The Carnival Confession (1960)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The carnival confession |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 96 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Wilhelm Dieterle |
| script | Kurt Heuser |
| production | Dietrich von Theobald for UFA (Berlin) |
| music | Siegfried Franz |
| camera | Heinz Pehlke |
| cut | Carl Otto Bartning |
| occupation | |
| |
The Fastnachtsbeichte is a German feature film from 1960 based on the novel of the same name by Carl Zuckmayer . Directed by William Dieterle play Hans Söhnker , Gitty Daruga and Götz George the lead roles.
action
Festively decorated Mainz, on Shrove Tuesday in 1913. A young man in dragoon uniform staggered into the cathedral to make confession with the cathedral capitular. But he can only say one sentence: "I poor, sinful person." Then he collapses dead - there is a stiletto in his back. At the same time, the final preparations for the final phase of the carnival are made in the lordly house of the respected Mainz citizen Adelbert Panezza, where the head of the house plays the important role of a carnival prince. The Panezza family includes Adelbert's wife and the children Bettine and Jeanmarie. The latter holds the military rank of a dragoon lieutenant. In the general carnival bustle, the pretty Sicilian Viola Toralto, a relative from the southern Italian branch of the family, turns up late in the evening. When she sees Jeanmarie in the entrance hall and he also remembers him with his name, since they last saw each other when they were children, Viola initially reacts rather confused, while Jeanmarie is very happy about her arrival.
Shortly after the murder in the cathedral, a suspect is arrested in Madame Guttier's brothel. The arrested young man was drunk and threw around plenty of money, the origin of which he cannot explain. He was also armed with a revolver when he was arrested. It is about the recruit Clemens Bäumler, who, like the murdered man, belonged to the Dragoon Regiment. Detective Merzbecher takes over the investigation; Bäumler and various people from the Panezza family are interrogated. Bäumler's mother works as a dishwasher in the Panezza house and is said to have once been Jeanmarie's milkmaid. The dead man's name is also known: a certain Ferdinand, deserter, brother of the arrested Clemens and son of Mrs. Bäumler. Ferdinand's reputation is badly battered: once he fled Germany for embezzlement and joined the Foreign Legion. He is said to have died there. But he had faked his death and assumed a new identity so that he could secretly return to Mainz.
Adelbert Panezza confesses to the cathedral chapter that the dead Ferdinand was his illegitimate son, whom he fathered a long time ago with Jeanmaries, who works in the house. Viola too suddenly falls into the twilight. Jeanmarie recognizes the letter "T" on her bracelet, which also adorns the murder weapon, the stiletto. T for Toralto. Ultimately, the facts come together to form a coherent puzzle. Since his time in the Foreign Legion, the deceased has been posing as his unknown half-brother Jeanmarie Panezza. It was under this name that Viola met and fell in love with Ferdinand as an adult in Sicily. However, after he had chatted off a valuable pearl necklace on the grounds that he had high gambling debts and only wanted to loan the piece of jewelry temporarily, the fake Jeanmarie disappeared without a trace. Viola suspected that he would go back to Mainz and followed him. In the carnival stronghold, Ferdinand / Jeanmarie planned to extort money from his producer Adelbert Panezza. Before that, however, he went to his half-brother Clemens to persuade him to emigrate to America with him. Then he exchanged clothes with Clemens, so that Ferdinand wore the uniform and Clemens the suit with the money from the proceeds of the sold viola jewelery, including the revolver - both with the T-engraving. In this outfit Ferdinand was seriously injured with a stiletto in front of the gates of the cathedral. The perpetrator turns out to be Viola's brother, her travel companion to Germany, the peculiar Lolfo, who was always unconditionally devoted to her and who stabbed Ferdinand to death because of his infidelity towards Viola. For her sinful thought of wishing the fake Jeanmarie and villainous Ferdinand dead, Viola finally goes to the confessional of the cathedral capitular. He speaks her free of guilt. Then Viola drives off into the night with Adelbert Panezza in his carriage.
Production notes
The shooting of the carnival began with the outdoor shots at Carnival time in February 1960 and ended in May of the same year. The film was shot in Mainz, Hallgarten and Reichartshausen Palace (Rheingau). The Ufa ateliers in Berlin-Tempelhof served as the studio.
The world premiere took place on September 15, 1960 in Mainz (Residenz, Prinzess), one day later the carnival confession also started in Austria.
The buildings are by Emil Hasler and Walter Kutz , the costumes were designed by Manon Hahn . Eberhard Itzenplitz assisted director Dieterle, Wolfgang Treu was a simple cameraman under head cameraman Heinz Pehlke . Production management was in the hands of Dietrich von Theobald .
Götz George's film mother Berta Drews is also his own. Ernst Neger sings in the context of an original carnival session “Yes, that's only available in Meenz”.
The carnival confession was Wilhelm Dieterle's last German cinema production. Afterwards he only made television films and staged theater productions as well as a catastrophically discussed Hollywood film (" The Confession ", 1964).
Reviews
“The film turned out a bit confusing. Those who do not know Zuckmayer's story can sometimes find their way neither in the scenes nor in the characters. The reason for this is obvious. Screenplay writer Kurt Heuser and director William Dieterle took the dialogues, a large part of the "directing instructions" from Zuckmayer, and also hoped that the film viewer would guess at everything that Zuckmayer can comment on. (...) The use of aspiring forces is generally to be welcomed. But in view of the script at hand and a director whose leadership apparently cannot compensate for the cliffs of the original, the up-and-coming cast proves to be another handicap. There is no question that Götz George and Christian Wolff do best among the young actors. Unfortunately Götz George succumbs - as in "Kirmes" - to the fallacy that asthmatic speaking is very impressive even in the early twenties. (...) Heinz Pehlke's color camera captivates in the nocturnal cathedral scenes. Here you get settings with a great atmosphere. (…) [It] is about a film that stands out from the ready-made product, which clearly shows its poetic reproach and has a number of audience-effective factors. "
“Unfortunately, despite the transmission of the atmosphere of the time (Mainz, Carnival 1913), the profiled accusation has fluttered and is no longer easy to overlook. His characters are nevertheless embodied believably, the illustration music and the like. Color photography suitable. "
“Director William Dieterle came close to the film ' Orfeu Negro ': Death hovers over exuberant joie de vivre, everywhere you can feel a medieval crypt atmosphere between brightly drawn citizenship figures. The film is reminiscent of the 'Everyman' theme or pictures by Hieronymus Bosch. Acting bravura: Götz George as wrongly suspected. Good film music by Siegfried Franz. "
"The efforts of German producers to benefit from Carl Zuckmayer's literary fertility (including:" The Devil's General "," The Merry Vineyard "," A Girl from Flanders "," The Captain of Koepenick ") also subsided of Zuckmayer's most recent novella. But the "Fastnachtsbeichte", against the backdrop of the Mainz Carnival of 1913, is - although powerful and spicy in the diction - constructed ornate and hardly more than a crime gossip. The lax direction of the late Hollywood returnees William (Wilhelm) Dieterle, mindful of the pomp of soul and costumes, was unable to extract more from the literary model than a dull theatrical glitz. "
"The deeper meaning of the Zuckmayer novella, which goes beyond time and space, was lost to Dieterle's neatly entertaining film adaptation."
Web links
- The Fastnachtsbeichte in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The carnival confession at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Carnival Confession. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .