The last stage (1934)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The final stage cards of destiny The great game |
| Original title | Le grand jeu |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1934 |
| length | 110 (German version) 120 (original) minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jacques Feyder |
| script |
Charles Spaak Jacques Feyder |
| production |
Alexandre Kamenka (anonymous) for Les Films de France, Paris |
| music | Hanns Eisler |
| camera |
Harry Stradling Sr. Maurice Forster |
| cut | Jacques Brillouin |
| occupation | |
| |
The final stage , also known as Cards of Fate and The Big Game, is a French feature film from 1934 directed by Jacques Feyder .
action
At the center of the action is the young Frenchman Pierre Martel, a handsome man from a good family. Out of love for the beautiful, calculating and cold-hearted Florence, he got more and more into debt and shamed himself and his family. Now he sees no other way out than to bow to family pressure and join the Foreign Legion . After the family has paid his debts, he undertakes this hard service in the hot foreign country for a total of five years. In Africa he wants to start a new life under the name Pierre Muller. After returning to the base from a mission in the deepest hinterland, one day he met the prostitute Irma in the pub where the legionaries frequent. Her face resembles that of his Florence from the face. Only the hair color and the voice are different: while Florence is a blonde, Irma has brown hair. The two women also differ in character. Irma is a lovely and very affectionate creature.
While the battalion is recovering from the mission, Pierre learns that Irma has not remembered anything about her previous life since she was shot in the head. Deep down, Pierre believes that Irma must be Florence, and he becomes obsessed with the idea. Pierre finally gets Irma a job with Madame Blanche, who runs the local hotel and also wants to predict the future of gullible soldiers as a card reader. Blanche's husband, Clément, is an old lecher who seizes the opportunity and from now on chases Irma, and even presses her massively. One day, Pierre gets in the way and kills Clément in an argument - just as Madame Blanche's cards once prophesied. Blanche is not particularly sad about her loss - her husband was a permanently horny no-good - and disguises this killing as an accident in self-defense.
After the end of his long service, Pierre finally wants to return home, Madame Blanche's cards have predicted an inheritance and thus financial independence for him. Irma follows him on this path. Pierre has still not forgotten Florence when he happened to meet her in Casablanca the evening before embarkation. She has now caught another patron and has become the lover of a wealthy Arab. This encounter turns out to be the greatest conceivable disillusionment: Florence finally makes it clear to him that she doesn't want anything from him, and he himself realizes that he had never really loved Irma, but always only the wish of another Florence. Pierre therefore sends Irma to Marseille, while he, disillusioned and literally tired of life, reports back to the Foreign Legion, which has become a new home for him in recent years. After all, Pierre dies a brave soldier in a combat mission - just as the cards Madame Blanche laid down, the “big game”, had once predicted.
Production notes
The external shoots for The Final Stage took place in French Morocco until October 1933 , after which Feyder made the studio recordings in the film studios. The premiere was on May 2, 1934 in Paris. On October 10 of the same year, the film was also shown in Vienna under the literal translation of The Big Game . In Germany, The Last Stage was shown for the first time on May 20, 1977 on NDR television.
The French Foreign Legion is said to have shown itself to be non-cooperative during the shooting in Morocco, so that the recordings with the legionnaires are largely of a documentary nature.
The film structures were created by Lazare Meerson , Marcel Carné served Feyder as one of two assistant directors.
In 1953 Robert Siodmak created a mediocre remake of this film with Gina Lollobrigida , Arletty and Peter van Eyck in the lead roles, which ran in Germany under the same title "The Last Stage".
Reviews
The contemporary critics praised the play of some actors and also the direction, but the story and the (not very original) script were repeatedly criticized.
