The Last Night (1949)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The last night |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language |
German French |
| Publishing year | 1949 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Eugene York |
| script |
Otto Heinz Jahn Harald G. Petersson based on a play by Friedrich Hartau |
| production |
Real-Film GmbH, Hamburg ( Gyula Trebitsch ) |
| music | Wolfgang Zeller |
| camera | Willy Winterstein |
| cut | Alice Ludwig-Rasch |
| occupation | |
| |
The Last Night is a 1944 love drama by Eugen York with Sybille Schmitz and Karl John in the leading roles.
action
Somewhere in France in the late stages of World War II. The French castle manager Renée Meurier is a writer and speaks fluent German. What the German occupiers do not know: She works for the Resistance . When the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, she printed leaflets in the basement of the chateau she managed, calling on her compatriots to resist and rebel against the German occupiers. "How much longer will people tolerate people dying because people want it" is written on the slips of paper. Renée then has the leaflets dropped from the top of the church tower in her home town onto the market square in a nightly action. The fine-minded and generally peaceful Renée is against sabotage measures that cost life and limb. When her brother André, a resistance fighter who is currently planning to blow a bridge so that the German troops will be cut off from the hinterland, is wounded in an attack at the train station, he drags himself into his sister's castle. There he is housed in the basement. Immediately afterwards, a German commando, under the leadership of General Riedel, is quartered in their castle. André is in great danger. A young German officer, Oberleutnant Harald Buchner, is assigned to defend the bridge, which is extremely important for the German withdrawal. This is the first time that his paths cross with those of the Meurier siblings.
Since the wounded André is out of action, Renée puts on the uniform of a Wehrmacht soldier who had given it to the housekeeper to patch it up, and in the night and in the fog goes to a dam that is about to be blown up by the Resistance. She wired the dynamite, took a rowboat in time and blew up the dam. Two German security guards are already waiting for them on the other bank, from whom they can escape by jumping into the water. The water masses that flow down the valley after the destroyed dam also tear down the strategically important bridge. Hardly back in the castle, Renée is found in her salon with a leaflet that she once printed with her own hand. Judge Martial Börner makes it clear to the French woman that this could have serious consequences for her. So that another attack could not thwart German plans, General Riedel entrusted Lieutenant Buchner with a special mission to keep the German troops safe. Finally, the soaking wet uniform with which Renée carried out the attack is discovered in the castle. Renée is summoned to General Riedel. They are held responsible for the attack, placed under house arrest and sentenced to death in an express trial.
Buchner, who is sent to the suicide mission with a bottle of wine, meets Renée on the upper floor of the castle, where the doomed woman faces her fate. A conversation starts after Buchner has learned that she should be fusilized at four in the morning. What threatens to turn out to be the last night of her life for the French woman is at the same time a rapprochement between two increasingly respectful people who finally refuse to accept the prescribed “hereditary enmity”. Meanwhile, because of the blown up dam, water bursts into the basement, so that André, who is stuck there, threatens to drown. Meanwhile, an artist troupe led by Lisa Plessow, who are going on a Wehrmacht tour through France, arrives at the castle and is asked to entertain the German soldiers with the young women. Buchner's attempt to ask General Riedel for Andrée's life is unsuccessful.
The night is almost over, it strikes three o'clock. Then André escapes his wet hiding place and wants to light a cigarette. He is discovered and shot by a German security guard. Meanwhile, Renée and Buchner nestle cheek to cheek; they realize that in peacetime they would be about to begin a great love. Buchner makes a decision: he wants Renée to go on living and gives her his officer's coat so that she can leave the castle in this disguise. He says to her: “The world has changed for me since yesterday. Nobody knows that I experienced anything that night, and they find out that it made me overcome a mountain of prejudices. ”They promise each other to meet at the embankment. In fact, Renée manages to escape, but she waits in vain for her lover. The final words from off-screen were: "Lieutenant Buchner will be brought to court martial for attempted desertion and cowardice in front of the enemy."
