The suburban crocodiles
Die Vorstadtkrokodile is a TV film by Wolfgang Becker from 1977 based on the children's book Vorstadtkrokodile by Max von der Grün . The first broadcast took place on December 25, 1977 in the evening program of German television , a repetition in two parts on January 3 and 4, 1978 in the afternoon program.
action
The suburban crocodiles - also referring to themselves as crocodiles - are a gang of children whose parents mainly come from simple backgrounds. The places of action are essentially the Lower Rhine community of Bracht and the surrounding towns.
The gang has set up a camp like a tree house in a forest near their home, is otherwise a lot on their bikes and demands a dangerous test of courage from new members : That is why ten-year-old Hannes has to climb the roof of an old brick building .
The film begins with this scene. Hannes slips on the roof when he descends again and can barely hold on to the ailing gutter at a dizzying height. The gang members cannot free him from this dangerous position themselves - the only ladder to the rescue is far too short - and they run away. However, Kurt, who is in a wheelchair , observes the dramatic situation through his telescope from home . Kurt calls the fire brigade , which Hannes saves just in time.
Hannes' father gives him room arrest and sends him to Kurt, whom he should thank. The conversation turns to a series of burglaries that have been worrying the residential area for some time. But at the moment there is no time to delve into the subject.
Having become pensive, Hannes wants to bring Kurt into contact with the other crocodiles and takes him to the forest hut. But the wheelchair user is initially strictly rejected by the gang that follows the spokesman Olaf - only Maria shows some interest. In the absence of the others, she and Hannes join forces to enable Kurt to climb into the tree house.
The next day, the crocodiles found the hut torn down - it was a thorn in the side of the forest administration . Kurt, with whom Hannes and Maria now have good contact, suggests that the crocodiles set up a new camp on the site of the old brickworks, and his proposal is accepted. He probably directed the crocodiles to the site - Kurt had observed one of the break-ins at night through his telescope, about which there is a lot of talk at the time, and suspects the thieves' camp in the brick factory, which he initially keeps to himself. As soon as he arrives at the site, he starts looking. His suspicion is soon confirmed: When he falls down a sloping passage, from which he can no longer get out on his own, he finds the hiding place. The stolen goods are actually stored on the site of the old brick factory.
The crocodiles, who finally rescue Kurt from his predicament, now of course begin to speculate about the perpetrators. The adults 'suspicions have long been directed at the foreigners' quarters nearby, but Kurt has observed three young men with mopeds and suspects that Egon, the older brother of the crocodile Frank, is one of the burglars, but initially only expresses this vaguely which leads to tension between Frank and Kurt. However, the mood within the group has meanwhile turned in favor of Kurt, so that Frank now feels increasingly excluded.
Assuming that the thieves, troubled by the presence of the children on the brickworks, want to move their prey aside, the crocodiles ambush the intruders at the brickworks. To do this, they consciously choose the day of the big school and club festival, because in their opinion the burglars feel safest then. They actually appear on the premises - but so do the foreign children who take the opportunity to steal the stolen goods a second time from the burglar's half-loaded vehicle.
The crocodilians thus get into a conflict of conscience: On the one hand, they do not want to betray Egon because they feel obliged to Frank, on the other hand, the children of foreigners are now being targeted by the police and the press, as parts of the stolen property are found on them. Even Kurt's parents reject it first off, Egon display as Egon's father is an important member of the local council. The crocodiles initially only provide incomplete information to the police. But when Egon physically attacks and injures Kurt, Kurt's father wants to file a criminal complaint. Kurt just barely prevents this at the police station, but learns on this occasion that the real intruders have been identified via their vehicle.
Egon is arrested and Frank finally reconciles with Kurt. In the moving final scene of the film, the scene of the dramatic events, the old brickworks, redevelopment projects must give way (quote: "Redevelopment? Was'n das?" - "Redevelopment is when everything is torn down." ) And is gathered under the eyes of the assembled Crocodile blown up .
Issues / problems
Kurt's disability
Max von der Grün was particularly interested in this topic, he had dedicated the book Vorstadtkrokodile to his own disabled son.
