Cheated until the last day
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Cheated until the last day |
 | |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1957 |
| length | 75 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Kurt Jung-Alsen |
| script | Kurt Bortfeldt |
| production | Adolf Fischer for DEFA |
| music | Günter Klück |
| camera | Walter Fehdmer |
| cut | Wally cucumber |
| occupation | |
| |
A German anti-war film by DEFA by Kurt Jung-Alsen from 1957 is betrayed by the last day .
action
In June 1941, the German troops camp near the Lithuanian border. Due to excellent shooting performance, Corporal Wagner, Corporal Lick and Oberschützen Paulun receive special leave. Shortly beforehand, Angelika, the daughter of Hauptmann von der Saale, said goodbye to the front and started on her way home. Her father wanted to please her with the fur of a self-made fox, but it was not prepared in time. The three shooters take the fox with them a little later and later want to bring him to the train station. All three have a guilty conscience because they did not dispose of some surplus cartridges according to the regulations, but kept them. When they see a heron by a pond, they want to shoot it. A bullet gets lost and kills Angelica, who is sitting by the pond. All three soldiers panic and bury the body by the pond. Especially Paulun was deeply shocked by death. After a visit to the bar, all three return to the camp, but Paulun reacts hysterically and collapses when Lick wipes his face with the Angelika stockings that he has in his pocket.
The troop exercise starts and Lick and Werner promptly have to crawl to the lakeshore, where Angelika is buried. The stone that the men placed on their grave is immovable. However, since Paulun is a constant danger, Lick initiates his father, an SS general. He has Angelika excavated and presents her to the entire troop as a victim of the Russians. On Hitler's orders, the army attacks the Soviet Union on the same day and causes a bloodbath among the population. When a number of Lithuanian women are to be executed in retaliation for Angelica's death, Paulun tries to tell the captain the truth, but Lick interrupts him. He portrays Paulun as mentally shattered and insane as a result of the war. The women are shot even when the captain suspects that he does not know the truth, but does not want to know either. A little later, Wagner, Lick and Paulun drive along an empty forest path in a motorcycle. Suddenly Paulun tries to escape and is shot by Lick while walking. Lick goes back to the motorcycle and instructs Wagner to pick up his rifle, which he had dropped in horror. After a moment of stasis, Wagner picks up his rifle and drives off with Lick.
production
Cheated up to the last day is based on the novella Kameraden by Franz Fühmann, written in 1955 . The film, shot in 1956, premiered on March 7, 1957 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin and was shown for the first time on GDR television on April 23, 1957 on DFF 1 . The film constructions come from Artur Günther .
In retrospect, the film is considered to be "one of the most convincing films that DEFA made in the 1950s" and a "specialty and [...] a stroke of luck among DEFA's anti-fascist films". In contrast to similar works, he largely renounced agitation. Dialogues are used sparingly, and there is no film music, apart from sung marching songs.
Cheated up to the last day was submitted to the Cannes International Film Festival in 1957 as the GDR's entry in the competition for the Golden Palm . Due to public controversy - among other things, the Federal Republic intervened and insisted on its claim to sole representation - it could ultimately only be shown in the framework program of the competition. It was the first DEFA film to be entered for the Palme d'Or competition at the Cannes Film Festival; previously in 1956 Zar und Zimmermann and The Vicious Circle were shown outside the festival. In 1957, the Federal Republic of Germany submitted the literary adaptation Rose Bernd by Wolfgang Staudte in Cannes, which was panned by international critics, especially in comparison to the DEFA film. The Times called this film boring and mannered, and regretted that the DEFA film was not allowed to run in the competition because it had a bitter poetry and its directing was excellent and tight. After the performance in Cannes, Deceived could be sold in eleven countries by the end of the day, including Great Britain and Denmark. In the Federal Republic, however, the commercial use of the film was banned by the Interministerial Committee for East-West Film Issues in 1957 , as it was suitable and "apparently also intended [to] question and shake the foundations of the state."
criticism
Contemporary critics wrote that the film “[is] rooted in the tradition of good narrative cinema. The linear fable is not burdened by any accessories. Almost always in the center of the action: the 'three comrades'. Reactions arise directly from the events, the psychograms are visibly reproduced. Brief imagery supports cautiously, unobtrusively. "
The filmdienst called Duped Till Doomsday ", played artistically convincing DEFA production excellent and photographed and without the usual background music." A
Cinema wrote: “The bitter film dispenses with propaganda pathos. Conclusion: sober, but very moving GDR cinema ”.
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 72-73 .
Web links
- Duped Till Doomsday in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Cheated on filmportal.de until the last day
- Cheated on the DEFA Foundation until the last day
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ralf Schenk: In the middle of the Cold War 1950 to 1960 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 122.
- ↑ Ralf Schenk: In the middle of the Cold War 1950 to 1960 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 120.
- ↑ See betrayed until the last day on progress-film.de ( memento of the original from July 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Cheated until the last day in the lexicon of international films
- ↑ F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 73 .
- ↑ Fields of cultural and social contacts . In: Ulrich Pfeil: The “other” Franco-German relations. The GDR and France 1949–1990 . Böhlau, Cologne 2004, p. 324.
- ↑ Quoted from Ralf Schenk: In the middle of the Cold War 1950 to 1960 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 122.
- ↑ Stefan Volk: The Censorship of the Cold Warriors . spiegel.de, July 7, 2014 ( photo gallery ).
- ↑ Fred Gehler: The Amoral des Übermenschen. Reminder of "Cheated until Judgment Day" . In: Film und Fernsehen , No. 1, 1985, pp. 26-27.
- ↑ See cinema.de
