The stolen battle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The stolen battle
Ukradená bitva
Country of production GDR
ČSSR
original language German
Publishing year 1972
length 96 minutes
Rod
Director Erwin Stranka
script Erwin Stranka
Christel Gräf (dramaturgy)
Jiří Brdečka (dramaturgy)
production DEFA , KAG “Red Circle”
Film Studio Barrandov , Group “Dr. M. Brož "
music Zdeněk Liška
camera Otto Hanisch
cut Jaromír Janáček
occupation

The Stolen Battle is a period comedy by Erwin Stranka from 1972 . The German-Czechoslovak co-production ran in the ČSSR under the title Ukradená bitva .

action

The year 1757: In the second year of the Seven Years' War , the Prussian King Friedrich II stands before Prague . What was planned as a quick capture turns out to be a tedious affair - several weeks have passed and the king has still not succeeded in storming the city. Since funds are running out and an Austrian relief army rushes to the aid of the trapped Austrian Karl von Lothringen in the city, quick action is required. The Prussian king has cheese beer sent to the master thief, whom he had recently sentenced to life imprisonment. Cheese beer is said to steal into the city and open the city gates from the inside. In gratitude, the king would give him freedom.

Käsebier initially agrees. He manages to get into town in disguise. Before Charles of Lorraine, he poses as a Prussian soldier who, like other regiments, wants to defer to Karl. He should only open the city gates the next morning and wait for Friedrich II and his soldiers in the city. Then Prussian troops would overflow to him and Friedrich's troops would be trapped. The Lorraine, who suffers from food shortages in the city and is homesick, agrees to the plan.

Cheese beer is returned to the Prussian warehouse via a secret passage that the Czechs use to supply the Prague residents with food within the city. Here he learns that he should actually be locked up by the king after taking the city and sentenced to death. He succeeds in rewriting the troop orders for the next morning. When the city gates are open and the king is riding towards the city walls, his men do not follow him, as the written order states that under no circumstances should he follow the king. Frederick II initially had the storming of the city canceled, especially since the soldiers appeared unarmed on the written order. While the Prague people slowly dig their way to the Prussian arsenal through the secret passage, Frederick II makes a second attempt to storm Prague. When he wants to gather for the last time in a boat on a lake while listening to flute music, Käsebier sneaks onto the boat, which is now drifting away. Since there are no oars, the king cannot go ashore. Nothing happens on the battlefield either because the king is missing. Again the planned battle degenerates into chaos and Karl von Lorraine is astonished, because the Prussians are otherwise disciplined and organized.

Meanwhile, in the king's boat, Käsebier is arrested by hussars. He is supposed to be hanged, but the execution is delayed because Käsebier insists that all of his crimes be read out. In the end, the Prague people reached the ammunition depot when the executioner finished reading. The underground and aboveground camps explode, the battlefield in front of Prague is like a heap of rubble. Frederick II now lets the siege break off and withdraws. Käsebier has also sneaked into one of the wagons unnoticed and travels with them to Berlin.

production

The stolen battle was filmed in 1971 under the working title Käsebier . The film is based on the story The Stolen City by Egon Erwin Kisch , which in turn deals with the real events around Christian Andreas Käsebier . Erwin Stranka had already made a film with Hussars in Berlin last year that was set during the Seven Years' War; here too Manfred Krug had taken on the leading role. The stolen battle , however, was the first DEFA film to bring the Prussian King Friedrich II onto the screen.

The premiere of The Stolen Battle took place on July 1, 1972 on the open-air stage in Zittau . The film was released in GDR cinemas on July 21, 1972 and was shown on television for the first time on December 18, 1973 on DFF 1 .

The song from Käsebier sung by Manfred Krug in the film was released in 1997 on the CD Die DEFA Filmhits .

criticism

The GDR's contemporary criticism found that the film “also resorted to satirical and grotesque exaggeration in order to characterize attitudes. Of course, there is always the risk of getting ridiculous and punk-like. You did not escape it entirely ”. Other critics wrote that the film turned out to be too fussy, precisely because of the fear of slipping into clothes.

For the film service , The Stolen Battle was a "moderately amusing film with a few satirical accents." Klaus Wischnewski called The Stolen Battle a "not very funny, roughly narrated film [...] with Herwart Grosse as Alter Fritz, a beautiful Otto fee- Contra, as well as a plebeian-clever master thief Käsebier from Manfred Krug. "

Awards

In 1971 Manfred Krug was awarded the Second Class National Prize for his "folk-related art of representation in cinema and television films and his contribution to the development of socialist entertainment" . At the film festival of the working people of the ČSSR, Manfred Krug received an honorable mention in 1972.

literature

  • F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 210–211.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Heidicke: Thief and King . In: Filmspiegel , No. 18, 1972, p. 9.
  2. ↑ Hans-Dieter Schütt: Erwin Stranka: Intervening in the current situation . In: Rolf Richter (Hrsg.): DEFA feature film directors and their critics . Volume 2. Henschel Verlag Berlin, 1983.
  3. ↑ The stolen battle. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 28, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Klaus Wischnewiski: Dreamers and Ordinary People 1966 to 1979 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 218.
  5. ↑ See defa.de

See also