The little lady
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The little lady |
| Country of production | Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2012 |
| length | 100 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Gernot Roll |
| script |
Chris Boyle Lavina Dawson Tanya Fenmore |
| production |
Boris Ausserer Birte Dronsek Oliver Schündler Sabine Weber |
| music | Lothar Scherpe |
| camera | Gernot Roll |
| cut | Moune Barius |
| occupation | |
| |
The Little Lady is an Austrian TV film from 2012 . The family film is a literary adaptation of the children's book The Little Lord by Frances Hodgson Burnett , published in 1886 . The first broadcast was on December 12, 2012 on ORF and on December 16, 2012 on ZDF .
action
9-year-old street girl Emily Ernest lives in New York with her young widowed mother in the late 19th century . She prefers to spend her time in the shop of former opera singer Dolores Hobbs, who keeps getting into trouble for standing up for women's rights. One day Emily learns that she is the only remaining heir to the Countess von Liebenfels zu Arlingen. The old lady had two sons. While the older one passed away, Emily's father, the younger son, was cast out because he had not married appropriately. He then also died in the USA, to which he had emigrated with his wife and daughter. However, since the Countess now wants to arrange her succession and Emily is now the only known heir, she sends the family lawyer Moritz von Havenegg to New York to bring Emily to Austria .
There she should be educated to be a worthy aristocrat after her arrival in order to be introduced to better society. To do this, she is separated from her mother, as the countess does not even want to see her and certainly does not want to take her into the household. She accepts this and stays in the guest house, as Emily's livelihood can only be secured through her education as a countess. She also refuses to accept money and finances her life by sewing.
In the Countess's castle, the cheerful girl encounters a strange world full of emotionlessness and frozen conventions. But the strict rules do not deter the little New Yorker. She stays as she is and, with her open-hearted charm and sense of justice, manages to pull the old countess under her spell, so that she also breaks some traditional conventions. For her birthday, the girl wishes to see her mother again. When the countess refused to do this despite her previous promise, she ran to her mother that night. The mother suggests returning to New York, but Emily refuses, as she does not want to leave the grandmother alone, and therefore returns to the castle. When the countess found out about this, she forgave Emily's parents, hangs the portrait of her son back in the ancestral gallery and visits the mother in the guest house to invite her to the upcoming introductory ball for Emily.
The Countess opens this ball with Emily and her mother, but then Malvina Farelli appears, an American impostor who claims that her alleged son Alfred is the legal heir and that she is the widow of the Countess' older son. The countess collapses after a heart attack and doesn't quite recover.
Emily's old friend Dolores learns about it from the press, but knows the cheater from her previous life at the theater. She travels to Europe to expose the plot. The countess's valet was also part of the troop at the time, and he pointed out to his old friend the cheap possibility of cheating.
At some point the countess accepts the deceiver's claims, although Herr von Havenegg suspects a forgery of the marriage certificate. Emiliy doesn't think it's a bad thing and hands over her room to Alfred, who was just a sleight of hand. Malvina is given the management of the house and immediately dismisses Mr. von Havenegg, who can only organize the departure of Emiliy and her mother. But then the countess thinks about it and stops the departing. She does not want to accept the given line of succession and assert Emily as heiress. To prevent this, the valet poisons the soup, but is observed by Alfred. This prevents the murder, at the same time Dolores arrives at the castle and identifies the fraudsters.
Alfred is allowed to stay at the castle as thanks, the countess meets her childhood sweetheart again, the professor and Emily's mother and Herr von Havenegg get closer.
Differences to the literary original
The film adaptation differs in numerous details from the literature:
- Thus, among the protagonists, not only does the “little lady” in the lead role replace the little lord in the original, but also the adult friend Mrs. Hobbs the shopkeeper of the same name and an Austrian countess the English earl from the novel
- the real father of the deceiver's son does not help - as in the original - in clearing up the plot, but is a co-conspirator
- the deceiver's alleged son and rival for the inheritance is not really the deceiver's son; After the plot is uncovered, he remains in the countess's household as he helps to solve it
- the harmony between the little lady and the grandmother emerges after a big argument and not gradually
- “The Little Lady” contains numerous allusions to the early women's movement
- the fraudster took control of the castle while the grandmother was still alive because of her illness
- the countess wants to change the legal succession in favor of the son of the deceiver by submitting a petition to the emperor, whereupon the deceiver and her accomplice try to poison her
- the European part of the plot was moved from England to Austria-Hungary , the US-American part takes place in the German-speaking emigrant milieu
One of the locations for the film was Grafenegg Castle in Lower Austria .
Reviews
“Director and cameraman Gernot Roll [...] staged the story for the first time with a young female leading actress. The "Little Lord" mutates into a young countess, and the plot was simply moved from England to Austria. As a grumpy and hard-hearted countess who finally discovered her heart, Christiane Hörbiger [...] once again shows her range of acting in front of the impressive backdrop of Grafenegg Castle in Lower Austria, the young Philippa Schöne gives little Emily in her first film role. For friends of the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the whole thing takes some getting used to, especially since Roll's version comes as a rather kitschy fairy tale, but once the viewer has come to terms with the gender change, he can confidently watch "The Little Lady". "
“The rest of the film, the other characters, are so simple that one would like to think of Die kleine Lady as a satire for long stretches if one didn't know better. [...] Of course, a family film like Little Lady does not have to claim to tell the most complex story possible, but does a production have to shout every human emotion of its characters with the megaphone directly into the inner ear of the viewer? And of course it will be Christmas soon, and one always eats the same thing, but isn't it possible to spend a movie budget more sensibly than on a perfectly good remake of an already terribly bourgeois film? "
“The little lady is the very successful, enchanting female variant of the evergreen" The Little Lord ". The fairy tale of a refinement in fantastically stylish pictures. "
"Some films can only be endured in a gingerbread coma [...] Which is why we stop at this point and urgently - we would otherwise never have dared to dream - advise the parallel" Tatort "with Maria Furtwängler."
Web links
- The little lady in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christiane Hörbiger turns Philippa Schöne into a "little lady" ( memento of the original from December 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 19, 2014
- ↑ The little lady , prisma.de
- ↑ It's a girl , sueddeutsche.de
- ^ Norbert Wehrstedt, Dresdner Latest News from December 15, 2012, page 13
- ^ Gender reassignment of a classic , welt.de
