The angel with the trumpet

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Movie
Original title The angel with the trumpet
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1948
length 132 minutes
Rod
Director Karl Hartl
script Karl Hartl
Franz Tassié
production Karl Ehrlich on behalf of the Neue Wiener Filmproduktions-Ges. mb H.
music Willy Schmidt-Gentner
camera Günther Anders
cut Josefine Ramerstorfer
occupation

The Angel with the Trumpet is an Austrian film by Karl Hartl from 1948 . It is based on the novel of the same name by the writer Ernst Lothar from 1946.

character

In the form of a chronicle, the film describes the eventful history of an upper-class Viennese piano-making family from 1888 to 1945. The cast is led by the married couple Paula Wessely and Attila Hörbiger and his brother Paul Hörbiger .

The film is a mirror of the social and political upheavals over the course of these 60 years. It moves in the field of tension between progress and tradition, preservation and destruction. The figure of the angel with the trumpet serves as a warning symbol of the preservation of what is to be seen as worth preserving in the sense of the film: the belief in God and in the power of music, the preservation and respect of human values, the peace in political and social aspect. It is already indicated in the prologue that this warning is increasingly being disregarded; this disregard culminated in the catastrophe of World War II. At all points in the film where the social and political change is pointed out, the commentary is also shown with the angel.

The film was voted a great success and best film of the year in post-war Austria. The film producer Alexander Korda shot an English version (The Angel With the Trumpet) in 1950 .

content

Background: Christoph Alt, a Viennese piano maker, founded a piano factory in 1764 and built a house with an angel with a trombone above the portal. "He should commit him and all who would come after him forever to God and the heavenly power of music."

Synopsis: The year is 1888. A descendant of Christoph Alt, Franz Alt, wants to marry Henriette Stein, daughter of the Jewish university professor Stein. The family, however, has reservations about the choice of the bride. She is counted among the close circle of acquaintances of Crown Prince Rudolf , who is known for his stories about women . Franz Alt ignores these concerns, but gives his bride to understand that he does not want her further intercourse with the Crown Prince. Henriette therefore decides to have a last meeting with Rudolf to inform him of the impending marriage and to say goodbye to him. It becomes clear that she loves Rudolf and marrying Franz is an escape. Rudolf, who regrets her departure, expresses doubts about the meaningfulness of his life.

The marriage takes place a short time later. The celebrations are suddenly interrupted by the news of the death of the Crown Prince. For Henriette it is obvious that Rudolf took his own life, and she blames the emperor and his lack of understanding for his son. At the urging of her brother-in-law Otto-Eberhard, however, in an audience with the emperor, she hid this fact for reasons of state. The emperor hands Henriette a farewell letter from his son.

1906. The Alt married couple now have three children, a girl and two boys. An anonymously sent flower arrangement leads Henriette into a flower shop, where she meets Count Traun, former adjutant to the Crown Prince, who invites her over. This invitation was followed by others, and Henriette played with the idea of ​​leaving her husband and escaping with the count. The thought of the children keeps them from doing it. The husband found out about his wife's numerous rendezvous by chance. Beside himself with indignation, he demands satisfaction from the count and then kills him in a duel .

1914. The Alt piano factory celebrates its 150th anniversary. One of the sons of the Alt family, Hans, met the pianist Selma Rosner on this occasion. A romance is developing and Henriette invites Selma to tea on Sunday. This Sunday, a special edition reports the assassination attempt in Sarajevo with the murder of the heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo . War is in the air now. While Henriette and Hans are hostile to the war, Franz and his second son Hermann want to volunteer for the war.

1921. Both sons survived the war safely. However, on his return, Hans found out that his father was buried during the war, has been paralyzed since then and can no longer speak. Hans takes over the management and rebuilding of the company. The romance with Selma continues.

Henriette happens to find out that her daughter Martha-Monika wants to secretly emigrate to South America with her boyfriend. Like her mother once, she too wants to escape the narrow bourgeois world. Henriette doesn't want to stand in the daughter's way in the search for happiness. Hans seems to have already found this happiness. He tells Henriette that he wants to marry Selma. Hermann, on the other hand, seems to have estranged himself from the family. He goes into shady circles and runs into debt. When he asks his mother once again to pay off his debts, she refuses at first, finally gives him her jewelry at his insistence, but from then on wants nothing more to do with him.

When Henriette wants to tell her husband that Hans wants to get married, the silent Franz hands her two pieces of paper on which he asks her forgiveness for having married her. Franz always loved Henriette, but knew that he couldn't make her happy. Henriette, however, seems to have reconciled herself with her fate and expresses her appreciation for Franz.

