The ghost in the furnace

Movie
German title	The ghost in the furnace
Original title	The Phantom of the Open Hearth
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1976
Rod
Director	Fred Barzyk , David R. Loxton , Olivia Tappan
script	Jean Parker Shepherd
production	Fred Barzyk, David R. Loxton
camera	Peter Hoving
cut	Dick Bartlett
occupation
David Elliott : Ralph Parker as a teenager Jean Parker Shepherd: The Narrator Ralph Parker as a Man James Broderick : Mr. Parker, the "old man" (father) Barbara Bolton : Mrs. Parker (mother) Adam Goodman : Randy Parker Bryan Utman : Schwartz William Lampley : Flick Tobi Pilavin : Daphne Bigelow Roberta Wallach : Wanda Hickey David S. Howard : Docking

The Ghost in the Blast Furnace (Original: The Phantom of the Open Hearth ) is a film that contains elements of both homeland films and satire on American society in the 1950s. It is part of a series of television films continued in the 1980s based on the partly autobiographical short stories by the American author and narrator Jean Parker Shepherd (born July 26, 1921 in Chicago , USA ; † October 16, 1999 in Sanibel Island , USA) is based.

action

An older man, the narrator Ralph Parker, reflects on his life in the American steelworking community of the early 1950s. According to an alleged legend of the workers, a ghost lives in the blast furnace and can sometimes be seen while tapping . It should bring luck or bad luck to those who see it. Parker, who saw this ghost as a young man, ponders whether it brought him luck or bad luck.

The film is a flashback to the youth of Ralph Parker, who grows up in a traditional working-class environment, goes to school and dreams of taking his unreachable childhood sweetheart Daphne Bigelow to the school ball. But only the unsightly Wanda Hickey is interested in him. The ball evening ends in a grotesque fiasco of youth clichés and late-pubescent masculinity. His father, always called "the old man", as well as his mother are completely absorbed in petty bourgeois leisure activities, which are essentially exhausted in the hopeless participation in competitions. The only profit ever made, an ugly table lamp in the shape of a woman's bare leg, almost triggers a marriage crisis. The actions of the mostly unfit for life are completely haphazard, so one day Zudock, a colleague of Parker senior, orders a prefabricated house kit from a mail order catalog without having the slightest idea of ​​where and how to pick it up from the train and assemble it . The friends are of no help in this ("None of them had ever owned a house, some did not even pay rent."). The inadequacy and aimlessness of the day-to-day life of American petty bourgeoisie of the 1950s is portrayed in the film in a grotesquely comic, but also tragic way.

Similar films

Based on Shepherd's short stories, several similar films were produced in the 1980s that show the fictional Parker family in grotesque everyday situations. They were released on VHS video and broadcast on the Disney Channel in the United States.

broadcast

“The Phantom of the Open Hearth” was released in the USA on December 23, 1976. On November 1, 1978, the film was broadcast in German on ARD television

Web links

• The Phantom of the Open Hearth in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Original version of the film on youtube.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ Name Authority File , Library of Congress , accessed March 20, 2016
2. ↑ The mirror May issue 44/1978 retrieved 26, 2010