The Secret of Chateau Richmond

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Movie
Original title The Secret of Chateau Richmond
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1913
length 920 meters, at 18 fps approx. 45 minutes
Rod
Director Willy Zeyn Sr.
production Karl Werner Film Berlin / Cologne
camera Georg Paezel
occupation

The Secret of Chateau Richmond is the title of the second episode of the silent detective film series Miss Nobody , which Willy Zeyn sen. Realized in 1913 for Karl Werner's film production in Berlin . Senta Eichstaedt played the title role of the female detective . Fred Selva-Goebel played the role of Vivian Dartin . It is not known who wrote the script.

action

Miss Nobody clears up a case of inheritance fraud in which a conspiratorial union of men, which obliges its members to cede their assets to him by oath, vies with the rightful heir for the possession of a mysterious treasure in the castle from which it is named.

background

Detective stories were already very popular in the 1910s. With the introduction of a woman as a detective, the genre gained even more tension and interest among the audience.

“In 1903 a woman was accepted into the police force for the first time in Stuttgart. She was responsible for monitoring female inmates and taking care of them after their release. Based on the Stuttgart model, so-called police assistants were hired in many German cities, who were responsible for moral offenses, truancy and conspicuous children and young people. In 1913, female police assistants worked in 19 German cities. With the film, however, they were much further along and allowed the first female investigator a wider range of actions. "

- Dagmar Trüpschuch, Lespress - The Other Women's Magazine, December 2004

The set was created by the film architect Kurt Dürnhöfer . Georg Paezel took care of the photography .

In April 1913, the Berlin police had received the film 920 meters long (4 files) for censorship. He had 25 subtitles. Under the censorship number 1318 he received a youth ban. A scene had to be cut in which the gang members put their hands on a skull while taking an oath.

The police in Munich also banned young people from visiting the film under numbers 8281, 8282, 8283, 8284.

Evidence of performance history

Lingen, November 8th - Lingen cinema. “For the honored audience to please note that I have graduated from the Kammerlichtspiele Hanover and from now on only the very latest hits will be shown. I am therefore forced to increase the entrance fees to 40, 60 and 80 pfennigs. The big hit: “The secret of Chateau Richmond” (…) will be shown on Saturday from 8 am and Sunday from 4 am. I sincerely invite you to numerous visitors: Hermann H. Heskamp. " (From old newspapers ... Chronicle November 1913 / LV 241r)

During clearance work in the summer of 2009, an old poster for “The Secret of Chateau Richmond” was found in the attic of the Zurich cinema theater »Radium« at Mühlegasse 5. It was 70 × 99 cm and it was for “The Secret of Chateau Richmond”. It was dated January 15, 1914 or 1915 is great. It announces: “The best detective hit in 4 acts”.

reception

Contemporary meeting

The film was reviewed in:

  • KIOJ1913
  • Photo stage No. 13, 1913.
  • Photo stage No. 14, 1913.
  • Cinematograph No. 328, 1913.
  • Cinematograph No. 392, 1914.
  • The film No. 17, 1920.

and is recorded at

  • Prohibited cinematograph images No. 100, 1913, p. 42.
  • Birett: Directory of films run in Germany, (Munich) No. 322, 1913, and No. 503, 1913.
  • Lamprecht Volume 13 No. 31
  • GECD # 23252

To the figure of the nobody

"The movie from 1913 shows the detective" Miss Nobody ", who wiggles fervently through deserted cityscapes and almost breaks her neck while chasing badly recognizable crooks."

- Jenni Zylka, taz, October 27, 2004

“Nobody - the female detective” was created as early as 1913. For three films, the actress Senta Eichstaedt chased criminals around the world with a cool head: with an eye mask and a wide cape […] Nobody disguised himself as a man, jumped over the roofs of houses, raced through heights and depths on a rope or dropped into the boat from bridges . "

- Ula Brunner, fluter.de, October 27, 2004

“The detective Mrs. Nobody (Senta Eichstaedt) hunted criminals independently as early as 1913 and handed them over to the police. The film character Nobody moved the female gaze to the center of the action and made the "art of observation" the basis of her profession. Clearly emancipated, she took up persecutions over the roofs of houses, overcame ups and downs with a rope and sometimes disguised herself as a man in order to be the pursuer of the persecuted with equal rights in matters of clothing and footwear. "

