A child, a dog, a vagabond

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Movie
Original title A child, a dog, a vagabond
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1934
length 87 minutes
Rod
Director Arthur Maria Rabenalt
script Karl Peter Gillmann based
on an idea by Bruno Hardt-Warden
production Oskar Han for Lloyd-Film, Berlin
music Harald Boehmelt
camera Herbert Körner
cut Willy Zeunert
occupation

and Günther Ballier , Olga Engl , Kurt Felden , Klaus Pohl , Wolfgang von Schwind , Alfred Stein , Walter Steinweg , Dorothea Thiess , Maria Voigtsberger , Bruno Ziener and Bernhardiner Eros von Jägerhof, called Rinaldo.

A child, a dog, a vagabond is a German confusion game from 1934 by Arthur Maria Rabenalt with Viktor de Kowa , Annemarie Sörensen and a Saint Bernard in the leading roles.

action

The young Florian leads a very unsteady life and is always close to the subsistence level. That is why he shows interest in the young Angelika von Rehberg, whom he thinks as a baroness rich. He wants to introduce himself to her father, but is rather uncertain, since everything depends on this first impression. Shortly before, Florian took a kayak trip with his best friend Roland , which led to the area around the Rehberg's country estate. At the last moment Florian ran out of courage and he ran away. He “steals” the clothes of a scarecrow and now runs around as a “vagabond”. On his way down the street he meets little Jupp, a holiday child who has fled his host father, the strict police officer Willig, in order to avoid a feared punishment. As the third member of the group, the St. Bernard Rinaldo joins the small troop, also a runaway from the Willig family.

Baroness Angelika also has a whimper before the first encounter with Florian, whom she does not know, because this arranged marriage initiation is not based on love. She also moves out before they get to know each other and, against her father's wishes, goes to a fair in a nearby small town. In order not to be recognized, she slips on her maid's clothes. It was in this outfit that Angelika met Florian in his worn scarecrow clothes. Both do not know each other and yet fall in love immediately. When friend Roland joins them and sees Angelika in the maid's clothes, everything soon gets mixed up because he begins to be interested in the real maid Agnes, who no longer looks like a maid. Meanwhile, Angelika and Florian can be photographed together at the fair's photographer, and suddenly the resulting couple has their first bride-and-groom photo together in this way. Finally everything is cleared up and two couples can announce their engagement at a lively fair.

Production notes

A child, a dog, a vagabond was filmed in the Tobis studios in Berlin-Johannisthal from early to mid-September 1934 and premiered on November 29, 1934 in two UFA cinemas in Berlin (Kurfürstendamm and Friedrichstrasse).

The texts for the composition by Harald Böhmelt were provided by Robert A. Stemmle . Fritz Maurischat designed the film structures that his colleague Karl Weber implemented. Frank Clifford took over the production management, Hans Schönmetzler the production management .

State reception, prohibition, political effects and significance in terms of film history

The content-wise completely banal film is of film-historical importance for only one reason and, uniquely in the National Socialist cinema of the Third Reich, made history for extremely unusual and completely different reasons than expected: On January 12, 1935, it was banned from showing by the film inspection agency, but not for political or ideological reasons or because it was subsequently discovered that Jews were involved in the production of a child, a dog, a vagabond . Rather , a child, a dog, a vagabond hit the very personal ban beam of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels , who wanted to make an example of this film and the comedy Die Liebe Siegt, which started exactly one week earlier in exactly the same cinemas : Goebbels found that the artistic quality of these two strips, produced by two small manufacturing companies, was bad underground.

In the justification for the ban already pronounced by Goebbels at the end of November 1934, which was confirmed after a renewed submission by the supervisory authority and finally became legally binding in January 1935, the official announcement said: Both films were "shallow and." tasteless works ”. In both cases, according to the judgment, “completely unimaginative means were used, the artistic forces working on film were misused to produce the tasteless, level-less and mindless dumb goods, and to bring about work that was too police and censorship measures gave no cause, but gave rise to the strongest taste concerns. ”It was also pointed out that the bans had been issued to make it clear to German film producers that the Reich government was no longer willing to sell below-average film products from, as it was said,“ artistically Unscrupulous film producers “to continue to tolerate without contradiction, even if this were justified by the fact that only such lightweight material could be sold abroad. These films were, so it was also to be read, so bad that one could not have changed anything in the quality, which was perceived as unsatisfactory, by changing the script, cutting or re-shooting. In the grounds for the prohibition, the hope was expressed that this prohibition would be a salutary warning signal to the German film industry to pay more attention to quality in the future.

As was criticized in the following analysis by the Österreichische Film-Zeitung (ÖFZ), this significant intervention in German film production by the German Ministry of Propaganda was only intended to counteract the uncertainty in the cooperation between artistic forces on the one hand with wealthy financiers and the Goebbels authority on the other to promote extremely. If up to now every script had to be submitted to the Reichsfilmdramaturge for approval of a film adaptation in order to get the hoped-for police censorship clearance, now other, namely artistic characteristics, which meant quality promises that could hardly be guaranteed beforehand, have to be taken into account. The ÖFZ also criticized the intensification of political influence on script production that the German government had forced. The cause of love wins and a child, a dog, a vagabond would also mean that the Reichsfilmdramaturg, unlike before, would have a strong influence on any script-making and there would hardly be any more options to save a film from being banned because of later script corrections a ban would no longer prevent it. Compromises would therefore be impossible in the future, and a script rejection by the authorities could no longer be averted by subsequent changes. The Österreichische Film-Zeitung further pointed out that, as a result of this new legal situation, film financiers would henceforth consider investing their money in the production of films at all, as the risk of a total loss of the investment made had become too great.

Incidentally, A Child, a Dog, a Vagabond was re-performed on August 15, 1935 under the new title Maybe it was just a dream after a series of cuts .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Report on the confirmation of the ban in: Österreichische Film-Zeitung of January 25, 1935, p. 5
  2. ↑ a b c d reprinted in: Österreichische Filmzeitung of December 8, 1934, p. 4
  3. ↑ Ulrich J. Klaus: Deutsche Tonfilme 5th year 1934. p. 124 (073.34), Berlin 1993