The Perjurer (1915)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The perjurer |
| Country of production | Austria-Hungary |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1915 |
| length | approx. 104 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Luise Kolm Jakob Fleck |
| script | based on the play of the same name (1871) by Ludwig Anzengruber |
| production |
Anton Kolm Luise Kolm Jakob Fleck for the Viennese art film industry |
| occupation | |
| |
Der Meineidbauer is an Austrian homeland and silent film drama by Luise Kolm and Jakob Fleck from 1915 with Hermann Benke in one of the leading roles.
action
The story largely sticks to the play of the same name (see there) . At the center of the action are two farms, the Kreuzweghof and the Adamhof, and their intertwined family ties. One day the old Kreuzweghof farmer dies, whereupon the deceased's stepbrother, Mathias Ferner, makes claims. The old man and his maid had two children together, Vroni and Jakob. Inheritance disputes quickly arise. The stepbrother is supposed to take an oath in court that the old farmer's last will was not that Vroni and Jakob should be favored. Furthermore, this swears and thereby perjury. In this way he comes into possession of the Kreuzweghof and drives the maid and her children away from his new property. The guilt he has taken on in his actions begins to weigh heavily on him, and so over the years he becomes more and more religious.
Years go by and Vroni has found a job at the neighboring Adamshof. She has justified hopes that Toni, the son of the Adamhof farmer Andreas, is interested in her and is all the more disappointed when it becomes clear that he will marry Ferner's daughter, the new Kreuzhofweg farmer. Again she seems cheated of her happiness and her home, and she has to leave this court too. Vroni is temporarily staying with her grandmother, the unconventional Burgerlies. Vroni's ailing brother soon dies, and a man named Franz, who begins to be interested in her, turns out to be the son of the hated Kreuzweghof usurper. After all, she comes into possession of a letter from the dead old farmer to Ferner, which clearly states that Vroni, her mother and her brother should very well come into the possession of the farm. Vroni is no longer ready to let the cheeky liar Ferner get away with his brazen perjury and takes up the fight against him. His son Franz, a decent young man, takes Vroni's side in the fight for justice.
Furthermore, Senior continues to cling to the farm he has wrongly taken possession of and tries by all means to keep Vroni away from both the Kreuzweghof and the marriage with Franz, which he expressly forces. Vroni is now very combative, she intends to go to the district court with the letter the next day in order to claim her right there. Things come to a head: Furthermore, Franz gets into a serious tussle in which the son falls into the depths, but survives badly injured. A little later, the perjurer is killed by a rock fall. Now Vroni and Franz can finally begin a peaceful future together on the Kreuzweghof.
Production notes
The perjury maker was created in mid-1915 and premiered on September 17, 1915 in Vienna. The film had a prelude and four acts and was around 1900 meters long for a cinema production of the time. The scenes are viraged .
This was the first theatrical version of this popular film material. Further film adaptations of The Perjury Farmer were made in 1926 (again under the direction of Kolms and Flecks), in 1941 under the direction of Leopold Hainisch and in 1956 under that of Rudolf Jugert .
Reviews
“After the highly successful experiment of filming the“ Pfarrer von Kirchfeld ”, Wiener Kunstfilm also dared the“ perjury builder ”and thus, what should be said in a moment, created a work that lives up to the skills of Austrian film production. (...) Happy ... the respective locations have been chosen. Picturesque landscapes seen from an artistic point of view add to the charm of this exciting work. Individual scenes seem almost overwhelming, for example the scene during the thunderstorm in the mountains, when the perjury farmer's son standing on the high path is injured by his father by a shotgun and falls into the depths. A scene of idyllic beauty is the walk the Vroni with the Adamhof farmer's son through fields and meadows. The wonderful nature here literally celebrates the happiness of the two lovers. The presentation is partly first-class, partly good. (...) By the way, this film has once again proven that, with some skill and good will, Anzengruber's works are also highly suitable for the film. "
Web links
- The perjury farmer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The perjurer at The German Early Cinema Database