- Dagmar Trüpschuch, Lespress - The Other Women's Magazine, December 2004

“ The secret of Chateau Richmond unfolds the role of the gazing, spying, enlightening woman in all her liberal strength ... The film contains the genre-common car chases, shots of urban ambience and technical achievements such as cars, motor boats, etc. These are all associated with these charms Elements of hiding, discovering and masquerade, as they belong to the standing figure of the detective, and acquire a peculiar meaning through the female occupation. What is striking in the Nobody films is the pronounced staging of the gaze in everyday situations - not any adventurous surroundings - and the accentuation of clothing, not just disguise. It is as if it is exciting enough that the woman appears in public and has control over the gaze, as if further attractions are not needed at the moment ”

- Heide Schlüpmann)

To the film itself

“ The secret of Chateau Richmond [...] picks up on the motif of the reactionary secret society, who gathers around a skull by candlelight and obliges its members to cede their assets to the club. Here, too, the usual genre chases are used [...], whereby the detective is shown in her professional role observing and spying and at the same time fixates her eyes on the man. "

- University of Trier , media studies

literature

  • Herbert Birett: Directory of films run in Germany. Film censorship decisions 1911–1920. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart . Saur, Munich 1980.
  • Ivo Blom, Ivo Leopold Blom: Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade . (= Film Culture in Transition). Verlag Amsterdam University Press, 2000, ISBN 90-5356-463-2 , pp. 155-156, 292, 330, 394 and the like. 457. (English)
  • Thomas Elsaesser, Michael Wedel: A Second Life: German Cinema's First Decades. Amsterdam University Press, 1996, ISBN 90-5356-172-2 , pp. 145, 226, 231, 235-236, 305 note 11 (English)
  • Thomas Elsaesser, Michael Wedel: Cinema of the imperial era: between tradition and modernity. Verlag Edition Text + Critique, 2002, ISBN 3-88377-695-5 , pp. 327, 329.
  • John Fullerton, Jan Olsson: Allegories of Communication: Intermedial Concerns from Cinema to the Digital (= Aura, Film studies journal. Stockholm studies in cinema. Volume 7). Indiana University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-86196-651-1 . (English)
  • Sebastian Hesse: camera eye and nose. The detective in early German cinema (= KINtop-Schriften Volume 5). Stroemfeld Verlag, Frankfurt / Basel 2003, ISBN 3-87877-765-5 , pp. 115, 117–118.
  • Gerhard Lamprecht: German silent films, Vols. 1-8 and general index: German silent films from the years 1903 to 1931. Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin 1970.
  • Barry Salt: Early German Film. The Stylistics in Comparative Context. In: Thomas Elsaesser, Michael Wedel: A Second Life: German Cinema's First Decades. Pp. 225–236 (English)
  • Heide Schlüpmann: the uncanny look. The drama of early German cinema. German Film Museum Frankfurt am Main. Verlag Stroemfeld / Roter Stern, Frankfurt / Basel 1990, ISBN 3-87877-373-0 .
  • Prohibited cinematograph images. Alphabet. Directory prohibited. Films about the Gebr. Fd police authorities u. Cinematograph holder. König, Guben o. J., DNB 587306335 .
  • Guntram Vogt, Philipp Sanke: The city in the cinema. German feature films 1900–2000. 2nd Edition. Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2001, ISBN 3-89472-331-9 , p. 66.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ at GECD, however, Käthe Wittenberg is named as the detective Nobody, Senta Eichstaedt only named as a contributor.
  2. ↑ a b Dagmar Trüpschuch: Without an umbrella, with charm and without a bowler hat . Commissioners in German television films. In: Lespres - The other women's magazine, December 2004. PDF (online at: deutsche-kinemathek.de )
  3. ↑ cf. GECD # 23252
  4. ↑ cf. lingen.de [1]
  5. ↑ cf. [2011_Gerber_Motschi_PlakatfundKinoRadium-1.PDF], 28 MB, p. 45.
  6. ↑ cit. at stummfilm.at
  7. ↑ uni-trier.de
  8. ↑ cf. Birett: Sources on film history. [2]