Through the Brandenburg Gate
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Through the Brandenburg Gate |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1929 |
| length | 112 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Max Knaake |
| script | not specified |
| production | Carl Laemmle |
| music | Bernhard Homola |
| camera | Charles Stumar |
| occupation | |
| |
Through the Brandenburg Gate is a German silent film from 1929 with Paul Henckels in one of his rare leading roles as a master shoemaker and Fritz Kampers as the unscrupulous slider king. The lovers play the American June Marlowe and Aribert Mog . Officially directed by the almost exclusively as art director came into appearance Max Knaake .
action
In the center of the events of this old Berlin story are the master shoemaker Adolf Lehmann, his daughter Frieda and the nephew Fritz as well as Lehmann's journeyman Franz Müller and the nosy apprentice Max. Fritz as well as the slightly greasy Franz have their eyes on the pretty Frieda and would they both like to outdoors. Frieda likes Fritz more than the pushy Franz. When the First World War broke out one day , Kaiser Wilhelm's soldiers paraded through the Brandenburg Gate with sounding games , and everywhere, as with the Lehmanns, people outdid themselves in patriotic statements. Only the old journeyman Emil Lauter can't get anything from the whole thing, he says he's not interested in militarism. The ardent admirer of the emperor and national patriot Lehmann threw him out with the words “I won't tolerate the socialist in my house”. Emil does not seem to be shaken, he announces his decision to emigrate: "I go to democracy - to America!"
While Fritz will soon have to move in and will soon be considered missing, Franz can skilfully avoid the service in a tunic. Fritz is therefore out of Frieda's field of vision, and so she finally gives in to Franz's wooing and becomes his wife. The sedate new husband quickly developed into a great war profiteer with lucrative slide deals. Franz lives in full swing and has fun with strange women in appropriate establishments, while people die en masse on the front. Emil Lauter has meanwhile arrived in America and is making his (financial) fortune there. The old shoemaker Lehmann dies at home, and Frieda feels deeply unhappy about her marriage to Franz. Meanwhile, Franz has taken over Lehmann's shoe store and made it his own. The emaciated Fritz, who was captured by Russia on the Eastern Front, was only sent back to Berlin from a Siberian camp five years after the end of the war, in 1923.
On their return home, Fritz and Frieda, who has long since become estranged from the cocky stranger Franz, slowly approach each other again. Only now does Frieda realize that she had married the wrong person at the time and divorced Franz, the unloved pushover king, in 1923 in order to dare to start over with her Fritz. For Franz things are going downhill temporarily; he is arrested by two detectives and goes behind bars for his illegal business and fraud. But soon he will be at large again and like a fat pearl in a society of economic and fortune knights at the top. An inheritance from America in the amount of 5,000 dollars, on the other hand, sweetened Frieda's path to a better future and a new marriage, this time with Fritz, who is gradually finding a footing in post-war Berlin. The money was brought to her by the wise Social Democrat Lauter, who in the meantime, without any enthusiasm for war or cheer patriotism, has died a made man in America. Fritz suggests to his future colleague that the money be invested in his own, high-quality shoe store. This is how it finally happens. The story ends with a zeppelin floating over the Brandenburg Gate.
Production notes
Through the Brandenburg Gate , sometimes with the subtitle Solang 'the old trees are still in bloom under linden trees , the film was shot in Berlin in March 1929. The six-stroke engine with an original length of 2405 meters passed censorship on May 6, 1929 and was initially banned. When it was resubmitted on May 22, 1929, the strip was approved under cutting specifications, and a youth ban was issued. The Brandenburg Gate was now 2270 meters long. The world premiere took place on May 31, 1929 in the Primus-Palast in Berlin and in five Hamburg cinemas.
Wilhelm Dieterle helped Knaake, who was inexperienced in directing, with the staging and thus became artistic director. The buildings come from Fritz Maurischat . Paul Kohner took over the production management, Adolf Essek was the production manager .
criticism
The social democratic forward saw the form of social criticism shown here with great skepticism:
“If you see Schieber in German films, there is always something ridiculous and small about them. Why do you actually not even draw decisive conclusions and also lead ... the right masterminds to stroll across the screen, that is, bank directors, large industrialists and other top phenomena of patriotically disguised slicers? It is just about the moral petty-bourgeois world order in German film, which must not be touched under any circumstances. The good man prevails in the end, and the bad man gets into the hole despite his understanding of the business cycle. That's how the film is, but unfortunately not the reality. That is why we feel so strongly the mendacity. In addition, the manuscript is inorganic. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Architect Maurischat claimed decades later that, despite contradicting statements in the opening credits, Dieterle de facto staged this film on his own