The general's children

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Movie
Original title The general's children
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1912
Rod
Director Urban Gad
script Urban Gad
production German Bioscop
for PAGU
camera Guido Seeber
occupation

The General's Children is a German silent film in three acts by Urban Gad from 1912. It is one of the director's lost films.

action

Kuno, the son of General von der Linde, gambled wrong in the face of huge losses. A member of his gaming club gives him the choice: Either he leaves the country or he is reported for his act. Kuno reveals himself to his sister Thekla, who leaves him her savings for the flight abroad. Thekla explains to the parents that Kuno has to go abroad for a business trip. Kuno, however, gambled away the money frivolously. His sister helps him again. She places him with a befriended farmer's wife near his parents' property. She pays board and lodging by working as a translator for an editor.

General von der Linde welcomes the young Englishman James Hill, son of Lord Hill, who is a friend of the General, to his house. James, who wants to stay in Germany for a long time, falls in love with Thekla and they soon become engaged. Thekla's friend Sophie is also in love with James. She saw Thekla sneaking into a stranger's man in a farmhouse every evening and suspects Kuno to be a rival. She writes an anonymous letter to James accusing Thekla of cheating. James follows Thekla to the farmhouse in the evening, sees his suspicions confirmed and asks the general to dissolve the engagement. Thekla is confronted by her parents, but remains silent.

A short time later she rushes to her brother and hands him diamonds that she received for engagement. He should turn this into money and still get out of the country. The parents and James, who noticed Theklas disappearance, arrive at the farmhouse. They are surprised to find Kuno, whom they believe abroad. Thekla admits that Kuno has become a criminal through gambling debts. She can get her parents to forgive Kuno, since it was only adolescent recklessness that brought him to his act. General von der Linde now enables Kuno to go abroad and work to make amends for his deed. James, in turn, asks Thekla to forgive his doubts about her loyalty, and they become a couple again.

production

The General's Children was filmed within a week in the Bioscop studio in Neubabelsberg in the summer of 1912 . Outdoor scenes were created at Wannsee and in the forests of Berlin. It was the first time that leading actress Asta Nielsen did not appear in front of the camera with dark hair: In the film, she wears a blonde wig with long braids.

On August 30, 1912, the censors put a youth ban on the film. The General's Children premiered on October 5, 1912. After The Dance of Death , it was the second film in the Asta Nielsen / Urban Gad series in 1912/13. The film was also marketed internationally, for example it was the opening film of the Palads Theater in Copenhagen on October 7, 1912 under the title Generalens Børn and was also shown in France in January 1913 under the title Les enfants du général . No surviving copy of the 1001 meter long film is known.

Part of the filming was recorded in parallel by another camera and shows a look behind the scenes. They were used together with set recordings of the film The Girl Without a Fatherland in the Nielsen film Die Filmprimadonna , which has been handed down in fragments.

literature

  • The general's children . In: Ilona Brennicke, Joe Hembus: Classics of the German silent film 1910–1930 . Goldmann, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-442-10212-X , p. 199.
  • The general's children . In: Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann (ed.): Nachtfalter. Asta Nielsen, her films . Volume 2 of Edition Asta Nielsen . 2nd Edition. Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902531-83-4 , pp. 83-87.
  • The general's children . In: Renate Seydel, Allan Hagedorff (Ed.): Asta Nielsen. Your life in photo documents, self-testimonies and contemporary reflections . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1981, pp. 74-75.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902531-83-4 , p. 427.
  2. ↑ Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria Publishing House, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902531-83-4 , p. 426.
  3. ↑ Winfried Pauleit: The film primadonna in the mirror of still photography . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902531-83-4 , Volume 1. pp. 133-137.