The flying classroom (1973)

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Movie
Original title The Flying Classroom
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1973
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Werner Jacobs
script Georg Laforet (pseudonym of Franz Seitz )
production Georg Föcking ,
Franz Seitz
music Rolf Alexander Wilhelm
camera Wolfgang Treu
cut Adolf Schlyssleder
occupation

The children's film The Flying Classroom is a German film by director Werner Jacobs from 1973. It was based on the novel of the same name by Erich Kästner .

action

Little Johnny Sportwetten flies to Germany from the USA alone. His grandmother is supposed to pick him up there. However, this had a fatal accident on the way to the airport in a traffic accident. The captain of the plane in which Johnny flew to Germany finds him abandoned and when it turns out that the boy's grandmother has had an accident, he adopts him. However, since he is on the road so often, Johnny later comes to Bamberg at the boys' boarding school at the Johann-Sigismund-Gymnasium.

Johnny, now a little older, told his life story to his friend Uli, who also lives in the boys' boarding school. The boys' favorite teacher is Dr. Johannes Bökh, whom they call "Justus". In Justus' class, they got the idea how nice it would be if you could simply fly to all points on earth instead of just treating them theoretically. So Johnny comes up with the idea of ​​writing a play on his typewriter. The title of the piece is: The flying classroom .

The boys have to write a dictation with Professor Kreuzkamm. He gives the dictation books to his son Rudi. On the way home, Rudi is attacked by a group of high school students . They kidnap Rudi and the dictation books. The secondary school students have been enemies with the boys from the boarding school for many years. They stole the dictation books as revenge because the boarding school students had stolen a special soccer ball with all the national team autographs from the secondary school. Jupiter had asked the students to give it back. They had also complied with this request from their favorite teacher, but had previously removed all autographs from the ball.

In a parked old train car the boys meet their fatherly friend, whom they call a non-smoker because the train car is actually a non-smoking compartment. However, the "non-smoker" smokes quite heavily. They also find out his real name through the postman who delivers a letter: Dr. Robert Uthofft. The non-smoker helps the boys fight the high school students - he suggests that only one boy from the two groups should fight each other. If the boarding school students win, they should get the dictation books back together with Rudi. If the secondary school students win, they should receive a new ball with the autographs on it. Matz competes for the boarding school students and also wins the fight. Nevertheless, the secondary school students do not want to keep their agreement. This led to a bitter exchange of blows between the parties. Johnny, Sebastian and Matz take the opportunity and free Rudi. In doing so, they discover that the secondary school students have burned the dictation books. Sebastian takes the ashes to give them to Professor Kreuzkamm.

The boarding school students secretly try to sneak into the boarding school - in the process they are caught by their tutor Theodor Laban, known as "the beautiful Theodor", and brought to Justus. He is disappointed with the boys that they did not ask for permission to leave. As a "punishment" they have to spend two hours with him. Jupiter tells a story to the boys during house arrest. It was about a boy who lived in the boarding school thirty years ago. The boy's mother fell ill. Because the mother was transferred to a hospital near the boarding school, the boy was able to visit her. However, he did not dare to confide in his teacher. And so he always secretly snuck away from the boarding school. Eventually the boy was locked up as a punishment. However, a friend of the boy was serving the sentence so that he could continue to visit his mother. It turns out these boys are Justus and the non-smoker. However, the two have lost sight of each other. Dr. Uthofft had lost his daughter and wife. Then he disappeared from the city without a trace.

The children make sure that the two meet. Justus tries to convince the non-smoker to go back to his old job as a doctor. However, this is not ready for this. Uli is the victim of a prank by his classmates. They hung it in a trash from the ceiling. Prof. Kreuzkamm is no more enthusiastic about this than he is about the fact that the dictation books were burned. As a punishment, he lets the boys write a very difficult dictation and then takes the dictation books with him to be on the safe side. Uli has enough after the new prank, especially since he is teased because of his role as a girl in the planned theater performance. He tells his classmates that he is going to do something special; in fact, they later see Uli at a window in the school building. Uli can fall down from these with the help of an umbrella. The boys are worried about Uli. Fortunately, Dr. Uthofft and Justus nearby: The non-smoker recalls his skills and saves Uli's broken leg in an emergency operation.

After the excitement around Uli has subsided, the next problem arises. Martin's parents are in Mombasa to start a new life there. Since they suffered financial setbacks, they have no money to take Martin over for the holidays. Therefore, he is the only one who has to spend the vacation at the boarding school. In addition, the play “The flying classroom” is to be performed. Since Uli's parents were late, they could no longer see the play - so Uli tells them the entire content. Here the class can fly to all parts of the world with the help of an airplane. In the last act, they even land in heaven. The end of the piece is the realization that flying is just a beautiful dream. But Uli's parents came up with the idea of ​​taking the whole class on a flight so that the dream could become a reality. Uli suggests Mombasa as a travel destination so that Martin can see his parents again. Therefore, the class flies to Mombasa in the end - and the non-smoker, who now works as a doctor in the clinic and only lives in the railroad car on weekends, with his new partner, school sister Beate, to Venice.

particularities

The film version from 1973 is a colored remake of the film from 1954. In this film version, the plot was changed in several points:

  • The story of Erich Kästner was moved from winter (Christmas time) to summer.
  • Martin's parents are not unemployed, but are trying to build something new in Africa (they are probably farmers).
  • Johnny's foster father is not a merchant fleet, but an aircraft captain at Lufthansa .
  • Johnny was not sent by his father to Europe, where there are no relatives, so that the father would get rid of him. In this version of the story, Johnny's grandmother has an accident on the way to the airport and therefore cannot pick him up.
  • At the end of the story, Uli's father pays a flight to Africa for the entire class to visit Martin's parents and make the “flying classroom” a reality.
  • The "non-smoker" Dr. Uthofft speaks of playing the piano in "Tollen Hund". This is the famous historic Schlenkerla brewery restaurant in Bamberg .

In addition, in the remake Johnny takes on the role of Martin as the leader, while Martin is reduced to his diligence and the "parenting problem". Sebastian's arrogance is toned down in comradely ridicule, which makes him appear more personable. The dance partner of the beautiful Theodor (here Professor Kreuzkamm's daughter) is expanded to become his girlfriend. The figure of the school sister is given the personality of a "sister Beate", who falls in love with the non-smoker and at the end flies with him to Venice to go on vacation there.

Location

Main entrance of the Aufseesianum

The film was shot in Bamberg . The scenes that take place inside the boarding school were filmed on the premises and in the building of the Bamberg boarding school Aufseesianum . The fictional boarding school in the film is also called the Aufseesianum.

Further films

In total, the novel was filmed three times. See:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the flying classroom . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2010 (PDF; test number: 46 054 V).