The mountain calls
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The mountain calls |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1938 |
| length | 95 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Luis Trenker |
| script | Luis Trenker Hanns Sassmann Richard Billinger |
| production | Luis Trenker |
| music | Giuseppe Becce |
| camera | Sepp Allgeier , Otto Martini , Albert Benitz , Walter Riml , Klaus von Rautenfeld |
| cut | Waldemar Gaede , Fritz Stapenhorst |
| occupation | |
| |
Der Berg ruft is a German mountain film from 1937/1938. It portrays the first ascent of the Matterhorn in a dramatically pointed and condensed manner . It is based on the factual novel Der Kampf ums Matterhorn by Carl Haensel .
action
The Italian mountaineer Carrel is notorious in his home village Breuil-Cervinia as a day thief and useless because he only has one task: to be the first to climb the Matterhorn. The locals simply call the Matterhorn in their dialect Gran Becca , large mountain. On a mountain tour he meets the English alpinist Edward Whymper . He, too, is obsessed with the desire to be the first to stand on the summit of this previously unconquered mountain. After initial arguments, the two men become friends and give each other the word to climb the Matterhorn together next year.
At the appointed time, in the summer of 1865, Whymper returned to his friend's house and gave him a precious ice ax . Carrel reciprocates with an eagle down, "shot himself" . Both are determined to leave for the agreed tour in the next few days. The only difference is which side you want to enter the mountain from. For Carrel as an Italian, the ascent can only begin from Breuil, i.e. from Italy. Whymper, on the other hand, believes that entry from the Swiss base is less dangerous. This question arouses an interest that goes far beyond the pure mountaineering. Both villages at the foot of the Matterhorn, Breuil and Zermatt , hope for a stream of wealthy tourists if their names become world-famous as the starting point for the first ascent. Italy, which was reunified a few years earlier (1861), sees the conquering of this “Italian” mountain by Italians as a national task. The government in Turin puts together a well-equipped expedition, the leader of which is said to be the experienced Carrel. He invokes the word of honor given to the Englishman and refuses to participate. The Breuil hotelier resorted to an evil ruse. He steals Carrel's ice ax and sends his unstable friend Luc Meynet to Whymper with the message: "Carrel is not coming." Meynet returns with the eagle fluff. Carrel feels released from his word and now decides to lead the Italian group. The Englishman feels betrayed. He set off immediately with Swiss mountain guides and three English mountaineers. The race to the mountain top has begun.
On July 14, 1865 Whymper reached the pristine summit. A few hundred meters below he discovers the Italian mountaineers. They turn back, disappointed, when they perceive the figures above. Whymper documents the first ascent on a piece of paper and buries it in a bottle. A disaster occurs on the descent: An Englishman slips, the safety rope breaks, four participants fall to their deaths. “The rope is broken!” With these words Whymper hurries past the horrified guests of the already prepared victory banquet in the Zermatt hotel. The words are propagated in the waiting crowd. “My ropes don't break!” Replies the master rope maker. He accuses the Englishman of having cut the rope in order to save his skin and selfishly sacrificing his comrades. The rumor is spreading like wildfire. Whymper is charged in court, doubts about his mountaineering skills grow, the broken rope, the main indicator of his innocence, is not found.
Carrel hears about the trial. Single-handedly he conquers the Matterhorn in night and storm. At the summit he discovers Whymper's bottle. He reads: "... Carrel [...] returns defeated and thus atone for his betrayal of us." Suddenly he sees through the intrigue that has been spun against him. He finds the rope and thinks for a moment about chopping off the broken end of the rope with an ice ax. With the last of his strength, he storms back and puts the end of the rope on the judge's table. Whymper is rehabilitated.
background
The film about the first ascent of the Matterhorn is a remake of Nunzio Malasomma's silent film The Battle for the Matterhorn from 1928, in which Trenker also played the role of Carrel. Trenker was dissatisfied with the technical implementation of the first film and its historical accuracy and wanted to film the story a second time with better technical equipment. He said: “I was not satisfied with the mute composure, it deviated too much from the actual events, which left me with no peace.” The outdoor shots took place in 1937 in Zermatt and on the Matterhorn. The film was also shot as a German-English co-production with two different leading actresses. The role of Heidemarie Hatheyer , who made her screen debut in Der Berg is Ruf , played Joan Gardner in the British version .
The Reichsfilmkammer was particularly disturbed by the international character and the neutral location of the plot. Nevertheless, the film received the rating “artistically valuable” from the film testing agency . The premiere was on January 6, 1938 in Berlin in the UFA-Palast am Zoo .
Reviews
"Luis Trenker describes the events surrounding the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1864 in impressive photos."
"Entertaining, professionally made mountaineering film for those interested in the matter."
“(...) technically adept film with a tailor-made role for Trenker (...). (Rating: 2½ out of 4 possible stars - above average) "
"Still worth seeing today."
"In Trenker's film, the story of the first ascent of the Matterhorn becomes a symbol of man's engagement with nature, beyond the mere mountaineering achievement."
See also
literature
- Carl Haensel : The fight for the Matterhorn. Factual novel . Rotten-Verlag, Visp 2003, 161 pages, ISBN 3-907624-51-3
Web links
- The mountain calls in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The mountain calls at Filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b “Lexicon of International Films” (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997
- ↑ quoted from Das große TV Spielfilm Filmlexikon . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 , p. 1295
- ↑ a b -jg- in: The great TV feature film film lexicon . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 , p. 1295
- ↑ -jg- in: The great TV feature film film lexicon . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 , p. 1294
- ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz: Lexicon "Films on Television" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 81
- ↑ 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958 . Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism, 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 42