The Devil's Advocate (1977)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The devil's lawyer |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1977 |
| length | 109 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Guy Green |
| script | Morris L. West |
| production |
Helmut Jedele Lutz stallion |
| music | Bert reason |
| camera | Billy Williams |
| cut | Stefan Arnsten |
| occupation | |
| |
The Devil's Advocate is a 1976 film adaptation of Morris L. West's bestseller The Devil's Advocate . Directed by Guy Green , with Sir John Mills in the lead .
action
Italy in 1958. On behalf of the Catholic Church in Rome, the British Monsignor Blaise Meredith is supposed to investigate a case of miraculous work in the remote, southern Italian village of Scontrone. It is about Giacomo Nerone, shrouded in mystery, who was executed by the country's communist partisans 14 years earlier during acts of war in 1944. This year, the man is said to have prevented the devastation of the place by German troops with the greatest willingness to sacrifice and charity. Since then, the local population has worshiped Nerone like a saint. In order to weigh the pros and cons of his beatification, a “devil's advocate” is required. This is intended to illuminate every aspect of Nerone's miraculous work from all angles, but above all from those of the doubt about his miraculous deeds. The seriously ill Monsignor Meredith, suffering from terminal cancer, takes on this task with great conscientiousness.
The old Englishman soon finds out that Negrone was actually a British soldier by the name of James Black, who had been separated from his unit during the course of the war and had hidden in the village as a deserter. Here he began a love affair with the local Nina Sanduzzi, who soon became pregnant by him and gave birth to a son. Nina was very hated by the villagers. During his research, Meredith, the man of God, comes across a number of villagers who are entangled in the fate of the murdered, alleged benefactor: Dr. Aldo Meyer, a Jewish doctor who had fled the fascists, the Contessa de Sanctis, whose love for Nerone was not reciprocated, and the homosexual painter Nicholas Black, who years later tried to seduce Nerone's son Paolo. In lengthy conversations with each individual, the monsignor finally develops a complex puzzle on this case, which gradually sheds light on the Giacomo Nerone case.
Production notes
Des Teufels Advokat is a German depreciation film and was shot as a purely German production in English in the Bavaria studios (interior shots). The German premiere was on October 27, 1977 in Stuttgart.
The film structures come from Rolf Zehetbauer and Werner Achmann . Karl Lagerfeld was involved in the costume designs.
Reviews
The lexicon of international films states: "The story takes place on two temporal levels in the impoverished south of Italy: during the Second World War and towards the end of the 1950s."
Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Well-intentioned but rather lukewarm and ambiguous adaptation of a bestseller, which probably makes its statements more determined".
Individual evidence
- ↑ The devil's lawyer. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 1, 2019 .
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 271
Web links
- Devil's advocate in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The devil's advocate at filmportal.de