Don Juan's last adventure
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Don Juan's last adventure |
| Country of production | Austria-Hungary |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1918 |
| length | approx. 73 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Heinz Karl Heiland |
| script |
Paul Frank Fritz Freisler |
| production |
Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky Arnold Pressburger for Sascha-Film , Vienna |
| occupation | |
| |
Don Juan's Last Adventure is an Austro-Hungarian silent film melodrama from 1918 by Heinz Karl Heiland with Magda Sonja and Louis Ralph in the leading roles.
action
The fashion company Herson & Co. is planning a fashion show, but she has lost a "Probierfräulein" (new German: model). The couturier Boyko made one of his young seamstresses available as a mannequin. The choice fell on Erica, a young orphan girl. Erica is a pretty, morally stable young lady who has so far turned down many dishonorable offers in order to remain “decent”. She does her job well on the catwalk and receives some applause. Despite the favors from her boss and some gifts, she remains steadfast this time too. One evening she goes to a nightspot with some work colleagues. But since her employer has expressly forbidden the visit of such “dubious establishments”, all women involved in the nightly break are dismissed. For Erica this means the beginning of a steady social decline, because unlike her friends from the sewing room, she does not want to be endured by any rich patrons, but rather to remain respectable even under difficult conditions.
One evening when an authorized baron named Bergheim took a seat at the next table, his and Erica's eyes met. The nobleman with a presumably dark past - after years of self-chosen loneliness in his family castle, he has now been socializing for the first time on the advice of his doctor - asks Erica to come to his table. The hermit of his own volition and the now unemployed Rührmichnichtan share the same, melancholy mood, and in view of this first common ground both withdraw into a private room. There Erica plays a song for the baron at the piano; it is precisely the favorite song of a girl that the grand seigneur once loved. The baron looks at Erica and discovers a medallion on her that he had once given to "his" girl. So is she the one who ...?
The baron tells his life story. Once he was a serious painter, a womanizer, a true Don Juan. No goal was too ambitious for him, no task too difficult when it came to winning a woman's heart. He had taken the forester's daughter by storm, who had once saved him from mortal danger, and thrown it away again just as quickly as he was bored with her. This forester's daughter, impregnated by the aristocratic do-not-well, was then cast out by her father. This girl then went out into the world alone and gave birth to her illegitimate child without ever being heard from again. Baron Bergheim can hardly believe his late luck: Now his own daughter stands before him, and Don Juan's last adventure comes to a happy end the moment he can hug his own daughter.
Production notes
Don Juan's last adventure was filmed at the Rhine Falls and in Schaffhausen . The premiere took place on October 11, 1918 in Vienna. The four-stroke had a length of about 1500 meters.
Six cameramen are said to have been involved in this film.
criticism
“In this film, which is a masterpiece from the pen of the well-known writer Paul Frank, this idea is illustrated in the most perfect form. The direction does the best and the images that reproduce the plot are strung together with excellent technology. See you in the sewing room of a first-class fashion salon in the elegant world of Vienna. (...) The fashionable nightspots that we know from happy hours bring back wonderful memories and we feel as if we were dancing the tango to the great sounds of music. We are also led into the rugged rocky area of the Styrian Mountains and take in the impression of the magnificent nature with delight. But all the beautiful that we see is surpassed by the art of Magda Sonja. She lives the role of the girl who grew up in poor circumstances, but who has the pride of a princess in her. She bows down under her grief, she sheds tears over the future shame, but only alone. Magda Sonja ... is celebrating triumphs again. So this film is the best one we've ever seen, an industrial work of art ... "