Under hot zone
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Under hot zone |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1916 |
| length | 91 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Harry Piel |
| script | Harry Piel |
| production |
Isidor Fett Karl Wiesel |
| occupation | |
| |
Under hot zone is a German sensational and adventure silent film by Harry Piel from 1916.
action
Captain Oliver Peer has seen a lot. One day, during the crossing with his ship “Rotterdam”, he tells of a particularly exciting adventure that he once had to endure in Africa:
As always in the past, the wealthy diamond mine owner J. Master had commissioned him to ship the gemstones mined on his property to Europe. This time the freight is of particularly high value. Since business was a little delayed, Peer was invited to a lion hunt. The trainer Leander, who was supposed to catch the animals for a US company for special dressage, took the captain with him on this catch. On this occasion Peer met the Amsterdam diamond dealer Yb van Haag and the American Ellen Johnston. On a trip to the colonial gold mines, Miss Johnston suddenly disappeared. A dark-skinned person whom everyone referred to as "Mulatto Orres" had taken possession of her. After Ellen's liberation, Orres was released instantly. When Master said that this time a particularly large diamond had been dug in his mine, everyone rushed there. The giant lump was named "Südstern". It was the size of a child's head. Even there, van Haag, once holding the diamond in his hands, could no longer keep his greedy looks from him.
Preparing for the return trip to Europe didn't leave Peer much time for other things, such as Ellen Johnston. And so one day he discovered that the young lady he was interested in had disappeared again together with Van Haag. The police were already looking for both of them as a pair of impostors. Without Captain Peer knowing about it, his helmsman had hired the shot Orres for the return voyage, who was now toiling in the hull. On the way home, Peer received a radio message stating that he should call into Tenerife beforehand in order to take mail home with him. At the moment of mooring, a figure climbed from his ship to a sailing ship moored next door. When Peer tried to put the mail in his ship's safe, he found that someone had stolen the "South Star". Having little confidence in the foreign police, Peer took up the pursuit of the thief himself and found him in a beach hotel. It was Orres, whom Peer was pursuing. In a dim harbor bar, he alerted the police who arrested Orres. In order to find out where the giant diamond was kept, the mulatto was informed that van Haag had delivered it to the knife. To increase the pressure, Peer then disguised himself as van Haag. Finally Orres confessed.
The dark-skinned man confessed that he had hidden the stone in the old machine house on the green rock. Once there, Peer was able to track down the diamond, but was overwhelmed and tied up by Van Haag, who had joined him. The villain lit a fuse, at the end of which there was a pile of dynamite waiting to be ignited, with which the house and the unconscious captain were to be blown up. But like Orres, Peer was able to free himself. At the last moment, Peer managed to position himself so that it would not tear him apart in the explosion. His people dug him out from under the bricks of the house. He was damaged, but at least he was alive. Peer rushed to the police and was told that a ship for America had departed half an hour ago. It was assumed that the diamond robbers must be on board. Peer followed them. On board the other ship was the lion tamer with his captured big cats. He and van Haag started talking. It turned out that Ellen Johnston, also on board, was married to Van Haag and had entered into this marriage against her father's stated will. Her sister Conny tried to reconcile her father and sister again.
Arrived in New York, van Haag accepted an invitation from Leander, who wanted to show him his lion dressage on his farm. Peer soon arrived there too and was astonished to see the intimate coexistence between van Haag and Ellen. At an opportune moment, Ellen Peer made it clear that she had only been at Van Haag's side to help him. She even got him a horse to pursue the diamond thief. After a full gallop, Peer put Van Haag in Leander's log cabin, where he had temporarily kept his lions. Van Haag disappeared and Peer now had the wildly snarling lions on his neck. Luckily for him, Leander rushed over and freed him from this awkward situation. The chase continued on a moving train, but while Peer jumped on the train, van Haag and Orres hopped down. Ellen met again with Van Haag, who was not yet suspicious, and squeezed him out about his future plans. The unscrupulous thief planned to blow up the Devil's Bridge, which the train had to cross with Peer on board, in order to finally get rid of the persistent pursuer. Ellen then informed Conny, a telegraph operator, who warned the train crew by telegram. But it was already too late, the train had already picked up too much speed. So Peer jumped forward over the roofs of the individual wagons and uncoupled the locomotive from the wagons. The cars slowed down as the locomotive sped toward the bridge. Then the bridge was blown and the locomotive crashed into the depths.
Van Haag and Orres tried to escape, but Captain Peer with his men and Ellen were on them. It came to the showdown in which van Haag fired a fatal shot at the "traitor", his wife Ellen. There was a scramble in a log cabin, fists flew. Eventually the two criminals were arrested by the police. Ellen's last words said that she deeply regretted her misstep with van Haag. Captain Peer took the south star and was finally able to finish his journey to Amsterdam.
Production notes
Under hot zone - occasionally the title Under hot sun can also be read - was created from the end of April up to and including May 1916 in and around Berlin and in the Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg. The ship photos were taken from the end of April 1916 on the Empress Auguste Viktoria . The 1750 meter long five-act act was Piel's most elaborate and ambitious production until the end of the First World War and devoured the enormous sum of 100,000 RM at the time . The film passed censorship in August 1916 and premiered that same month. In Austria-Hungary, the strip was shown for the first time as part of a separate screening on September 29, 1916 under the title "The South Star" .
Although it was made during the First World War, Unter hot zone is an example of the archetypal Piel film since 1919. Here Piel first used predators (the lions he always preferred) as a dramaturgical element of tension; a Pielsche trademark and recipe for success that the majority of his later productions would again and again distinguish. Oskar Kalbus wrote in 1935: “Harry Piel knows how to deal with wild animals. He already proved this in 1916 in his film “Unter hoter Sonne” [sic!] . The most important actors in this sensational film were the lions who were sent to Berlin from Hagenbeck's Hamburg zoo. The lions were no longer given any food two days before they were admitted so that they should be quite wild when they were admitted. So the story was by no means safe, but Harry Piel's caution was great, and even the lions could not withstand his command. "
The cinematograph dedicated an article to the shooting in its May 10, 1916 issue: "A lion hunt". In order to make the African part as authentic as possible, around a dozen black prisoners of war, all of them part of the British colonial troops, were forcibly recruited for the filming that took place in the middle of the war.
criticism
"A lion hunt, the fall of a car into the depths, a boiler explosion, an escape over the ship's rigging and finally a bridge blow just before the arrival of the luxury train, whose locomotive crashes into the river in good time, are extraordinary sensations."
Paimann's film lists summed up: "The material is fantastic, the game and the photos are very good, the lion hunt, the car fall, the jump from the horse into the moving train and especially the collapse scenes of the great iron bridge are great."
Web links
- Under the hot zone at The German Early Cinema Database
- Under the hot zone at filmportal.de
- Under a hot zone in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Message in the Kinematographische Rundschau of April 23, 1916, p. 41
- ^ Oskar Kalbus: On the becoming of German film art. 1st part: The silent film. Berlin 1935. p. 90
- ↑ Tobias Nagl: "and let me film and dance just to earn my bread". Black extras and cinema audiences in the Weimar Republic, p. 140
- ↑ Cinematographische Rundschau of October 8, 1916, p. 188
- ↑ The South Star (Under Hot Zone) ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Paimann's film lists
