The great shadow

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Movie
Original title The great shadow
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1942
length 95 minutes
Rod
Director Paul Verhoeven
script Harald Bratt
production Tobis-Filmkunst GmbH (Berlin), production group Herbert Engelsing
music Hans-Otto Borgmann
camera Richard fear
cut Johanna Rosinski
occupation

The Great Shadow is a feature film by Paul Verhoeven from 1942. The main role of the film, which varies motifs from Calderón's play The Judge of Zalamea , was played by Heinrich George .

content

The married couple Gisela Ahrens and Robert Jürgensen are both actors and should appear together on a stage in the province in the play The Judge of Zalamea . In the prompter of the piece, both recognize the formerly known Berlin actor Conrad Schroeter.

Flashback by several years: Conrad Schröter met the young Gisela Ahrens on a tour. He engaged her at his theater in Berlin . Gisela falls in love with the actor she admires, and Conrad, who initially defends himself against his feelings, has also fallen in love with the young colleague. However , he has to cancel his first rendezvous with Gisela because his daughter Inge is not doing well.

Conrad asks the actor Robert Juergensen to inform Gisela of his absence. However, he takes the opportunity, convinces Gisela that Conrad will not return her love and seduces her. Shortly afterwards, he finds a new love in Conrad's daughter Inge, who feels abandoned by her father and fiancé Martin Scholz. Gisela becomes pregnant by Robert and reveals this in a conversation Inge, who breaks his heart. She takes her own life. Conrad finds out about this while he is on stage in the Judge of Zalamea . He, in the role of Pedro Crespo, then falls on Robert in the role of Captain Don Alvaro, who seduced his daughter Isabel, played by Gisela, in the play. He begs him to give him back his daughter. Fiction and reality mix when Conrad Robert almost actually strangles from anger and desperation on stage. The curtain falls prematurely and the almost insane Conrad is taken to a mental hospital. Robert realizes his guilt and is close to suicide - Gisela helps him out of his depths and both start a new life because of their child. On the "flight" from Conrad, both begin an unsteady life and travel from guest performance to guest performance.

Vorblende: In addition to Gisela and Robert, at the request of the director, Conrad is also to play in the judge of Zalamea . The audience celebrates Conrad, who has returned to the stage and manages to reconcile himself with himself, his past and Robert during the performance. In the end he shakes hands with both actors and says: "There is something higher than our personal fate, our art."

production

Main actor Heinrich George 1943

Filming for The Great Shadow began on May 15, 1942 and ended in July of that year. One location for the film was the Berlin Schiller Theater , where Heinrich George was director and actor.

On September 4, 1942, the censors banned the film from young people. The film was the last German film to have its world premiere in 1942 at the 10th Venice International Film Festival . The German premiere took place on October 23, 1942 in Berlin's Gloria Palast .

criticism

Contemporary critics praised the fact that “the theater milieu [has seldom] been captured as grippingly and genuinely as it is here.” The big shadow was “a film from the world of the actor, a work that art and artists take seriously takes and shows without the cheap romance with which so often actor novels and films are burdened. "

Heinrich George, who had already played the leading role in the Richter von Zalamea at the Berlin Schiller Theater in 1937 , would play “Conrad Schröder with all the richness of his representational power”, while Will Quadflieg “gives this twilight role interesting human contours”. Heidemarie Hatheyer would "also succeed in portraying the difficult to understand in her role". The film, directed by Paul Verhoeven, shows "a very successful interplay of all forces - the actors in episode roles also make an impression."

The lexicon of international film noted the concept of "theater in film and theatrical conflicts in which the plot of the play is varied in a contemporary manner." The film is "still gripping thanks to Heinrich George's outstanding character representation."

Awards

The film received the ratings "artistically particularly valuable" and "culturally valuable". At the 10th Venice International Film Festival in 1942, The Great Shadow was awarded the Premio della Biennale .

literature

  • Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 3. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, pp. 1429-1430.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The festival during the fascist dictatorship 1935–1942 is no longer included in the official census.
  2. Cf. Lothar Papke: Around Heinrich George. "The Great Shadow" premiered in the Gloria Palast . Berliner Zeitung, autumn 1942.
  3. a b c Movies We Saw: The Great Shadow . In: Filmwelt . No. 41/42, November 11, 1942, p. 328.
  4. a b G. Herzberg: The great shadow . In: Film-Kurier . No. 215, Berlin, September 14, 1942.
  5. The premiere took place on January 8, 1937, Heinrich George took over the role of Pedro Crespo in the production of Ernst Legal as in the film. See game for honor. Calderón - The Judge of Zalamea, Schiller Theater. In: KH Ruppel: Great Berlin Theater . Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1962, pp. 73-74.
  6. H. Henseleit: The great shadow . In: Film-Kurier . No. 250, Berlin, October 24, 1942.
  7. Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 3. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 1430.