Cagliostro (1973)

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Movie
German title Cagliostro
Original title Joseph Balsamo
Country of production France , Germany , Austria
original language French
Publishing year 1973
length approx. 255 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director André Hunebelle
script Pierre Nivollet
production Maurice Gilli
music Hans Posegga
Hubert Rostaing
camera Claude Robin
cut Colette Lambert
Eva Maria Tittes
occupation

Cagliostro is a three-part television adventure film from 1973, based on the novel Joseph Balsamo from the cycle Mémoires d'un médicin ( Memoirs of a Doctor ) by Alexandre Dumas with Jean Marais in the lead role.

The three-part series was a co-production by Tele-München and Technisor (Paris) on behalf of ZDF and ORTF. The series ran on French television under the title Joseph Balsamo with seven episodes of 55 minutes each. On ZDF, Cagliostro was originally supposed to run in a longer version in the ZDF Advent four-parter series .

action

Part 1: (ZDF: December 23, 1973): Audience in Versailles

Count Alessandro di Cagliostro , who also calls himself Baron Joseph Balsamo or Count Phoenix, is the great magician of his time. He is famous and notorious for his psychic abilities. Everyone speaks of him. It is unknown that he belongs to a group of conspirators who want to change the existing social order and overthrow the French monarchy. Cagliostro apparently has unlimited sources of money. He succeeds in finding entrance at the court of Versailles and through finely woven intrigues the reputation of Louis XV. to undermine. He succeeds all the more easily since the king's mistress, Madame Dubarry, is hated by the people and despised by the court. Cagliostro knows how to win their gratitude and thus influence the fate of the court.

Part 2: (ZDF: December 30, 1973): The gold maker

Cagliostro, magician and nobleman, is a leading member of a secret society that has plotted against the monarchy in France. Withdrawn because cautious, he lives near Paris with his Roman wife Lorenza, whom he loves but keeps like a prisoner, his teacher and alchemist Althostas and the German servant Fritz. He cannot do without Lorenza's media skills. However, on a carriage ride to Paris, she manages to escape and find refuge in a monastery. Cagliostro tracks them down there - and almost kills himself: Cardinal Rohan, who happens to be present, sees through Cagliostro's dangerous game. So this one trumps and impresses Rohan with the tempting offer to make gold for him.

Part 3: (ZDF: January 1, 1974): The intrigue

The star of Madame Dubarry, the lover of King Louis XV, begins to fade. Andrée de Taverney has been chosen as his successor. Andrée's maid is supposed to mix her mistress with a medicine in the sleeping draft that makes her submissive to the king. But the dose is too high. When the king comes to the rendezvous, he finds an unconscious woman. He returns to Madame Dubarry, disturbed. Cagliostro's days at the French court are also numbered. His lover Lorenza is treason, he loses the trust of his co-conspirators. They have Lorenza murdered and bring Cagliostro to justice. When Louis XV. dies, all revolutionary plans fail. Cagliostro, pursued by the new king's police, is initially able to escape, but is later killed in the dungeons of the Vatican for heresy , the work of the devil and sorcery .

Others

  • The Italian adventurer Count Cagliostro (actually Giuseppe Balsamo) was born in Palermo in 1743 and died in San Leone near Urbino in 1795. Cagliostro managed to gain great influence through spiritualism, magic potions and alleged gold-making. In the 18th century it visited almost all capitals and courts of Europe. In 1791 he was condemned by the Inquisition and disappeared behind dungeon walls for the rest of his life.
  • Alexandre Dumas shows Cagliostro in his novel as a conspirator and pioneer of the revolution in France.
  • Different film composers were used for the German and French versions: The French music was written by Hubert Rostaing, which, however, was considered too pompous by the German production manager Walter Ulbrich and who therefore commissioned Hans Posegga for the German version, who also wrote four other four-part adventure games the music wrote.
  • In France, the series was celebrated under the name Joseph Balsamo as a very successful implementation of a Dumas novel. The German producers did not see it that way. Ulbrich was also not very happy with the choice of Jean Marais for the title role, because he was 30 years older than the protagonist described in the novel . However, director Hunebelle insisted on his preferred lead actor. From the original 360-minute version for French television, Ulbrich cut an almost completely new story together, so that in the end only a three-part series remained, which was broadcast at Christmas 1973 instead of the four-part series that was common at the time. The ZDF feared failure, but although most of the German critics saw Cagliostro rather negatively, the majority of German television viewers disagreed. The majority of the positive responses were received in the viewer and editor-in-chief of ZDF and the various program magazines.

media

literature

  • Oliver Kellner & Ulf Marek: Seewolf & Co. - The great adventure four-part series of ZDF , Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, ISBN 3-89602-632-1 ...

DVD

  • Cagliostro (2 DVDs), Concorde Home Entertainment 2007

Film music

  • Adventure classic - original music from the legendary TV four-part series , 2 CDs, BSC Music / Cine Soundz Prudence 398.6619.2 (Germany 2001)

Web links