The Last Chance (1945)

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Movie
Original title The last chance
Country of production Switzerland
original language German , Italian , English , Swiss German , French , Yiddish , Dutch , Polish
Publishing year 1945
length 113 (original) 90 (German version) minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Leopold Lindtberg
script Richard Schweizer
production Lazar Wechsler for Praesens Film AG Zurich
music Robert Blum
camera Emil Berna
cut Hermann Haller
occupation

The last chance is during the Second World War, playing Swiss refugee drama of Leopold Lindtberg . The film had its world premiere on May 26, 1945 in Zurich .

action

Second World War, Northern Italy 1943. A German transport train with Allied prisoners of war on the way to Innsbruck is attacked, shot at and set on fire by Allied airmen. Numerous Allied soldiers flee from the blazing wagons. While some are shot by their German guards while trying to escape, the English Lieutenant Halliday and the American Sergeant Braddock escape. They hide in the dark, spend the night on the haystack of a farmer who discovers them and, with the help of an Italian carter, who hides them in his donkey cart and smuggles them through the Italian fascists' checkpoints, they make their way towards the Swiss border.

On the way to freedom that will save them, they meet young Tonina, who washes her laundry by the river. She helps both of them. A hastily announced truce gives Halliday and Braddock hope for a brief moment of peace, but this proves to be deceptive. Tucked in civil clothes by Tonina's uncle, Halliday and Braddock hide in a freight train, where they witness a deportation of Jews. The escape of the two men leads them to a mountain village, where the two soldiers are controlled by anti-fascist partisans as they cross a small bridge. In the village, in the pouring rain, they get to know the pastor in the church, who also helps them. He takes the two men to the local inn, a collection point for refugees. French-, German-, Dutch- and Polish-speaking refugees who had tried in vain to cross the border to Switzerland because of a snowstorm have just returned. Halliday meets the experienced mountain guide Giuseppe, and he sees a refugee, Mrs. Wittels, arrive with her son Bernard. Ms. Wittels had already noticed Halliday and Braddock from their hiding place on the Jews' deportation train when she had tried desperately to prevent her husband's deportation. In the bell tower of the village church, the two Allied soldiers have their decisive encounter when they meet the British Major Telford, who has also escaped.

When the liberation of Mussolini by a special unit of the SS was announced on the radio, a politically thoroughly opportunistic villager changed sides again, put on the party symbol he had just dropped and went down into the valley to inform the Germans stationed there that the Stop refugees in the village. Units then storm into the mountain village. Mrs. Wittels was the first to wake up in the middle of the night when she heard gunshots echoing from the bridge. There the SS engaged in a skirmish with the partisans. They return to the village with the wounded and ask all villagers to vacate the place immediately for their own safety. The village priest persuades the three allied officers to leave immediately with the frightened inn refugees towards the border before it is too late. It's everyone's last chance. One should try to reach the village of Giuseppes, because it is safer there. Giuseppe could try again to get everyone across the Swiss border. While the village pastor stays behind with the old people and is arrested by the German occupiers, the refugees led by Telford reach the neighboring village.

But they find it completely destroyed. The houses were burned down, the men shot. And all because the Germans had found a single rifle in town. Giuseppe is also among the victims. The three allied soldiers decide to take the motley refugee troop with them when they try to escape to Switzerland. They are also joined by several small children who were orphaned by the National Socialist terror. The ascent into the snow-covered mountains in wind and weather is especially exhausting for the elderly. The frail Jew Hillel collapses in the snow. You help him up again. Finally the refugee troops reached a small mountain hut, which offered temporary protection from the snowstorm raging outside. There you get closer to each other on a human level. The result is something like an international sense of togetherness, characterized by deep humanism, across all language barriers and differences in mentality, which culminates in the common singing of the canon Frère Jacques , with each person singing this children's song in his own language.

Suddenly a German troop approaches and the refugees hide near the hut. But the German soldiers walk past the hut, intending to occupy the top of the pass to Switzerland as quickly as possible in order to prevent the flow of refugees from there to the neutral neighboring country. The Allied soldiers hear of their intention and change their plan. Halliday suggests that the refugees should sneak past the German border guards at night while the officers try to distract the German border guards. But Bernard Wittels has long forged his own plan. When the pass is in sight, he deliberately moves away from the other refugees and thus draws the attention of the Germans, who immediately follow him on their skis. He climbs through the snow towards the mountain top and is shot from behind. Bernard's mother, who has to watch it all, screams in horror and attracts the attention of the Germans. They also shoot the other refugees. While most of them escape, Halliday is hit while trying to help one of his wards, old Hillel. But the old man can't do it anymore.