Kurt is physically disadvantaged compared to the crocodiles, but always acts prudently and is far ahead of them in mental maturity and education. At first he is treated with contempt and disapproval and would not get out of this position if he had not been able to accidentally initiate the search for the thieves. However, this rejection stems primarily from the uncertainty in dealing with the different. A key scene is the crocodile's self-consciousness towards Kurt when he has to urinate, for which he depends on outside help.
Adults, too, sometimes see it as a disruptive factor; an extreme example is the owner of the miniature golf course, who wants to forbid Kurt to use the course because the wheels of his wheelchair are allegedly ruining the lawn. But here again shows the solidarity among the crocodiles, which - including Egons! - Show solidarity against the owner of the mini golf course. This is another key scene: The crocodilians, who were so distant at the beginning, now stand up for Kurt as they do for one of their own.
The "strong sex" woman
Maria is a strong personality. Without them, Hannes would not have been able to get Kurt into the group. Their strength is also visible visually; Maria towers over most of the gang members. However, she is the only female member of the group. In the scene described above, when Kurt has to empty his bladder, she is the only one who has the courage to open Kurt's pants, take out his penis and then close the pants again.
Compared to Kurt's mother, for example, who is portrayed as a "little house at the stove" (which can in part be attributed to the zeitgeist of the time ), Maria appears to the gang members on an equal footing, is just as cheeky as the male crocodiles and can also assert oneself physically.
Foreigners
The foreign children that are featured in the film come from Italy . They always appear in a group and fulfill the “foreigner” cliché with their dark hair color. The spokesmen of the crocodilians do not perceive them as equal individuals, but also trigger controversies within the group (quote: "I just missed those stupid macaroni. Skin off!" - "Why?" [...] "The way is there for everyone! " ). Although the crocodiles and also z. Sometimes the adults - such as Kurt's mother - had a remorse when they found out that the children had fallen into the hands of the police, even though they “only” stole what others had stolen before them. On the other hand, through this theft, the foreign children also confirm the prejudice of the majority of the adults who had always suspected “foreigners”.
unemployment
In contrast to the original book, the subject of unemployment and labor shortage, which Max von der Grün mentioned by name in his book, takes a back seat here.
actor
For the children's actors, lay people were selected from 200 students who - with the exception of Birgit Komanns, the actress Kurts - all come from the area around the Bracht location . The young actors were cast with people who grew up on the more rural Lower Rhine near the German / Dutch border. The book by Max von der Grün on which the film is based takes place in a suburb of Dortmund. However, the viewer of the film does not recognize this discrepancy.
The adult roles were consistently cast with well-known actors.
Birgit Komanns was dubbed by Oliver Rohrbeck because her linguistic expressiveness was not sufficiently convincing.
Documentation about the actors
In 1981, four years after the film was completed, the director Wolfgang Becker created it under the title Stay crisp, friends! a documentary about the actors at that time and their careers.
Locations
The houses and street scenes were filmed in Bracht and nearby Brüggen . The Brachter Schillerstrasse became "Silberstrasse" in the "Parrot settlement". The distinctive “ Coop ” supermarket on Weizer Platz, in front of which Egon knocks Kurt out of his wheelchair, is now empty. The gang's tree house was at Pastors Weiher in the Brachter Forest , the mini golf course is at Lake Harik . The school festival was filmed at Krickenbeck Castle , which was empty at the time and is now used as a conference venue. The brickworks, the authentic demolition of which can be seen in the film, was on Brachter Stiegstraße between Holtweg and Katers Feld; the site of the shipping company Maske is located there today. The police station in Kaldenkirchen was the godfather.
music
The film music was invariably borrowed from contemporary pop and rock music , as was often the case in Wolfgang Becker's productions at the time .
The theme song is Amada mia, amore mio by El Pasador. The theme throughout is the title Fools by Deep Purple . Furthermore, with Catch the Rainbow , Blues or Mistreated the live album On Stage of Rainbow prominently represented. With School , Bloody Well Right and Rudy the LP Crime of the Century by Supertramp is a guest performance, other works are To One in Paradise and Arrival (taken from the LP Tales of Mystery and Imagination by The Alan Parsons Project ) or Time Has Come Today by the Chambers Brothers . In the game scene when the children enter the police station, the soundtrack from the western Twelve Noon (The Tin Star) by Dimitri Tiomkin is played briefly .
