Cluny Brown on free feet
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Cluny Brown on free feet |
| Original title | Cluny Brown |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1946 |
| length | 108 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ernst Lubitsch |
| script | Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt |
| production | Ernst Lubitsch |
| music | Cyril J. Mockridge |
| camera | Joseph LaShelle |
| cut | Dorothy Spencer |
| occupation | |
| |
Cluny Brown on Free Feet (Original title: Cluny Brown ) is an American comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch from 1946 with Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer in the leading roles. The plot is based on the novel Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp .
action
England in 1938, a year before the start of the world war. Hilary Ames goes to a party, but his drain is clogged and he can't find a plumber. Cluny Brown, a somewhat naive orphan and niece of a plumber who likes to repair blocked drains, comes to his aid. This happened to be observed by Adam Belinski, a Czech professor and resistance fighter against the Nazis who fled to London. Belinski was immediately fascinated by Cluny's free way of life, which - whether unconsciously or consciously - ignored the English class differences.
Cluny's grumpy uncle, however, is not at all pleased with her unconventional behavior. So that she finally learns what matters in life, she comes to Sir and Lady Carmel's household as a housemaid, where she also causes trouble. Andrew, the son of the Carmels, has since made friends with Professor Belinski and offers the penniless emigrant to live in his parents' estate. Here the friendship between Belinski and Cluny deepens, but despite mutual feelings, the two make a pact that friendship does not turn into love.
Mr. Wilson, the boring druggist in the nearby village, plans to marry Cluny, who is initially taken with it. But when a drain broke at Wilson's mother's birthday party and Cluny repairs it in front of a visibly piqued audience, the druggist's interest in her cools. Meanwhile, Belinski takes a detour to ensure that the Carmel son Andrew wants to marry his flame Betty after a long back and forth.
When Belinski leaves the Carmels and wants to travel back to London, Cluny runs after him and the two confess their love. Belinski moves to New York with his new wife and - since he will soon have to look after a family - no longer writes challenging books against the Nazis, but detective novels that become bestsellers.
background
Cluny Brown came out in June 1946 and was Lubitsch's last fully self-directed film. He died towards the end of the shooting of his next film Die Frau im Ermelin , which had to be completed by Otto Preminger .
criticism
The film service is positive: “A cheerful and witty staged comedy that humorously satirizes the English“ better society ”.” Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz write in their lexicon “Films on TV”: “Lively society staged with a frivolous Lubitsch touch -Lustspiel (...). The dialogue-safe film leaves no taboo untouched and steers you through many surprising dramaturgical hurdles the safer the smart happy ending. "(Rating: 2½ stars -" above average ")
Hans-Gerd Rasner writes in the volume Ernst Lubitsch (published 1984) about the film: "Lubitsch with a gentle, indulgent irony cut through the British caste system emphasizes not so much the class contradictions, but the petty bourgeoisie, domestics and aristocrats equally their own bigotry ." Thus the figures of the butler and the housekeeper would surpass the snobbery of their rule by a few degrees. Victorian traditions and conventions would have stifled any spontaneity in British society, "the image of the clogged drain from the beginning becomes a metaphor for general societal clogging". Belinski and Cluny, the two social outsiders and nonconformists, logically left the “idyll of Carmel Manor” and found happiness together.
literature
- Margery Sharp : The girl Cluny Brown. Novel (original title: Cluny Brown ). German by Melanie Steinmetz. Bastei-Verlag Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1973, 283 pages, ISBN 3-404-00111-7
- Herta-Elisabeth Renk: Ernst Lubitsch. With testimonials and photo documents . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-499-50502-9
Web links
- Cluny Brown courting in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Cluny Brown on free feet. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz: Lexicon "Films on Television" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 132
- ^ Heinz-Gerd Rasner: Ernst Lubitsch . Ed .: Hans Helmut Prinzler , Enno Patalas . CJ Bucher, Munich and Lucerne 1984, p. 196-197 .