The black Lorelei
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The black Lorelei |
| Original title | Whirlpool |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1959 |
| length | 91 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Lewis Allen |
| script |
Lawrence P. Bachmann based on his novel The Lorelei |
| production |
George Pitcher Sam Lomberg |
| music | Ron Goodwin |
| camera | Geoffrey Unsworth |
| cut | Russell Lloyd |
| occupation | |
| |
Black Lorelei is a British crime film from 1959 with OW Fischer and Juliette Gréco in the lead roles.
action
Lora has already experienced a lot of bad things and is a lost soul of the early post-war period. On the outside, she looks serene, tough and cynical. She is the friend of a lousy little crook named Hermann, from whom she would like to break free. But so far she has lacked the last strength to do so. When Hermann stabs a man in a dispute in a Cologne pub, the hardened waitress panics and tries to break away from him for good. Hermann flees in one direction, believing that he will see her again at an agreed point; Lora, on the other hand, enters a barge that is leaving on the Rhine in the opposite direction. Its captain Rolf is a self-contained man of all the shot and grain, who can hardly be disturbed by anything. Because of her existentialist black clothing and her power to irresistibly beguile the men (now also those on board), to rush them into hormones and to drive them out of their minds, she is quickly called "the black Lorelei".
Lora causes a lot of unrest among the inland navigation operators, and the excessive jealousy of the wife of one of the crew members soon brings the barrel to overflowing. Things finally come to a head when Hermann suddenly appears again. Chased by the police, he breaks through the barriers, gets on Rolf's barge and forces the captain to take him on board. Investigative Commissioner Braun has long had the ship and its crew in view, which threatened to get caught in what is, in a metaphorical sense, a whirlpool (a whirlpool , the original English title) as a result of these events , and uses Lora as a decoy to finally get hold of Hermanns to become. Finally, on the chugging barge, the final showdown takes place: Rolf and Hermann fight to the death, with the unscrupulous criminal losing out. Another painful kiss goodbye, then the black Lorelei is taken off board by the police and taken away. Whether both of them will find their way back together after their imprisonment remains to be seen in the end.
Production notes
The shooting of The Black Lorelei took place in August and September 1958 on the tanker "Clementine" in the Middle Rhine Valley as well as in Boppard , St. Goar and Koblenz . The film premiered in Great Britain at the end of March 1959; the German premiere was on September 11, 1959.
After his catastrophic departure from Hollywood, where Fischer had been in front of the camera for the film Mein Mann Gottfried in early 1957 , but was fired due to constant disputes with director Henry Koster, The Black Lorelei was now his first English-language production.
Jack Maxsted designed the film set, Julie Harris the costumes. Ron Goodwin , who made his film debut here, conducted his own composition.
Reviews
“The colored, sentimental story of robbers, which turns the Rhine into the scene of capital crimes that are boringly presented, marks a low point in the work of the mime Otto W. Fischer: In the form of a barge, the German film muser succumbs to the songs of a killer lover (Juliette Greco) who is willing to improve and finds Opportunity for a boyish scuffle. "
“Since the European market has been ringing its siren calls over the English channel, English film producers have been racking their brains in their alchemist film kitchens to find topics that are equally well received in all European markets. They believed they had found it in the Rank Organization. (...) Now Lorelei is not golden blonde and combs her hair, but she is a waitress in a bar, has black hair and leaves it uncombed. It is the well-known Rhinelander Juliette Greco, who wears her existentialist hairstyle and often walks around barefoot to have the opportunity to sing the famous Rhine song: “Pieds nus dans mes sabots” (bare feet in wooden shoes). (...) Shortly before the premiere in London, the German embassy gave a press reception, probably out of joy and satisfaction that we are now discovering Father Rhine on film in England. It can be assumed, however, that the hosts had not yet seen the film, otherwise the happy Rhine mood would have turned into the opposite. (...) It's a cross with the Rhine films. The films that were shot in Germany ... were almost without exception a syrup romance and soon disappeared from the screen. Now an English producer is bringing out a film on the Rhine that is nothing more than the background to a gangster story. (...) It wasn't a Rhine film, but a failure. "
“The legend of the beautiful Lorelei who combs her hair up on the rock is a sad story. And if you use the romantic name so relationally for a film title, then it can't be a happy film at all. And indeed, it is not either, even if OW Fischer occasionally creates a mood with sullen charm. Thank God the Loreley of this film is no longer sitting on the famous rock, and combing her hair is no longer her job either ... Here she is a hardy child from the modern post-war jungle who brings all sorts of criminalistic confusions to the fisherman's boat. But in the end "the fisherman in his boat is gripped with wild pain" when she approaches her legal fate and a future that is not uncertain between two detectives. This English-German-French ballad, which unites people, was staged by the Englishman Lewis Allan, with violent geographical confusion in the background of the picture. "
"Faders of English tears with an almost comical-looking improbability."
Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Moderately interesting travel report with the burden of a very boring melodrama".
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Dorin Popa: O. W Fischer. His films - his life, Heyne film library. P. 100 ff.
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 1109
Web links
- Background report on the shooting
- The black Lorelei in the Internet Movie Database (English)