent film festival in Pordenone . A piece from the first act and the end with the reconciliation between Ernst and Paula are missing here. It is a tampered version of the film that will be shown again today under the title When I Was Dead .

criticism

The critics classified When I was dead as a “ farce ” or described the film as a “splendid comedy”: “Lubitsch plays this role in such a primal manner that you cannot actually stop laughing”.

In retrospect, Lubitsch, in 1947, saw his role as the first attempt at a serious leading role, which, according to his memory, fell through with the audience:

“Like any comedian, I wanted to play a serious lead, a kind of bon vivant role. So I wrote the script for When I Was Dead with my colleagues . This film was a total failure because the audience didn't accept me in a serious leading role. "

- Ernst Lubitsch 1947

Web links

When I was dead in the Internet Movie Database (English)
When I was dead at filmportal.de
When I was dead on arte.tv

Individual evidence

↑ Robert Carringer, Barry Sabath (ed.): Ernst Lubitsch. A guide to references and resources. GK Hall et al., Boston MA et al. 1978, ISBN 0-8161-7895-X , p. 39.
↑ See e.g. B. Ernst Lubitsch. Cahiers du cinéma, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-86642-035-7 , p. 135.
↑ See Daniel Kothenschulte : Die Zukunftsruine. In: Frankfurter Rundschau Online , July 8, 2008.
↑ The film. Vol. 1, No. 8, March 18, 1916, ZDB -ID 575768-x .
↑ contemporary criticism in the Wiener Fachblatt Kinematographische Rundschau . Quoted from bonnerkinemathek.de
^ Orig. Like every comedian, I longed to play a straight leading man, a sort of a 'bon vivant' role. So together with my collaborators, I wrote a screenplay, called When I was dead . This picture was a complete failure as the audiences were unwilling to accept me as a straight leading man. Letter from Ernst Lubitsch to Hermann G. Weinberg, July 10, 1947. Quoted from: Hermann G. Weinberg: The Lubitsch touch. A critical study. 3. revised and enlarged edition. Dover Publications, New York NY 1977, ISBN 0-486-23483-5 , pp. 284.

[1] Robert Carringer, Barry Sabath (ed.): Ernst Lubitsch. A guide to references and resources. GK Hall et al., Boston MA et al. 1978, ISBN 0-8161-7895-X , p. 39.

[2] See e.g. B. Ernst Lubitsch. Cahiers du cinéma, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-86642-035-7 , p. 135.

[3] See Daniel Kothenschulte : Die Zukunftsruine. In: Frankfurter Rundschau Online , July 8, 2008.

[4] The film. Vol. 1, No. 8, March 18, 1916, ZDB -ID 575768-x .

[5] temporary criticism in the Wiener Fachblatt Kinematographische Rundschau . Quoted from bonnerkinemathek.de

[6] Orig. Like every comedian, I longed to play a straight leading man, a sort of a 'bon vivant' role. So together with my collaborators, I wrote a screenplay, called When I was dead . This picture was a complete failure as the audiences were unwilling to accept me as a straight leading man. Letter from Ernst Lubitsch to Hermann G. Weinberg, July 10, 1947. Quoted from: Hermann G. Weinberg: The Lubitsch touch. A critical study. 3. revised and enlarged edition. Dover Publications, New York NY 1977, ISBN 0-486-23483-5 , pp. 284.