The Miss von Scuderi (1955)
Das Fräulein von Scuderi is a German film adaptation of DEFA by Eugen York from 1955. It was made in cooperation with the Swedish Pandora-Film and is based on the novel of the same name by ETA Hoffmann . Alternative performance titles were Die Schätze des Teufels (FRG) and Der Unheimliche von Paris (Austria).
action
Paris in 1680: numerous nobles of the city have already fallen victim to a mysterious murderer. They had always had jewelry made by Goldschmied Cardillac and had been stabbed to death while the jewelry was being transported to the ladies. The police are at a loss and the men of the city submit a petition to the king, according to which the coming and going of the men should be closely guarded by the police. Last but not least, the petition was pushed by the king's ministers, who hope to be able to increase their influence on the nobles and thus also on the king. However, resistance arose among some of the men who were not involved in the petition, and so the king made the poet of Scuderi make a decision. She writes that a man who is afraid of thieves and murderers on the way to his lover is not worth the love of the woman. The petition is rejected.
Cardillac has since realized that his daughter Madelon loves his employee Olivier Brusson. He dismisses Olivier, who is secretly meeting Madelon in front of Cardillac's house that evening. There Olivier sees Cardillac leaving the house through a secret passage. He follows him and witnesses Cardillac killing a nobleman. He exposes him, but Cardillac escapes. Olivier, mistakenly arrested for murder, is released when a witness testifies that he did not come to the scene of the crime until the nobleman was dead. A little later Cardillac comes to Olivier and asks him to return to his service. Nothing stands in the way of marrying Madelon either. Cardillac reveals to Olivier that he has a reason for the murders. Once a nobleman had his father make a jewel. With the jewelery he made Cardillac's mother docile while the father was out. The next day the nobleman came back and asked for the jewelery back, which had only been a deposit for one night. The angry father pounced on the nobleman and was murdered in front of Cardillac. Since then, Cardillac has been killing men who want to defeat women with his jewelry. He keeps the pieces of jewelery he has retrieved in a vaulted cellar and shows Olivier the hiding place. Cardillac must promise not to reveal this secret to anyone.
Cardillac made a diadem for St. Mary, but decides to send it to Mademoiselle de Scuderi. Olivier brings it to her anonymously, but Scuderi is irritated, as an enclosed note makes it clear that the sender is identical to the murderer and that the latter thanks her, as her saying has meant that the murderer remains unmolested. Cardillac is called to the castle. At first he is happy to get his tiara back, but then forces it on Scuderi when the queen laughs at his outburst of joy. Since Cardillac regrets his gift a short time later and shows signs of madness, Olivier adjusts the Scuderi and asks her to return the gift to Cardillac. Nobleman Miossens, on the other hand, orders a jewel for his lover St. Croix from Cardillac and after a long hesitation Cardillac produces the piece of jewelery. Olivier can't stop him from going on his vengeance campaign again hooded, but Miossens turns out to be stronger: He stabs Cardillac. The rushing Olivier takes Cardillac's weapon and drags the dying Cardillac back to the goldsmith's workshop. Cardillac dies here after reminding Olivier of the oath again. The Cardillacs housemaid sounds the alarm. The gun is found at Olivier's and he is arrested. Madelon, who is angry, is also to be arrested, but Scuderi puts her under her personal protection in the hustle and bustle.
The Scuderi soon realizes that Cardillac must be the murderer. She confronts Olivier with the knowledge and he no longer sees himself bound by his oath. He reveals the whole story to her, and Scuderi, in turn, turns the matter to the king himself. Since Miossens, who called Olivier as a witness shortly after the murder of Cardillac, for fear of the police, does not want to testify to Olivier not relieve. However, he describes the minister Louvois where he found Cardillac's secret hiding place, and he confirms Olivier's innocence to the king. At the request of the Scuderi, Olivier is released, but the name of the perpetrator Cardillac is kept secret so as not to destroy Madelon's future. At the end, the Scuderi brings the diadem for the Virgin Mary to the monastery planned by Cardillac and then says goodbye to Madelon and Olivier, who leave the place together.
production
The Fräulein von Scuderi was one of several feature films that DEFA made in co-production with Swedish Pandora-Film. “The Eastern Zone Defa has succeeded in completing another co-production with a western country,” wrote Der Spiegel on the occasion in 1955. DEFA first worked with Pandora in 1954 on Leuchtfeuer . The production came about through the mediation of the producer of the Federal German Real-Film, Erich Mehl, who had previously been forbidden from working with DEFA by the Federal Ministry of Economics “for fundamental reasons”. The Swedish co-productions were actually German-German films that were never shown in Sweden.
Filming began in 1954 in the Babelsberg studio in Potsdam-Babelsberg . For a single day of shooting on May 6, 1955, a film team traveled to Sweden to Lund Cathedral .
After Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus , Das Fräulein von Scuderi was the second collaboration between the former silent film star Henny Porten and DEFA. Although she had signed a contract for three DEFA films, she died in 1960 without having made another film for DEFA. The Miss von Scuderi was Portens last film in almost 50 years of working in front of the camera.
Erich Zander and Hans Poppe created the film structures, Walter Schulze-Mittendorf and Vera Mügge designed the extensive costumes. Ernst Kunstmann was responsible for the optical special effects. The production management was in the hands of Werner Dau .
The Miss von Scuderi was first presented at the Locarno International Film Festival (July 9-21, 1955). On July 29, 1955, it had its German premiere at the Babylon cinema in Berlin and at the DEFA film theater Kastanienallee. On November 24, 1955, the film was released under the title The Devil's Treasures in German cinemas (premiered in Wiesbaden ) and was shown for the first time on January 21, 1969 on DFF 1 on GDR television.
The novella was filmed as a silent film by Gottfried Hacker and Karl Frey in 1919 . In 1950 Paul Martin had processed motifs from the Hoffmann novella in his film Die tödlichen Träume . In 1968 Edgar Reitz filmed the same material in the Federal Republic under the title Cardillac .
criticism
Contemporary critics praised the film as “clean, artistically decent film in every respect”. Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler , however, criticized omissions and additions in contrast to the literary model, saying that the autocrat Louis XIV had become a “good-natured, comfortable honest man and father of the country”.
“An average literary film adaptation, relatively poor in mood, tension and poetry,” said the film service .
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 178-179 .
Web links
- Mademoiselle de Scuderi in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Miss von Scuderi at filmportal.de
- The Miss von Scuderi at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ co-production . In: Der Spiegel , No. 14, 1955, p. 37.
- ↑ Quoted from: A blinking light through the curtain . In: Der Spiegel , No. 3, 1955, p. 36.
- ↑ 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. 92.
- ↑ Carl Andrießen: The goldsmith Cardillac . In: Weltbühne , No. 31, 1955, pp. 980f.
- ↑ Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler in: Filmspiegel , No. 17, 1955.
- ^ The Fraulein von Scuderi. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .