The Schlemihl
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Schlemihl |
| Country of production | German Empire |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1931 |
| length | 74 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Max Nosseck |
| script | Hans Rameau |
| production | Microphone film, Berlin |
| music | Mischa Spoliansky |
| camera | Willy Winterstein |
| occupation | |
| |
The Schlemihl is a German film fun game from 1931 by Max Nosseck with Curt Bois in the title role.
action
The young employee Hartwig is a real Schlemihl , he is always just unlucky. His boss just fired him. But then he meets a Prince Janitscheff, who seems to be turning his fate around: he thinks Hartwig is a certain Mr. Döllinger, whom he met last year in Baden-Baden . This presumed acquaintance of yore seems to be paying off promptly for the Schlemihl of today: Hartwig is asked by the rich Russian exile to sit at his table in a noble restaurant, where the beautiful young dancer Garda Maro, whom Hartwig adores, sits, and is allowed to, at Janitscheff's expense feast to your heart's content. Then the prince asks the alleged acquaintance from last summer to settle him on another pleasure tour in the car. The prince drives his car against a tree, whereupon Hartwig briefly loses consciousness.
He is admitted to a hospital and treated there as patient Josef Döllinger based on the princely information. All Hartwig's attempts to clear up this mistake of name fail. For the attending physician Prof. Dr. This is terribly not surprising since, as he lectures, accident patients lose their memory more often as a result of a crash. Prince Janitscheff, who caused the accident, sees himself responsible for Schlemihl's misery and brings him to Villa Döllinger after he is released from medical care. The nobleman asks Garda and a few other friends to take care of their friend, who is obviously slightly bruised in the head, on the first evening "at home".
Garda passes the time in the house by looking around a little and discovers Döllinger's diary. The young woman learns from this that Döllinger is a criminal named Tim Burke. Now she believes that Hartwig is playing a wrong game with her and the prince, but somehow finds this "dark side" of the person she is looking after quite sexy and begins to be interested in Schlemihl and alleged crooks. The action is now picking up speed when suddenly a real crook named Jack Brillant appears in the house, with his wife, whom he always calls Sweetheart, in tow. Jack learns that Hartwig alias Döllinger alias Burke is a gangster buddy, and he really wants to get to know him, because he is still looking for an accomplice for an upcoming jewel theft. Hartwig agrees, because he instinctively senses that the Garda he adored is into "bad boys", as he supposedly is one.
The jewel coup failed of course promptly, and Hartwig, Jack and his wife had to flee from the police. Garda observed the mishap from a café across the street. Soon the three fugitives split up, and while the pair of crooks moved on and the left behind Hartwig escaped as a supposed firefighter in the fast fire engine, the latter returned to the Döllinger villa. But he no longer meets Garda. She left the house the moment she read the newspaper that the real Tim Burke had been arrested. With that, her interest in Hartwig was suddenly extinguished. And so the little man is once again the really unlucky one.
Production notes
Schlemihl was shot in just two and a half weeks between August 7 and August 24, 1931. The film was censored by Germany on November 2, 1931, but was premiered on October 15, 1931 in Vienna. The Berlin premiere was on November 27, 1931.
Viktor Skutezky took over the production management. Heinrich C. Richter created the film structures , Emil Specht provided the sound.
The only music track was: "Where burns". Marcellus Schiffer wrote the text for it .
useful information
Schlemihl was not only Bois' first sound film, it was also one of the few screen productions in which he played a single leading role. The film was a "surprise hit".
Reviews
After its premiere in Vienna on October 15, 1931, contemporary reviews were pretty benevolent of the film. Here are three examples:
The Österreichische Film-Zeitung called Der Schlemihl a “quick, cheerful film” and paid tribute to “the excellent ensemble and the successful ideas of the director”. Furthermore, it was to be read elsewhere: “Curt Bois gives the comic timidity, which is the characteristic trait of his role, excellent. One could enumerate scenes after scenes that irresistibly make you laugh because of their funny comedy. (...) In addition to Curt Bois, one has to mention the excellent ensemble, especially the dancer ... La Jana. "
The Neue Zeitung stated that Der Schlemihl draws his humor a lot from the fund of American grotesque comedy, and especially praised the main actor: “Kurt Bois does other things in which he does not come too much into the foreground…. He doesn't exaggerate, he lets himself be carried away by the events, and the effect is a funny film that, apart from that, does without a happy ending. (...) Of course the whole thing is "nonsense", as the educated cinema-goer must admit, but on the other hand he must also admit that he had a good time ... ".
Vienna's Neue Freie Presse compared Curt Bois' play with Charlie Chaplin's type comedy and wrote in the October 17, 1931 edition: “Kurt Bois inherently brings a lot with him for such a role - a melancholy facial expression that moves and at the same time The fixity of the limbs is in a hilarious contradiction, and precisely that agility that stimulates and enables him to do all kinds of dance-acrobatic bravado. (…) In the end the piece is over, without an end, and the last laugh dawns on the audience that they regret not seeing such excellent ability ... like Kurt Bois' faced with a higher, that is, more sensible and artistically more valuable task . "
Web links
- The Schlemihl in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Schlemihl at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Curt Bois in Cinegraph. Delivery 5, B 2
- ^ Der Schlemihl in the Austrian Film Newspaper of October 17, 1931
- ↑ "The Schlemihl". In: Österreichische Film-Zeitung , October 17, 1931, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).
- ^ The Schlemihl in the Neue Zeitung of October 17, 1931
- ↑ "The Schlemihl". In: Neue Freie Presse , October 17, 1931, p. 10 (online at ANNO ).