The Feuerzangenbowle (1944)

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Movie
Original title The Feuerzangenbowle
The Feuerzangenbowle 1944 Logo 001.svg
Country of production German Empire
original language German
Publishing year 1944
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Helmut Weiss
script Heinrich Spoerl
production Heinz Rühmann
music Werner Bochmann
camera Ewald Daub
cut Helmuth Schönnenbeck
occupation

The Feuerzangenbowle is a German comedy film from 1944 with Heinz Rühmann in the leading role. It is based on the novel of the same name by Heinrich Spoerl . Directed by Helmut Weiss .

action

The film is preceded by an adapted quote from the novel: "This film is a song of praise to the school, but it is possible that the school does not notice it."

The framework of the film begins with a round of four older men who are telling each other stories from their school days over a fire tong punch . The successful young writer Dr. Johannes Pfeiffer, who later joins the social group, envies his friends for the fun they had during their school days. He was denied such a thing because he was brought up by a tutor . His friends encourage him to dress up as a high school student and attend a real school for a few weeks. The choice falls on a high school in the small town of Babenberg.

In the internal narrative he attends school as the senior prime minister Hans Pfeiffer. He soon became popular in the class and, together with his classmates, played common student pranks on the teachers Crey (known as "Schnauz") and Bömmel, as well as on the director Knauer (known as "Zeus"). His extravagant girlfriend Marion travels after him and tries to get him to return. At first he was persuaded by her to return to Berlin , but at the last moment he decided to stay at the school and let Marion travel back alone. He has fallen in love with seventeen-year-old Eva, the director's daughter, and reveals his true identity to her. However, Eva does not take him seriously in this regard.

Offended by this rejection, he decides to provoke his expulsion from school . First, he invites the senior class of the neighboring girls 'high school to take chemistry lessons at the boys' high school. Pfeiffer has adjusted the alarm clock and clock for the actual teacher, Professor Crey, so that Crey is far too late to go to school. Meanwhile, Pfeiffer, disguised as Professor Crey, is teaching chemistry himself. On the very same day, the high school board visits high school to check Professor Crey's suitability for the directorate of his own school. When the teaching staff visiting the class found that Pfeiffer was holding the class, Director Knauer begged him to continue playing the hoax in order to hide the embarrassment from the high school board. Just as the high school supervisor is about to leave, satisfied with the lessons he has experienced, the real Professor Crey storms in through the door and stands across from Pfeiffer. The high school board recommends the two gentlemen to agree who the real Crey is and leaves. Pfeiffer ends the masquerade and awaits his expulsion for this action, but Director Knauer had promised him a reprieve. Finally, Pfeiffer threatens to kidnap the director's daughter, who spontaneously jumps up and rushes to him. Since he can present his diploma, doctoral certificate , literature award and income tax assessment , nothing stands in the way of a connection between the two.

The film ends with the storyline: Pfeiffer, again as an adult, declares that all of what has just been told was actually made up. Only the scene with the Feuerzangenbowle is real.

background

The film is based on the book of the same name by Heinrich Spoerl and adheres closely to the literary model. Most of the dialogues are verbatim. Only a few places were left out or changed slightly. The figure of Spoerl's senior teacher Dr. The Prussian-military aspect was taken from Brett: Brett now appears as a young representative of “a new era”, valued and respected by the students and his long-serving colleagues alike, in which discipline plays a central role in the education of children and young people. Young people must therefore be tied up like young trees so that “nice, straight growth” occurs.

As early as 1934, a somewhat freer film adaptation of the novel was published under the title So ein Flegel . Here, too, Heinz Rühmann plays the main role, even in a double role. Hans Reimann wrote the script .

The Feuerzangenbowle takes place in the "good old days", which is not exactly dated, but can be located at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This can be seen in the student hats , which had been abolished for a number of years at the time of shooting. The clothes of the people appearing correspond to the time around 1900. The uniform of a policeman with a spiked hat who appears briefly in one scene also speaks for this dating, as well as the fact that Pfeiffer is driven in a carriage to the meeting with his friends at the beginning of the film . The element radium , which Pfeiffer pretends to present to the students, was discovered in 1898. The picture hanging in the director's room, on the other hand, shows the German Kaiser Wilhelm I, who died in 1888 . The representation of the girls' high school, however, tends to suggest a later date, since the Prussian state did not commit itself until 1908 to enable girls to go to higher education and to have access to a university.

The Ellwangen Castle (top center) and the Schönenberg pilgrimage church (top left) were installed in a school window in the film, which led to the creation of a legend that Ellwangen was the location of the film.

