Bel Ami (1939)

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Movie
Original title Bel Ami
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1939
length 2749 meters / 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 18 (1939)
Rod
Director Willi Forst
script Willi Forst,
Axel Eggebrecht
production Willi Forst for Willi Forst-Film
music Theo Mackeben ,
camera Ted Pahle (SW)
cut Hans Wolff
occupation

Bel Ami is a film adaptation of the novel Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant, directed by Willi Forst in 1938 with himself in the main or title role .

action

Paris , around 1900: George Duroy, who has just returned from Morocco, spends a night with the budding singer Rachel, who is rehearsing the song “Bel Ami”, and talks about Morocco at a company run by the newspaper editor Forestier. At the request of the ladies, Walter, owner of La Vie Française, hires him as a journalist.

Forestier's wife Madeleine, who is also the lover of MP Laroche and lets himself be used by him to influence the newspaper in Laroche's sense through Forestier, helps Duroy write the texts. Forestier becomes jealous of Duroy and gets divorced.

The colonial minister, who advocates a cautious foreign policy, must resign. His successor is Laroche, who initially advocates an intervention policy due to land ownership in Morocco , but is seen through and blackmailed by Moroccan nobles. In order to then bring his change of attitude elegantly into the public eye, he asks Madeleine to marry Duroy, who has meanwhile risen to editor-in-chief. Madeleine obeys, but their marriage is short-lived.

Duroy saves Laroche's daughter Suzanne when her horse runs away. Without introducing each other, the two arrange to meet for the opera ball that evening. There, thanks to Rachel, who has long been performing the song “Bel Ami” in an elaborate revue, Duroy learns of Laroche's true machinations and brings this content into the newspaper. Duroy, very much in love, intends to separate from Madeleine and marry Suzanne. Laroche resigns and Suzanne urges Duroy to get into politics. As minister, Duroy prevents his former employer, Walter, from continuing Laroche's crooked business. He says goodbye to his alumni, Madeleine, Rachel and wife von Marelle to dedicate himself to the marriage to Suzanne.

Reviews

  • “Lively satire on the socio-political scene in France before the turn of the century, based on the novel by Guy de Maupassant. Forst's musical talent, his sense of atmosphere and elegant scenery give the film a touch of Viennese operetta. One of the few German films from the Nazi era that were also praised by the international press. ”- Lexicon of international films
  • "With Pahle's elegant camera work, Forst succeeded in creating an unusually international, almost 'sinful' flair - that of the Belle Epoque - for the 'Greater German' conditions at the time, for which petty bourgeois foulness was the highest virtue." - Kay Less in Das large personal lexicon of the film
  • “They (meaning the scriptwriters) had to bow to the dictates of the National Socialist film officials with their fear of historical parallels and their prudery and lack of humor, defuse the socially critical accents and purify the satirical sarcastic Maupassant and his frivolous hero. “- Christa Bandmann and Joe Hembus in classics of the German sound film 1930–1960 , 1980

Remarks

In the film With You It Was Always So Nice (1954, Hans Wolff ), Willi Forst plays a director who, together with two musicians represented by Georg Thomalla and Heinz Drache , drafts the text for the song “ Bel Ami ”. Then Forst sings the song.

DVD release

The film is listed in the print edition of the Lexicon of International Films from 1987 with a duration of 100 minutes and a rating of 16. The DVD released by Kinowelt in 2007 contains a version that is approx. 2 minutes shorter and is approved for ages 12 and up.

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lexicon of International Films. rororo, 1987
  2. ^ The large personal lexicon of films, Volume 6, p. 119. Berlin 2001
  3. ^ Christa Bandmann, Joe Hembus: Classics of the German sound film 1930-1960. Citadel Movie Books. Goldmann, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-442-10207-3 , p. 126