Reviews, awards, aftermath
“Max von der Grün wrote a not at all sentimental song of praise for solidarity, which has a lot to do with the play of young amateur actors: no shiny, defiant heads, but children with an authentic language and pressing problems. Wolfgang Becker staged all of this with a light ' Tatort ' touch, with occasional overly routine suspense effects, but without maudlining the audience. "
In 1978 author Max von der Grün received the Prague TV Audience Award and Wolfgang Becker the Golden Camera for directing. In 2009, the film was awarded the title “particularly valuable” by the Wiesbaden film evaluation office .
The suburban crocodiles are particularly popular with adults who were children in the 1970s ; In the corresponding internet forums, the title repeatedly appears on the wish list of films that should be shown on television again.
publication
A copy of the film, shot in 16 mm format , was released by Matthias-Film on DVD primarily for educational purposes and for a long time was the only way to view the original film outside of the reruns on television. For the film image areas, only 20 copies were made in the original format. A copy (albeit in poor picture and sound quality) can be found at the State Film Service of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The film including the 1981 documentation has been released by ARD-Video since May 27, 2011 and is available on DVD.
Remarks
- In order not to create reservations among the mostly ten to twelve year old amateur actors at the time , the casting only spoke of a “ documentary about a disabled child”. In addition, it was hidden from the children for a long time during the filming that the actress Kurts was a girl.
- In the film, skateboards can already be seen at the art demonstration during the school festival . However, a halfpipe only consists of a visibly improvised one-sided plywood ramp . None of the crocodiles uses such sports equipment.
- Rita Ramachers, Wolfgang Sieling, Thomas Bohnen and Holger Schneider formed the suburban crocodile children's team in the TV show The Monday Painters with Frank Elstner on January 10, 1978 (episode 34). Birgit Komanns sat in the audience.
- The book was made into a film again in summer 2008 . As in 1977, the locations were on the left Lower Rhine. a. again in Brüggen and Mönchengladbach. Martin Semmelrogge appeared here as a mini golf course operator (his father Willy Semmelrogge played the role in 1977) and Heiner Beeker, who played Frank in the original, in a guest role as a fire fighter. This remake has since seen two sequels with Vorstadtkrokodile 2 and Vorstadtkrokodile 3 .
literature
- Max von der Grün : suburban crocodiles. A story of watching . Omnibus, Munich 2006, 155 pages, ISBN 3-570-21665-9 .
Web links
- The Crocodiles in the Internet Movie Database (English).
- The suburban crocodiles in the online film database .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hans C. Blumenberg:The wild children . In: Die Zeit , No. 53/1977 of December 30, 1977.
- ↑ Die Vorstadtkrokodile - broadcast dates on fernsehserien.de , accessed on February 12, 2012.
- ↑ Besides the locations as such testifies the call Kurts at the fire department which with "Fire-fighting Bruggen Bracht " reports. Vehicles from the city of Nettetal (fire brigade) and from the district of Viersen (garbage trucks) are also shown.
- ↑ Teaching material from the publisher on the novel.
- ↑ retro-tv, episode 22 , with Oliver Rohrbeck's explanations on the synchronization work with the suburban crocodiles , accessed on February 12, 2012.
- ↑ Bonus material for the DVD Die Vorstadtkrokodile , ARD video.
- ^ Jochen Smets: Vorstadtkrokodile, the second. ( Memento of February 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: RP Online , June 28, 2008, accessed on August 28, 2018.
- ↑ a b c retro-tv, episode 59 , with Heiner Beeker as a guest, accessed on February 12, 2012.
- ↑ See e.g. B. The crime scene episodes eight years later , duel , Fortuna III , and Lockruf or the Derrick episodes Das Superding , Eine Nacht im Oktober or Stein's daughter and the like. v. a.
- ↑ Golden Camera Best Director: Wolfgang Becker, Prize Winner Letter B ( Memento from May 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ dpa -Meldung of 7 April of 2009.
- ↑ “Suburban Crocodiles” is made into a film. In: Tagesspiegel.de , accessed on February 12, 2012.