The film was produced by the Heinz Rühmann production group as part of Terra Filmkunst . A cinema projection (24 images / sec.) Takes 98:11 minutes, while a television projection (25 images / sec.) Takes 95:15 minutes. Filming began on March 18, 1943 and continued until June 1943. They largely took place on the premises of the Ufastadt Babelsberg , whereby the school building shown in the film was a model that is supposed to be modeled on the Rheingau-Gymnasium in Berlin-Friedenau and the Goethe-Gymnasium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf .

Since a view of the city of Ellwangen (Jagst) was mounted in the window of the chemistry hall in the studio recordings made in Babelsberg , the persistent rumor arose that interior recordings were also made in the rooms of the then Peutinger high school and today's district court in Ellwangen . The spa gardens in Bad Salzschlirf , the old town of Schwäbisch Hall and the Potsdam-Babelsberg town hall can also be seen in the film.

In January 1944, the Reich Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust, tried to prevent the film from being released on the grounds that it was endangering the authority of the school and the teachers, which made the difficult situation even more difficult due to the war-related shortage of teachers. Rühmann then drove personally to Wolfsschanze for two days with a film copy , where Adolf Hitler's opinion on the film was obtained through Hermann Göring . After his approval, the minister responsible for propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, was instructed to release the film. The premiere took place three days later on January 28, 1944 in the Berlin Ufa palaces Königstadt and Tauentzien . Since an air raid was to be expected in the evening, the premiere was scheduled for the morning hours.

Television broadcasts

The first television broadcast took place on December 28, 1964 on German television in the GDR . In the Federal Republic of Germany , the film was shown for the first time on December 26, 1969 on ZDF and achieved an audience rating of 53% (20 million viewers).

Reviews

“Right down to the assembly principles, down to the costumes and buildings, the film conveys the happiness of an emotional backward movement, a redeemed disappearance. [...] He conveys a strategy of forgetting that no one can completely avoid; it removes it from historical reality as well as from the real experiences of the school as an institution, as well as from the anger we had in the office this morning. "

- epd film 3/94

"Still an enjoyable film adaptation of Heinrich Spoerl's humorous novel [...] Supported by potent comedians, Rühmann shows his lovable comedic side."

- Lexicon of international film

Current reception

Winter cinema with screening of the film in Lindau 2002

In many places - often at universities - screenings of the film, which has been a cult film for decades , are organized during Advent . The largest (10,000 tickets sold in 2000) and oldest demonstration event has been held in the student cinema of the University of Göttingen since the early 1980s . Initially only in one lecture hall , but then soon on the Saturday before the 2nd Advent in the central lecture hall building (ZHG), distributed in parallel in several lecture halls and in front of thousands of spectators. T. bring props . The senior teacher Dr. Brett usually gets a whistle for his remarks on the pedagogy of the “new era”.

Trivia

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entertainment and ideology in the "Feuerzangenbowle". In: filmportal.de. Accessed December 30, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Backstage - data and facts about the film "Die Feuerzangenbowle". In: feuerzange-derfilm.de. Cornelia Meyer zur Heyde, accessed on December 28, 2015 .
  3. ^ Gerhard Königer: Legends in the Internet Age. The film "Die Feuerzangenbowle" was released 75 years ago. Although there was never any shooting for it in Ellwangen, this claim persists. In: Schwäbische Post, January 29, 2019, p. 17. In this press release, earlier versions of this Wikipedia article are held responsible as the main source of this legend, while the Wikipedia article about the Peutinger-Gymnasium Ellwangen already correctly presented the facts.
  4. ^ Benjamin Maack : cult film - The (M) downfall. In: one day . January 28, 2009. Heinz Rühmann tells the story in his autobiography Das war’s (Ullstein, Munich / Frankfurt / Vienna 1982) in minute detail from p. 152.
  5. ↑ 75 years ago - premiere of the "Feuerzangenbowle"
  6. ^ Lexicon of international film (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997.
  7. ↑ Feuerzangenbowle - Nikolausfeier in the University of Göttingen (with some photos)
  8. ↑ a b Why “Die Feuerzangenbowle” is still so successful. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from November 23, 2011.
  9. ↑ Advertising poster for film & “Nikoparty” from 2013.
  10. ↑ Unikino Göttingen presents the sold out "Feuerzangenbowle". In: Göttinger Tageblatt of December 7, 2017 (with video).
  11. ↑ The board of directors. In: afd-muenster.de. AfD district of Münster, accessed on February 25, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Sebastian Maas: “Die Feuerzangenbowle” has a Nazi past - and an AfD present. In: bento.de. bento, December 20, 2017, accessed December 27, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Welcome to Feuerzange in Münster! In: feuerzange-derfilm.de. Cornelia Meyer zur Heyde, accessed on February 25, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Smile! Laughs! But don't think about Stalingrad! In: welt.de. Axel Springer SE, October 29, 2013, accessed on February 25, 2017 .