Marriage stories
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Marriage stories |
| Original title | Le Brasier ardent |
| Country of production | France French |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1923 |
| length | 122 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ivan Mosschuchin and Alexander Volkov |
| script | Ivan Mosshuchin |
| production | Societe de Films Albatross |
| camera | Joseph-Louis Mundwiller and Nikolai Toporkoff |
| occupation | |
| |
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Marriage stories (Original title: Le Brasier ardent ) is a French film drama by the Russian directors Iwan Mosschuchin and Alexander Volkov from 1923 . The writer also wrote Mosschuchin, the silent film is a production of the Societe de Films Albatros .
action
The film begins with a series of dark and gruesome scenes in which a woman is harassed by the same persecutor who constantly changes his disguise. Only after a while does the woman wake up in her bed, and she and the viewer realize that it was all just a nightmare . She is reading the memoirs of the famous private detective Zed , and that explains the nightmare: her pursuers during the dream all had Zed's facial features, and their disguises were similar to those Zed chose in his adventures and in which he is depicted in his book.
The woman is fortunate to have found a very wealthy man who enables her a luxurious lifestyle and all kinds of extravagances. This is also evident from the fact that the woman who has just woken up is presented with the trays with breakfast at the push of a button, which are pulled out of the wall behind the bed, and that her utensils for the morning toilet also float down from the ceiling at the push of a button, and the other pushes of a button present extensive daily mail and flowers that are not worth reading. Just the push of a button to summon “dearest friends” brings up a housemaid carrying a large basket with a considerable number of small lap dogs.
A flashback shows the woman having an argument with a former partner on a fishing boat and both going overboard. Her husband, a South American businessman, witnessed the accident while on vacation on his motorboat and jumped into the water himself to save the woman. The couple's wedding followed shortly thereafter.
The wife enjoys the luxury and genuinely loves her husband, but she also wonders if he really loves her. The husband, on the other hand, is concerned that there might be a rival. In addition, the couple gets into an argument about the man's plan to move out of "cursed Paris" into the country. Because she doesn't want to leave her "beloved Paris". Outraged, she leaves the common house and jumps on a taxi, followed by her husband, who jumps on the next taxi and follows his wife down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. You arrive at a house at some distance from each other, in whose inner courtyard you think you recognize a gate from your nightmare in an entrance. She hides from her husband, lets him pass and returns to the taxi. At the entrance, the husband is transported through a mechanism inside the building where the famous Club des Chercheurs , the club of detectives , resides.
After thorough questioning, the husband is admitted to the lost spouse recovery office . There he negotiates with the president, who, supported by a dozen of his detectives, promises to the head, despite denying that he has lost the love of his wife. Finally, the husband agrees that a detective from the club should restore his wife's love within two months, if success is guaranteed. For this he has to pay 25,000 francs, in case of failure he would be entitled to 50,000 francs. The husband chooses one of the ugly detectives with particularly crooked facial features. When the husband, the detective and the president of the club signed the contract, the detective turned out to be the handsome Zed of all people . The husband does not want to accept him as a potential rival, but it turns out that all twelve detectives look extremely good - all of them are Zed .
The next morning the husband comes to his office and finds it searched. The window is broken and the marriage contract is gone. He calls Zed to get him back the contract. Immediately upon his arrival, Zed found the butler stealing cigars from his landlord and the housemaid stealing perfume from his wife. He notices that a piece of glass is falling out of the wife's coat, which the maid is taking away. When talking to the couple, Zed suspects that the landlady herself faked the break-in and stole the contract. In the evening he uses their absence to search their rooms and is surprised by the returning wife when he finds a secret compartment with the contract under her bed.
The wife wants to seduce Zed , which she almost succeeds. Ultimately he stands firm, but leaves the contract in their possession for the time being. The next morning he appears in the house and examines the "signs of burglary". When he leaves, he calls his grandmother and arranges to meet her over coffee. When confronted, he tells the wife that he will meet the woman he loves more than anything else in the world. In the afternoon, Zed visits an elegant café with his grandmother, in which the wife, who is now jealous of Zed's companion, also appears. The situation clears up and all three have a lively conversation.
On one of the following evenings, the woman and Zed visit a dance hall. The woman is dancing a tango on stage with another man, arousing Zed's jealousy. He calls a long-term dance competition with prize money of initially 1,000 and then 2,000 francs for the women present; he himself plays the piano. During his furious game she doesn't dance with him, but sits behind him and adores him. Meanwhile, violent scenes take place on the dance floor, exhausted women collapsing are dragged up by their male companions or forced to continue dancing with blows. Zed increases the prize money to 3000 francs and plays even faster. When only two participants dance against each other, both Zed and the woman increase the prize money. Finally the winner is certain, she throws up her arms and collapses dead. While the terrified wife hurriedly grabs her hat and coat and leaves the scene, Zed calls the husband and tells him that his wife will return soon.
Now Zed also wants to leave the bar, but is harassed by the indignant crowd as the culprit for the young dancer's death. When he apparently can only keep his opponents at bay with the help of a firearm, the "dead woman" stands up, laughs, waves her money and is cheered by the crowd. Her death was a production arranged by Zed to shock the wife and get them to return to her husband. Zed and his wife drive together in a taxi, and the woman indicates that her boundless love for Paris has suffered: Scary city! I fear them now, even during the day .
Arriving at the couple's house, the woman looks at Zed , but in her mind she does not see him, but a bishop from her nightmare who admonishes her to return home. Zed says goodbye, and the wife rushes into the house, where the silhouette of her husband could be seen behind a window. Zed also goes to his home, where the silhouettes of his knitting grandmother and his bulldog can be seen behind a window. To his grandmother he feigns a toothache as the reason for his obvious depression, but she seems to see through him.
In the meantime, the couple have made up and are planning a boat trip to New York. Zed comes into the house one last time to get the stolen marriage contract from the wife and to give it back to the husband. The next day the couple found out at the port that their ship would not leave until the following day. In addition, the husband allegedly forgot to give Zed the agreed fee. The wife takes the opportunity to run the errand and also to say goodbye to Zed's grandmother. She drives to Zed in a taxi . There she is greeted first by her grandmother and then by Zed . He receives the husband's envelope, which he is asked to open in the presence of the wife.
In the envelope, however, there is no money, but a letter from the husband who declares that he wants to leave his wife because he has realized that she loves Zed, not him . However, he advises Zed never to seek help from the Detectives Club . He himself will leave Paris forever, return to his native South America, and agree to the divorce. While the wife is celebrating with Zed and his grandmother in their house, the husband sets sail on the ship Liberté and flirts on deck with a much younger passenger.
Production notes
The outdoor recordings for marriage stories were made in Paris and Marseille , the studio recordings in Montreuil .
The Russian-born production designer and film director Eugène Lourié , who had previously illustrated film posters , first worked as a scene painter on the set of marriage stories.
Marriage Stories hit French cinemas on November 2, 1923. In the United States, the film was only shown on September 25, 1982 as The Burning Brazier at the New York Film Festival . In 2013 it was released on DVD under the title The Burning Crucible .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b marriage stories in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ^ Doug Tomlinson: Lourié, Eugène . In: Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast (eds.): International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers. 4th Edition, Volume 4. Writers and Production Artists . St. James Press, Farmington Hills 2000, ISBN 1-55862-453-8 , pp. 533-534.