In their first review of the film immediately after the premiere, the Österreichische Film-Zeitung wrote: "" Le Grand Jeu "(The Big Game) (...) is characterized by its excellent quality. (...) The film portrays the foreign legion's milieu without whitewashing as it is, in its gripping reality. Marie Bell as actress in the double role Florence and Irma offers a great performance (…) An interesting film well worth seeing. ". After Le grand jeu was launched in Vienna, the same publication, issue of October 13, 1934, said on page 5: "Jacques Feyder staged the film (...) with a compellingly genuine capture of the African milieu. Pierre Richard-Willm knows the Role of the young legionnaire to convince. Françoise Rosay is unsurpassable as Madame Blanche. In each of her movements lies the whole bitter knowledge of the annoying life with its brutality and futility in the red-hot African small town. "
The Wiener Zeitung of October 11, 1934, praised Rosay's play in particular: "Françoise Rosay; an actress who conveys an experience through every gesture, every word. From a purely acting point of view, the supporting role becomes an outstanding impression. that in almost every French film the episodists determine the acting note and quality. On the other hand, the main actors seem to draw less from their own than from the commandments of the director. So here too. Nevertheless, Marie Bell is able to make her double role convincing. (...) In general This film, which won an award during the Filmfestwochen, did not earn its award for the sake of the manuscript - which by no means falls outside the scope of this type of film - but only for its purely atmospheric design. Here the director did not stick to the external, he was able to feel To convey, he managed to not only attract the viewer's gaze and attention but also to capture his heart. "
On the same day, Vienna's Neue Freie Presse came to the following verdict: "A really French film in every respect. Full of temperament, passion and sentiment, in between carelessness, crude humor, garish eroticism and, above all, a lot of love: sensitive, painful and suffering love, the is more important than anything that makes and destroys. So the eternal basic motif of so many French novels and plays, which is filmed here in a milieu that is often used but always effective: the Foreign Legion. (...) A story that can be called Roman does not necessarily want to read, but it has strong film qualities, which Feyders' direction works out a bit slowly and broadly, but forcefully: great human duo scenes and even more impressive silent moments. All roles well characteristically cast, with actors who deviate from the pleasing template. (…) But above all Marie Bell in the difficult double role, she really plays two g and different female people, different in voice, movement and expression. (...) A film that is also well worth seeing visually: through the streets and the landscapes and the view into the dubious joys of African nightlife. "
Georges Sadoul wrote: “The great director had lost five years in Hollywood in which he was not allowed to rise above commercial production. After returning to the Old World, he created “Le grand Jeu” (The Big Game) in 1934 . Spaak and Feyder's script is out of date; the Foreign Legionnaires, their love affairs and their quarrels are - and were even then - props of the horror drama. But the inventive fable, which is based on false recognition, served above all to depict the reality of colonial life: the bars, the absinthe, the greasy playing cards, the heat, the flies, the cheap adventure, the brutality. The work is mainly about the failed and degenerate, as they soon became the favorite heroes of French film. "
For Kay Weniger's Das Großes Personenlexikon des Films , Feyder's celebrated productions Le grand jeu and Pension Mimosa's were “socially committed views of society with fatalistic-pessimistic basic tendencies”.
DVD publications
- Le Grand jeu (Pathé Classique). Pathé, Paris 2007. (French original with optional French subtitles)
- Le Grand jeu (Eureka - Masters of Cinema Series # 68). Eureka Entertainment, London 2010. (French original with optional English subtitles)
Individual evidence
- ↑ according to a short message in the Österreichische Film-Zeitung of November 4, 1933, page 4
- ^ "Le grand jeu". In: Österreichische Film-Zeitung , May 5, 1934, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ "The Big Game". In: Österreichische Film-Zeitung , October 13, 1934, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ "The Big Game". In: Wiener Zeitung , October 11, 1934, p. 11 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ "The Big Game". In: Neue Freie Presse , October 11, 1934, p. 9 (online at ANNO ).
- ^ Georges Sadoul: History of the cinematic art. Vienna 1957, p. 268
- ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 2: C - F. John Paddy Carstairs - Peter Fritz. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 665.
Web links
- The last stage in the Internet Movie Database (English)