1938. On the occasion of a Jedermann performance in Salzburg, Henriette noticed that Hermann had become a fanatical supporter of the National Socialists. He disrupts the performance during the Lord's Prayer by shouting "Hitler" and is taken away by the police. When a few months later an SA troop broke into the Alt family's house because the house was not flagged with swastika flags, only Henriette was in the house. She explains that her father was Jewish and that there would be no flagging. The SA men then want to lead them away. Henriette withdraws on the pretext that she wants to take some personal belongings with her. Her son Hans, who hurried up shortly afterwards, discovered that she had put an end to her life by jumping out of the window. Before that, she had taken the Crown Prince's farewell letter. When a good-humored Hermann arrives to inform his mother that the "blemish" in her papers has been removed, he is horrified and confronted with his mother's corpse.

1945. During the Second World War, the Alt family's house is destroyed by bombs, the fragments of the angel lie in the rubble. Hans and Selma, their two children and some of the company's employees take the rebuilding of the company into their own hands.

Production notes

As early as December 1945, the cultural officer Otto de Pasetti , who was in American service, suggested that Paula Wessely “should show her skills, which are so valuable for Austrian cultural life, as soon as possible in a decidedly Austrian film”. This is "the best way to let the film Homecoming fall into oblivion."

The angel with the trumpet was based on the novel of the same name by Ernst Lothar . The Rosenhügel film studios served as a studio . The outdoor shots were taken in Vienna and the surrounding area.

The film premiered on August 19, 1948 in Salzburg . In addition, he was in the IX. International Venice Film Festival (19 August to 5 September 1948). The German premiere was on February 8, 1949 in Hamburg.

For Karl Hartl, this film meant the resumption of his regular work as a film director after ten years. Between 1938 and 1948 he only directed the Mozart film Who the Gods Love .

Numerous subsequently famous actors made their debut in Der Engel with the trombone or played their first regular speaking role, including Karlheinz Böhm , Peter Alexander and Oskar Werner . For Maria Schell it was the first role as an adult and at the same time the first role in her old home country Austria.

The film structures were designed by Otto Niedermoser and carried out by Walter Schmiedel .

In 1950, the London-Films Alexander Korda production facility in London produced an English version entitled The Angel with the Trumpet . The actor Anthony Bushell was named as a director instead of Karl Hartl, as he was not officially allowed to direct in England as a member of an occupied country.

Awards

The angel with the trumpet received the Graf Sascha challenge cup from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education for the best Austrian film of 1948.

criticism

The lexicon of the international film wrote: "The film deals with the interrelationship between state and family in an expansive form and allows insights into the history and cultural history of Austria in the margins." In addition, the film was also certified as having "dramaturgical defects".

In its issue 35 of August 28, 1948, Der Spiegel said: “The film touched the heart. Paula Wessely, Attila and Paul Hörbiger, Helene Thimig, Hedwig Bleibtreu, Hans Holt and everyone else came together to form an ensemble that has seldom been seen so closely together. However, the abundance of events is staggering. Americans believed that a three-hour screening time was too much for even the most enthusiastic moviegoer. Everyone agreed on one thing: Austrian production has created a plant that the world will still talk about. Paula Wessely, changing as Henriette from a young girl to an aging woman, fully developed the art of her naturalness and the naturalness of her art. Attila Hörbiger, her husband in life too, has an unforgettable scene as Franz Alt when he, as a paralyzed man, scribbles 'Servus Bub' on a piece of paper to greet the returning son. "

The critic Maria Fritsche recalled the delicate constellation of playing a Jewish woman, Paula Wessely, who was once adapted to the Nazi regime, and wrote: “The film leaves out the war years and portrays National Socialism in a fatalistic way as a kind of force of nature that has swept across Austria. Karl Hartl's first directorial work after a ten-year hiatus gave the stars of Wien-Film, Paula Wessely and Attila Hörbiger, the opportunity to distance themselves from the Nazi regime: Paula Wessely's suicide as an Austrian Jew de-Nazified herself to a certain extent. The Austrian audience honored her »Rehabilitation of Austrians« (Franz Antel) by choosing Engel with the trumpet to be the best film of the year. "

literature

  • Ernst Lothar : The angel with the trumpet . Novel. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 978-3423206747 .
  • Illustrated Filmkurier No. 503, Vienna, September 1948.
  • Illustrated film stage no.320.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 3sat program of October 26, 2012: http://programm.ard.de/TV/3sat/der-engel-mit-der-posaune/eid_280078825586746?list=now of November 13, 2012
  2. ↑ Filmlexikon Zweausendeins: http://www.zweitausendeins.de/filmlexikon/?sucheNach=titel&wert=24193 from November 13, 2012
  3. ↑ Georg Markus: Die Hörbigers , Vienna 2006, p. 221 f.
  4. ^ Alfred Bauer : German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 48 f.
  5. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexicon of International Films. Volume 2. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987, p. 869.
  6. ↑ The angel with the trumpet in Der Spiegel
  7. ↑ The angel with the trumpet in film.at