The Golden Plague (1954)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The golden plague |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German , English |
| Publishing year | 1954 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | John Brahm |
| script | Dieter Werner based on an idea by Gerhard T. Buchholz and Kurt Joachim Fischer |
| production | Occident Filmproduktion GmbH, Cologne ( Gerhard T. Buchholz ) |
| music | Hans Martin Majewski |
| camera | Klaus von Rautenfeld |
| cut |
Walter Boos Wolfgang Fluff |
| occupation | |
| |
The golden plague is an early German post-war film drama by John Brahm from 1954. The leading roles are played by Ivan Desny , Karlheinz Böhm and Gertrud Kückelmann .
action
A village in the still young Federal Republic. The German Richard Hartwig emigrated from Dossental in the US zone to the USA immediately after the Second World War and became an American citizen there. He was drafted as a soldier and sent to the Korean War in the early 1950s . However, his former love for the young Franziska Hellmer has not died out. Now, after almost ten years abroad, he is returning to his old homeland for a few weeks to see Franziska again. But Dossental has changed a lot, the tranquil village has become the purest fairground. Only Franziska remained as GI Richard remembered her! Richard's childhood friend Karl Hellmer, Franziska's brother, is the driving force behind all these changes in the place. He, who couldn't make a living from his own skills as a piano player, found that you could get a lot more out of Dossental than from the once sleepy Kuhdorf. A mighty man behind the scenes pulls the strings in secret, and on site Karl is driven by Wenzeslaw Kolowrat, an unscrupulous trader.
Barns and stables have been converted into pubs and taverns like the Hawaiian Bar; on closer inspection, a disreputable hotel turns out to be a brothel. Even old Johanna Neureither, Richard's aunt, wants to earn some extra money and now sells souvenir Tinnef to the GIs. A women's bike race on a carousel is intended for general amusement, and a women's wrestling match in the mud was initiated as a cultural low point. Karl now drives an expensive sports car and looks pretty cocky. The other good villagers have also become greedy entrepreneurs. The desired flow of money grew into a "golden plague". Dossental's best customers are the representatives of the former occupying power, who are only too happy to make use of the amusement industry that has sprung up from the ground. But only a few know that many Dossentalers have taken over their new investments quite a bit, like Richard from old Dr. Sierich finds out, the only Dossentaler next to Franziska who is very hostile to the whole development.
Richard quickly notices that Karl has thrown all inhibitions overboard with his ventures. He wants more and more and, in order to be able to pay off his own debts, no longer stops at crooked deals. Karl is put under pressure by his bosses. He is asked to steal the Americans' gasoline supplies one night. A total of 100,000 liters from a pipeline are to be diverted. But the US military gets on his track. In the bar, Karl is caught by the GIs and, with Franziska in the car, flees from his pursuers. Meanwhile, if you carelessly in the bar, first the pub and then the entire entertainment complex in Dossental go up in flames. The fire cannot be extinguished because the water hoses were used to divert American gasoline supplies. While on the run, Karl is followed by Richard, his superior Tyler and a dozen other US military policemen. The car comes off the track and has an accident. Tyler fires the artillery at the fleeing car, and Karl is mortally wounded in the process. Franziska gets away with injuries. Richard and Franziska can now plan a new life, and while the new Dossental burned down, the old Dossental miraculously survived.
Production notes
For Hans Brahm, who fled Hitler's Germany in 1935 with his wife Dolly Haas and who renamed himself John Brahm in exile, this film meant his return to a Germany that was also very different for him. The golden plague was to remain his only purely German film production. Immediately afterwards, in co-production with the USA, he shot the east-west drama Falling From Heaven with Joseph Cotten .
The golden plague was made between September 8 and November 20, 1954 at several locations in the young Federal Republic: In Dotzheim , Bärstadt bei Schlangenbad, Mainz-Kastel , Heftrich bei Idstein and Kaiserslautern .
Alfred Bütow designed the film structures. Walter H. Guse was production manager, Joachim Glaser took over production management. Erwin Lange organized the numerous pyrotechnic effects . Rolf Kästel was a simple cameraman under the direction of Klaus von Rautenfeld . During the filming, the actor Wilfried Seyferth had a fatal accident in a car. The world premiere took place in Munich on December 30, 1954.
In 1955 Karlheinz Böhm, who can be seen here in a very unusual villain role for his career, was nominated for the Bambi. Erich Ponto received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the film tape in gold .
Reviews
“Wrong construction of contemporary film; obviously conceived for the purpose of screaming indignation. "
"Criticism of time striving to be realistic, packaged in a crime and love melodrama, which in parts slips into a gossip."
On film.at it says: "A remarkable attempt in German post-war film to deal with present-day problems."
Web links
- The Golden Plague in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The golden plague at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Bauer: German Feature Film Almanach, Volume 2: 1946–1955 , Munich 1981, p. 422 f.
- ↑ The Golden Plague in the Lexicon of International Films
- ↑ The golden plague on film.at