The Island (1934)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The island
Country of production German Empire
original language German
Publishing year 1934
length 96-100 minutes
Rod
Director Hans Steinhoff
script Harald Bratt
Emil Burri
production Karl Ritter for the UFA
music Werner Bochmann
camera Constantine Cheet
cut Willy Zeyn junior
occupation

Die Insel (subtitle: Der Fall des Hauptmann Rist , reference title Der Banza von Ponza ) is a German spy film by director Hans Steinhoff from 1934. Brigitte Helm and Willy Fritsch star in the main roles. Françoise Rosay and Otto Tressler play key roles . Heinz von Cleve embodies the military attaché Captain Rist, who is driven by fatal circumstances to take his own life.

The film is based on the play of the same name (1934) by Harald Bratt .

action

An embassy is isolated like an island in a posh residential area. Among the guests at a reception organized by the embassy was a blackmailer who offered the military attaché Captain Rist to buy back secret war plans that he had previously stolen from him. Since Rist doesn't know exactly what the plans are, he agrees to meet the blackmailer in the Silvia bar . It quickly becomes clear to him that the documents offered are the plans he himself once designed for exercise purposes, which are completely worthless. Rist realizes at lightning speed that these documents, should they get into the hands of the press, could cause considerable damage and seriously jeopardize the good relations of the countries concerned. So he only sees the opportunity to get involved in the blackmailer's offer to buy.

Since Captain Rist does not have the required purchase amount of $ 6,000, he agrees to declare the amount as a gambling debt, which must be paid within 24 hours. Quite surprisingly, however, the police appear in the bar and arrest the blackmailer, who still manages to slip the filled out promissory note to the bar owner Silvia. She senses the chance to get a nice sum of money and goes to the embassy the following day to claim the outstanding amount. Rist asks for the payment period to be postponed, but the barmaid wants the money immediately. Only now does Rist realize that Silvia has made a mistake because she believes she is looking at the commercial attaché Raak, whose checkbook is also on the desk. Since Rist sees no other way out, he takes the checkbook and writes out a check for the requested amount. He forges Raak's signature and hands the check to Silvia, who then leaves the premises.

Since the withdrawal of the large sum means that Raak's account is no longer covered, he becomes aware of the fraud. When the ambassador found out about the incident, he asked Raak to acknowledge the required amount on the check so that the embassy and its staff could not fall into a bad light. Raak then asks, injured in his honor, to be released from civil service. The ambassador, who now fully illuminates the situation and realizes that there must be a criminal in his own ranks, summons all officers and declares in front of the assembled team that he expects the person concerned to judge himself.

Captain Rist, who is only guilty to the extent that he carelessly recorded war plans for training purposes and did not store them carefully enough, takes all the guilt on himself and sees only one way out: he takes his own life by driving his car around a long curve deliberately drifting off the road and plunging into the sea, drowning. It also clears the way for Raak, who is planning a future with the ambassador's daughter.

Production notes

Shooting began on May 8th and ended in mid-June 1934. The location was the east coast of the Adriatic , more precisely Dalmatia . Benno von Arent was responsible for the film construction together with Artur Günther . Production management was supervised by Karl Ritter , while Fritz Koch was the production manager. Hans-Otto Borgmann conducted the orchestra. The sung lyrics come from the pen of Werner Bochmann and Erwin Lehnow. The songs are playing the morning wind blows softly and What do you know about me . The film has a length of 2,723 m, which corresponds to a running time of 100 minutes, another source shows a length of 2,624 m for 96 minutes.

Premiered the island on 30 August 1934 at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo . In addition to Austria, the film was shown in Finland, Denmark, Portugal, Brazil and Greece.

Film censorship

The Nazi regime checked the film for any content that might be detrimental to the regime. The film passed the censorship on August 23, 1934 without any complaints.

French version

At the same time, Hans Steinhoff shot a French version of the film entitled Vers l'abîme (German: In the Abyss ). The film premiered in Paris on August 24, 1934 . Serge Véber assisted Steinhoff with the direction and also worked on the French version of the script. The technical staff was identical, the cast of the actors was as follows:

criticism

Karlheinz Wendtland particularly emphasized the achievements of "Françoise Rosay in the role of the pushy bar owner and Andrews Engelmann as a seedy gentleman criminal" and otherwise found that it was "with the knitting pattern of an adventure film, the background of which is a message". "There is no political insanity."

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The island. In: filmportal.de. Retrieved September 6, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b Karlheinz Wendtland: Beloved Kintopp. All German feature films from 1929–1945 with numerous artist biographies born in 1933 and 1934, edited by the author Karlheinz Wendtland, Berlin, Chapter: Films 1934, Film No. 85/1934.
  3. ↑ Vers l'abîme murnau-stiftung.de