The ABC of love

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Movie
Original title The ABC of love
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1916
length about 50 minutes
Rod
Director Magnus founder
script Louis Levy
Martin Jørgensen
music Maud Nelissen (2012)
camera Carl Ferdinand Fischer
occupation

Das Liebes-ABC is a German silent film by Magnus Stifter from 1916. Stifter acted as both actor and producer. However, the star of this comedy film was the Danish actress Asta Nielsen , who, as the female lead, had to cope with a changing role. Nielsen not only has to depict a wide range of affects , but also has to play several trouser roles in the course of depicting her character.

action

1st act

Sophie and Christine von Dobbern receive a letter from Graf von Kiesel. In it he tells both women that his daughter Lies is ready to come to the Dobbernsche Gut and meet her future husband Philipp here. Philipp is the nephew of the two women who are friends with von Kiesel. Immediately the ailing Philipp von Dobbern and his servant go to Graf von Kiesel to pick up Lies. Lies lives in close bond with her dog and her doll. She dreams of a dream man whom she saw on drawings in books from father's library. She is all the more disappointed when the utterly unmanly Philip stands in front of her. At first she laughs at him and a little later starts to cry in her room because he is not a “whole guy”. However, she notices that he is capable of learning. He starts smoking at her suggestion and lets her kiss him on the mouth. She decides to make a real man out of him. Instead of going to her aunts, she buys two tickets to Paris on the platform. Philipp only finds out about this when both are sitting in the moving train.

2nd act

In Paris, where they are expected by Philip's privy servant, Lies shows Philipp how to seduce a woman. Then she disguises herself as a man in order to explore the Parisian nightlife with him without crooked looks. Both go to a performance where they share a box. Soon the two ladies in the next box come to them, but ensnare Lies because Philipp turns out to be a reserved country bumpkin. Lies only coped with the situation with some effort, ended up getting drunk and struggled to get to the hotel. She realizes how hard it is to appear as a whole guy.

3rd act

The next morning Lies wakes up hungover. She learns that her father has announced that he will be in the morning. He learned from Philip's aunts that the couple had accidentally gone to Paris - the women had received a letter from Lies and Philipp. Lies lets Philipp claim to her father that she has already driven on. She herself appears as Philipp's friend Raul. However, the father quickly sees through the masquerade and confronts Philipp. He confesses that Lies wanted to make a man out of him. The men decide to get back at Lies.

A short time later, Lies finds a fake love letter in her room in which a “Yvette” agrees to meet Philipp for the evening. She is angry, but secretly procures a cooking gear for the evening. The men found out about their disguise. While Graf von Kiesel observes the spectacle from a distance, Philipp and his chauffeur, disguised as a woman, go to the rendezvous. Again and again Lies appears at her table, deliberately spills food and drink and is finally removed from the table after she slapped Philipp and "Yvette". Her father meets her crying and takes off her wig. He leads his daughter to Philipp and his servant and Lies finally realizes that she was tricked and that Philipp is a whole man. A little later the honeymoon takes place - but this time Philipp buys the tickets.

production

The love ABC showed the then 35-year-old Asta Nielsen as a fried fish . She was also seen again in a trouser role after films such as When the Mask Falls (1912) and Jugend und Tollheit (1913) . Along with Im Lebenswirbel , Dora Brandes , The Rose of the Wilderness , The Stock Exchange Queen , The First Patient , The Orphanage Child and The Eskimobaby, the film was one of eight films that Asta Nielsen shot in the summer of 1916 for Neutral-Film under the simplest conditions. Nielsen financed Das Liebes-ABC and the other films herself, and the shooting took place in the Union studio she rented in Tempelhof.

The ABC of Love was shown to the press in August 1916 as one of two films in the Asta Nielsen series 1916/17 and had its premiere on August 16, 1916 in the Berlin Marble House . The Berlin censorship had previously banned the film from children. In 1921 the film ran under the title L'abbecedario dell'amore in Italy and was also shown in Denmark under the title Kærlighedens ABC .

From the film, Det Danske Filminstitut has received a nitrodup negative from 1949 with Danish subtitles. This version is not based on the original film, as a surviving Swedish censorship card names more subtitles than the surviving film version. Another nitrate copy of the film is in the Cinémathèque française . The film was reconstructed on the basis of the Danish copy with Swedish subtitles translated back into German. It was released on DVD with a new film music by Maud Nelissen in 2012 with three other Asta Nielsen films as part of the Edition Filmmuseum of the Filmmuseum Munich .

criticism

The contemporary criticism found that the film shows that Asta Nielsen "no artistic field of activity is alien [...] This woman has a delicious sense of humor, that is not tortured amusement, but that is nature". Other critics called the film "one of the most remarkable German film comedies". The film is “a game with a shot of Buster Keaton sadness, a shot of Chaplin charm, mixed with the champagne crowning Asta Nielsen. Your art of metamorphosis is stunning ”.

publication

  • Four films with Asta Nielsen - 2 DVD, Edition Filmmuseum 67, 2012 film & kunst GmbH

literature

  • The ABC of love . In: Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann (ed.): Nachtfalter. Asta Nielsen, her films . Volume 2 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902531-83-4 , pp. 211-214.
  • The ABC of love . In: Renate Seydel (Ed.): Asta Nielsen. Your life in photo documents, self-testimonies and contemporary reflections. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1981, p. 136.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b News on the Berlin film market . In: Der Kinematograph , No. 504, 23 August 1916, p. 24.
  2. ^ Giovanni Lasi: Polarsten: In Italy . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria publishing house, Vienna 2010, p. 381.
  3. ↑ Frank Brenner, Annette Groschke: Between Backfisch and Börsenkönigin - Asta Nielsen in 4 films . Booklet for the DVD Four Films with Asta Nielsen , Edition Filmmuseum, No. 67, 2012.
  4. ↑ Thomas C. Christensen: The lost shadow. Copying situation of the long feature films Asta Nielsen . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2010, p. 466.
  5. ↑ The dear ABC . In: Ilona Brennicke, Joe Hembus: Classics of the German silent film 1910–1930 . Goldmann, Munich 1983, p. 203.