The iron Gustav
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The iron Gustav |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | George Hurdalek |
| script | George Hurdalek |
| production | Berolina Kurt Ulrich film production |
| music | Bernhard Eichhorn |
| camera | Georg Bruckbauer |
| cut | Ingrid Wacker |
| occupation | |
| |
The iron Gustav is a film comedy or a film drama by the director and screenwriter George Hurdalek from 1958. Heinz Rühmann plays the leading role of the aging cab driver Gustav Hartmann .
The literary model for the film is the novel Der eiserne Gustav by Hans Fallada , published in 1938 , in which the main character is named "Gustav Hackendahl". The novel in turn is based on a true story. In 1928 Gustav Hartmann actually took a cab ride from Berlin to Paris and back.
action
Berlin, at the time of the Great Depression in 1928: Gustav Hartmann, once a haulier, can no longer support his family as a cab driver. Automobile taxis are preferred by customers. He hides this situation from his wife Marie by borrowing money from the innkeeper Fietzke. He pledged the property with the house on it as security. By chance, his family finds out about it and wants to have him declared insane.
After being summoned to court, he leaves the city with his cab without a specific destination. A newspaper reporter tracks him down and promises him 500 marks for a trip to Paris and accompanies him there. Through the newspaper reporter, the general public now hears about his project. The information about this penetrates into the smallest communities, which now each give the traveler an enthusiastic reception.
When he finally arrives in Paris, the public is initially not interested in him, as Charles Lindbergh has just finished his first flight across the Atlantic and thus puts Gustav in the shadow of public interest with his cab ride. So Gustav drove alone through Paris and scattered the postcards with his picture that he had commissioned for the reception he had actually planned. When the hustle and bustle around Lindbergh subsided a few days later, the press and the German embassy are looking for him everywhere.
After the celebratory reception is finally made up for and even shown in the newsreel, Gustav starts his journey home from Paris to Berlin and when he has successfully completed his return journey there, he is also enthusiastically received by the waiting audience. He is reconciled with his family and decides to invest the money he had made on the trip in an automobile workshop with a gas station, which he opens with his future son-in-law Otto.
Production notes
The film was released in German cinemas on December 5, 1958 . The filming locations were Berlin , Cologne and Paris .
Reviews
The Evangelische Film-Beobachter comes to an ambivalent, but overall positive assessment : “A touching and cheerful story of the triumphant desperate journey of an outmoded cab driver from Berlin to Paris. A colorful picture sheet that fails before the thematic possibilities of its material, but is useful as harmless and nice entertainment from 14 years on. "The lexicon of the international film draws the following conclusion:" Popular piece about a popular Berlin original with smirk and emotion. "
Further films
In 1979 ARD broadcast a seven-part television series of the same title. Gustav Knuth played the title role .
Web links
- The iron Gustav in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Der eiserne Gustav (1958) - Release Info - IMDb. In: imdb.com. Retrieved June 20, 2015 .
- ↑ Der eiserne Gustav (1958) - Filming Locations - IMDb. In: imdb.com. Retrieved June 20, 2015 .
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 312/1959
- ↑ Lexicon of International Films, rororo-Taschenbuch No. 6322 (1988), p. 833
- ↑ Legendary multi-part series: The iron Gustav