The young Englishman
The Young Englishman is a German DEFA feature film directed by Gottfried Kolditz in 1958 based on the fairy tale The Monkey as Man by Wilhelm Hauff .
action
Grünwiesel is an old German town in which the Middle Ages still rule in 1825 and a mysterious stranger has been living within its walls for a short time. None of the established citizens know anything about him, which torments everyone and seems suspicious to them. One suspects that he is a scientist, but that is not certain, as he repeatedly receives invitations from the city's dignitaries , who want to gain clarity, but which he repeatedly refuses. These harassments cause the strange gentleman torture of all kinds, but one day a circus visits the city, which will cause a change.
During the performance, the citizens of the city open their mouths, ears and noses, as they are fascinated by the art on display. Only the strange gentleman is not enthusiastic about the noise that accompanies the performances. But he takes great pleasure in a monkey who has taken on the job of a cashier and has a penchant for bows and is a great talent for imitation . From the great interest that the stranger finds in the monkey, you can tell that he is up to something. That evening the circus leaves Grünwiesel again and the strange gentleman follows him.
He arrives in the town in the middle of the night, but no longer alone. He explains to the city guard that it is his nephew who does not yet speak German and he settles the issue of the missing passport with a large sum of the local currency. The next day, the mayor asks the city guard to clarify which nationality the nephew is and within a quarter of an hour all of Grünwiesel knows that it is supposed to be an Englishman . A few weeks later, a dance teacher is hired to teach the young man to dance. He has a temperament that can hardly be tamed, but the strange gentleman knows that you just have to tighten the bow that he wears around his neck and he'll be calm again. Then the time comes when he can introduce his nephew into the world and that begins with the mayor. The young Englishman is very interested in his daughter, but he only has eyes for the bow she wears on her chest. While his daughter is playing classical tunes on the piano, he sits down and turns it into rock 'n' roll . The open-minded, understanding and indulgent family gets to know a very interesting young foreigner with his manners and inclinations.
The young Englishman's next visit is to the pastor's family, where he immediately disappears into the bedroom with his daughter, only to come out again with a live goose, which is part of the collected church tax. Here, too, he collects ribbons again, from which the pastor's wife is not spared and thus has a gift for the subsequent visit to the pharmacist family. A visit to the Ratskeller followed by the gentlemen who met there, where he learned how to drink beer and how to play cards. After the pharmacist has repeatedly recommended his daughter to the young Englishman, the mayor and the pastor also join in with the same concern.
The ball season in Grünwiesel has started and all participants have adopted the manners of the Englishman and his way of dressing over time. The mothers present hope that the Englishman will take a liking to their daughters so that they can finally get under the hood. Then the time of the polonaise comes and everyone wonders whose daughter the Englishman will choose as a partner. But none of them make the choice, because he dances with the dance master, as he knows his type of movements through the lessons. But the ribbons on the young ladies bring the English completely out of the calm and rhythm. The dance rhythm suddenly takes on a fast pace and it turns out that humans can adopt the movements of monkeys. New dances require new fashions and now suddenly all shirts are pulled out of the pants and the dancing continues like crazy. The uncle didn't think that people's instinct for imitation could go so far.
Suddenly the strange gentleman becomes seriously ill. That is why he cannot take part in the singing competition in which his nephew is supposed to form a quartet with his three daughters. That's why he advises the mayor that if the young Englishman should behave too wildly again, all he needs to do is loosen the ribbon on his neck and calm will return. When the Englishman wants to get faster and more exuberant again during the singing, the mayor loosens his neck bow. This trick has an amazing effect, because the Englishman begins to undress and in the end turns out to be a normal monkey. The dignitaries of the city are embarrassed, who vied for the favor of the Englishman and even wanted to get rid of their daughters in him. In the midst of all the consternation, the mayor receives a letter from the stranger, in which he says that he no longer lives in the city and asks the citizens not to be angry with him for his action. He hopes they have learned that there is no point in adoring any monkey just because he speaks English.
production
The black and white film The Young Englishman was shot under the working title The Monkey as Human by the Satirical Short Film working group in the Babelsberg studio and had its premiere on October 31, 1958 in the Colosseum cinema in Berlin . It was first broadcast on German television on January 27, 1959.
The scenario of this musical film satire of the Stacheltier group comes from Susanne Dancker and the dramaturgy was in the hands of Eva Seemann. The music was performed by the DEFA Symphony Orchestra , and the narrator's texts, which lead through the film, were written by Lothar Kusche based on Wilhelm Hauff.
criticism
VL wrote about the film in the Berliner Zeitung :
“On the whole: a delightful idea, even if not always easy to understand for the large audience. Dance. Masks, buildings, music (Hans-Dieter Hosalla) formed a unit that is filled with slightly lively imagination and superior ridicule. "
In the Neue Zeit , HU says:
"A film that deserves praise, a film that has style, a film that is a successful experiment and which, we would like to think, can mean a real expansion of the possibilities of expression in the art of film."
In the lexicon of international film one is of the opinion “that this represents an artistically impressive experiment designed as a dance pantomime. In the commentary that refers to the mimicking of American fashions, however, it appears too deliberately up-to-date. "
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 294-295 .
Web links
- The young Englishman in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The young Englishman at filmportal.de
- The young Englishman on DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of November 4, 1958, p. 3
- ↑ Neue Zeit of November 5, 1958, p. 4
- ↑ The young Englishman. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 9, 2019 .