Production notes
The shooting of The Last Night began in the early autumn of 1948. The studio of Real-Film in Hamburg-Wandsbek served as the studio , while the outdoor shots were taken at the Möhne reservoir .
The premiere of the film took place on February 11, 1949 in Hamburg's Esplanade cinema, the Berlin premiere on March 16 of the same year.
The costumes come from the hand of Trebitsch's wife Erna Sander . The film structures were designed by Herbert Kirchhoff , who also supplied the blown weir as a model. Albrecht Becker assisted him . Robert Fehrmann was responsible for the good tone.
useful information
Screenwriter Harald G. Petersson and leading actress Sybille Schmitz were married to each other.
The first passages of the film are spoken in French (especially by Carl-Heinz Schroth and Sybille Schmitz as his sister).
reception
The film was not a commercial success. For the main actor and former star of cinema during the Nazi era, Karl John, who, after Liebe 47 , embodied a gray and tortured existence for the second time in the film after 1945, this ambitious role meant relegation to the second row in Germany Film actor.
Among the German military from the time before the end of the war in 1945, as well as among several civilians, general resentment is said to have spread after the film's premiere in Hamburg, as “ Der Spiegel ” stated in its March 5, 1949 issue. There it says:
“Even before the discussion, an ex-general had written about 'bizarre portrayals of German officers'. In the debate, the deadly serious tendency towards penetrative accuracy became evident when correcting military inaccuracies. The escape of the resistance fighter in a German officer's coat with high heels and silk stockings and without a password is very unlikely. And there was also no division staff celebrating KdF festivals in the chaos of retreat. The discussion pot came to a boil when an Eastern foreigner advised his former German comrades-in-arms not to be portrayed as stupid boys on the screen. One should finally show something positive, he exclaimed with pathos. Senate Director Erich Lüth, Head of State Press Office, discussed from the country's perspective. 'In reality there were scenes that are only hinted at with nobility in the film,' he said. Sufficient consideration is given to the sensitivity of German nerves. Only the courage to self-criticize can restore the world's trust in Germany. "
Further assessments:
“With their new film 'The Last Night', Real-Film (Hamburg) has succeeded in one of the most important film strips of post-war production and - a rescuing of honor for the German Wehrmacht. But there is a third factor that characterizes this film: it can be dangerously misinterpreted. (...) The conflicts a man gets into when fulfillment of duty and love collide have been portrayed many times. But this is about more: it is about recognizing what this duty that the German officer has to fulfill actually is and whether it is justified. It is about the question of whether one can still demand obedience from a person if he comes into conflict with his own conscience. The portrayal of this conflict makes the film so dangerous: because to - its contrast stands on the side of the conscience a beloved woman and on the side of the blind obedience real men in the uniforms of German general staff officers. This seduces the visitor to a human sympathy for the unfortunate German officer, but at the same time to the opinion that he is doing an injustice if he deserted, even if it was only too understandable because of the love for such a woman. (...) Eugen York ... shows himself here as a first-class game master. He had excellent actors available. "
“The idea for the role came to Sibylle Schmitz when she had read an unimportant play. It was about a Russian woman who spied as a military helper. Her last wish before execution is a man. The chosen one, a young soldier, lets them go. The rather simple story was carried up to the intellectual platform of the Schmitz-Pedersson couple. "
“Director Eugen York makes the film clear and yet delicate, simple and yet with a thousand psychological lights. The French: Sybille Schmitz, as always extremely erotic, with a mask-like face, the born agent. (...) The first lieutenant: Karl John. With this role, which he plays with great persuasiveness, he almost takes care of himself. The audience confuses, as so often, role and actor. "
"Unfortunately, the production subordinates the inherently courageous drama of conscience to an entertaining love and sabotage story."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Renée and the captain . Background report in Der Spiegel from October 9, 1948
- ^ Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 63
- ↑ cf. on this: Curt Riess: There's only one time, p. 208
- ↑ “Only then does love come”. Report in "Spiegel" from March 5, 1949
- ↑ The last night. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
Web links
- The last night in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The last night at filmportal.de