The other refugees take advantage of the moment and cross the border unscathed. There they are received by a Swiss border patrol. Halliday can also save himself seriously injured to Switzerland. The bureaucratic formalities now begin at the Swiss border post. The illegal entry into Switzerland opens up new obstacles. The refugees first have to prove that they were politically persecuted. Major Telford makes it clear to the helpful chief border officer, Lieutenant Brunner, that the refugees have been through terrible things and that their certain death awaits them on the other side of the pass. After a phone call, Bern gives the go-ahead, and finally everyone is driven by truck into the next valley, to a refugee camp. Halliday does not survive the drive and is buried in the local cemetery.

production

The Last Chance is considered the most famous cinema production in Switzerland in its more than 100-year history. Filming began on November 8, 1944 and was not finished until early May 1945. Most of the shooting took place in the Swiss mountains. The exterior shots were mainly made in Ticino , in and around Gandria , Mergoscia , Caprino , Lamone , but also on the Bernina Pass , in Filisur , Lenz , Müllheim-Wigoltingen as well as at the Zurich freight station and on Lake Maggiore . The studio recordings were made in the film studio of Bellerive AG, Zurich.

In addition to a wealth of amateur actors, including the British and US soldiers Morrison, Hoy and Reagan who escaped from German captivity, three well-known Swiss professional actors also took part: Therese Giehse , Leopold Biberti and Sigfrit Steiner . The unifying character of the film is also underlined by the numerous languages ​​spoken in The Last Chance . It is emphasized by the fact that in spite of the confusion of languages ​​and the associated linguistic communication difficulties, communication between people of different origins is very possible.

The last chance after its world premiere was an international triumphal procession that is second to none. Within a very short time, the film also opened in the victorious western powers: on November 27, 1945 in New York City , on December 19, 1945 in Paris and on February 1, 1946 in London . The film finally had its German premiere on April 11, 1946.

At the Cannes International Film Festival in 1946 Leopold Lindtberg was awarded both the main prize ( Grand Prix ) and the International Peace Prize. The following year, The Last Chance in Los Angeles received the Golden Globe Award for the film that best promotes international understanding.

criticism

By the critics was the last chance enthusiastically. There were reviews in the Motion Picture Herald (New York), Vol. 161, No. 7, November 17, 1945, in Theater Arts, Vol. 29, No. 12, December, December 1, 1945, in New York Motion Picture Critics Reviews, Vol. 2, No. 42, December 3, 1945, in Cinématographie Française (Paris), No. 1138, January 5, 1946, in Today's Cinema, Vol. 66, No. 5296, January 25, 1946 and in Kinematograph Weekly (London), no.2024, January 31, 1946.

In Kay Weniger's “In life, more is taken from you than is given” reads: “It was only a few months before the fall of the Third Reich that Switzerland dared to produce a film that not only took a clear position against the war in general related, but also against the persecution terror »of the National Socialists. It goes on to say: “The story was told of an international group of refugees who tried, persecuted and threatened German Wehrmacht soldiers chasing after them to get to safety from northern Italy across the Swiss border. “The Last Chance” turned out to be less of an anti-German propaganda piece; on the contrary, Lindtberg created a new piece of work carried by deeply felt humanity and willingness to help, which combined with the message of international understanding humanism at the same time a cautious optimism for a better future, in which war, hatred and persecution are excluded. "

Bucher's Encyclopedia of the Film wrote: “Lindtberg, who mainly worked with amateurs, made the story realistic and matter-of-fact with documentary rigor and at the same time highlighted the problem of Swiss refugee policy. The honest design and human message of the film have made it an international success; until the emergence of the new Swiss film, it was considered the Swiss film par excellence. "

Reclam's film guide stated: “Lindtberg staged this documentary film with sober realism. He shot mostly with laypeople, with the two English soldiers and the American sergeant reenacting part of their own fate. [...] The topicality of the topic and the honesty of the film in terms of purpose and form made it a great success shortly after the war. "

The lexicon of international films judged the last chance : «Unpathetic documentary fiction film (laypeople sometimes play their own fate); a moving appeal for more humanity. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 313.
  2. ↑ Bucher's Encyclopedia of Films, hrgg. v. Liz-Anne Bawden, German edition from Wolfram Tichy, Luzern a. Frankfurt / M. 1977, p. 456
  3. ^ Reclam's film guide. By Dieter Krusche, collaboration: Jürgen Labenski. P. 386. Stuttgart 1973.
  4. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films Volume 5, p. 2212. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.