A handful of notes

Movie
Original title	A handful of notes
Country of production	GDR
original language	German
Publishing year	1961
length	80 minutes
Rod
Director	Otto Schneidereit Helmut Spieß
script	Otto Schneidereit
production	DEFA
music	Martin Hattwig
camera	Otto Hanisch
cut	Anneliese Hinze-Sokolow
occupation
Günther Simon : Paul Steinmetz Ingeborg Dirgardt : Hannchen Hasemann Stefan Lisewski : Andreas Blume Angela Brunner : Gerti Oswald Albert Garbe : Father Flower Erika Dunkelmann : Mother Flower Rudolf Ulrich : Herbert Stracke Werner Lierck : trumpet charl Heinz Quermann : Mr. Strampel Axel Dietrich : apprentice Heinrich Gerd Michael Henneberg : 1st gentleman in the S-Bahn Walter Lendrich : 2nd gentleman in the S-Bahn Agnes Kraus : Mrs. Ziebahrt Ilse Bastubbe : Ursel Finke Hans Klering : Brigadier Ernst Hans Flössel : BGL chairman Werner Senftleben : Baker Kohlmey Peter Dommisch : Apprentice Willi Rolf Römer : guitarist Christian Ebel : clarinetist Hans Sievers : saxophonist Harald Engelmann : pianist Bernd Rudolf : drummer Fred Frohberg : Professor in a dream Karl Sturm : Apprentice Achim Wolff : apprentice

A handful of notes is a German musical film of the DEFA of Otto Schneidereit and Helmut spit from the year 1961 .

action

Andreas is supposed to take over his father's small-town bakery. His hobby, however, is playing the trumpet, which he would like to make his main job and therefore would like to start studying music in Berlin. But that doesn't suit his father. To avoid the argument about it, he takes a job in a large bakery in Berlin, which his friend Paul, who works there, has found for him. In this company he met the office worker Gerti Oswald, whom Paul had an eye on, and her friend Hannchen Hasemann. Hannchen is a saleswoman from a baked goods sales point in Berlin-Friedrichshagen, who is currently attending a further training course in the large bakery to convey the excellent quality and diversity of industrially manufactured products to her customers.

During a tour of the company, Andreas happened to meet the company band that was rehearsing for a company party. He had to step in for a badly playing trumpeter. Andreas is so successful here that he soon takes over the leadership of the band. When his father visits him in Berlin, he realizes that bread from the factory tastes just as good as from the bakery. In the evening he sees his son performing at the festival, is enthusiastic and agrees to the longed-for study of music. The company is also convinced of the musical skills and delegates Andreas to study. After some love entanglements that arise due to misunderstandings, Andreas and Hannchen as well as Paul and Gerti come together in the end.

production

A handful of notes was shot under the working title The Happiest Man and the Happy Man in Totalvision . The film is set in Berlin, but almost nothing of the city can be seen. The original director Helmut Spieß was dismissed during filming because of differences with the librettist, actor and writer Otto Schneidereit; This gave Schneidereit the opportunity to film his own material.

A handful of sheet music premiered on December 25, 1961 in the Berlin Filmtheater am Friedrichshain . The start of television in the GDR was on December 12, 1962 on DFF 1 .

Numerous music interpreters can be heard in the film, including the 4 Pico-Bellos, 4 Teddies, the Colibris, the DEFA Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Karl-Ernst Sasse , Fred Frohberg , the Martin-Möhle-Combo, the dance orchestra of the Berliner Rundfunk directed by Günter Gollasch , the Fips Fleischer dance orchestra and the Vineta Trio. Heinz Quermann makes a guest appearance as a salesman in a music store.

criticism

The Junge Welt criticized the film in 1961 because it “reached the point where one would soon have to speak of a 'film without content'.” Among other things, the criticism was that the light material was implemented in color and total vision. The Berliner Zeitung called the film “very tough. Conflicts, which a comedy must also have, are scurried away in no time at all. But there are gags from the time when all breads were pushed into the oven by hand, and scenes about scenes whose function was certainly not really clear to any of the participants. ”“ A lot of boredom and silly things spread out on widescreen format, ”he said film service .

literature

• F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 229-230 .

Web links

• A handful of notes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• A handful of notes at filmportal.de
• A handful of grades from the DEFA Foundation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ “The film was shot until September 13, 1960 under the direction of Helmut Spieß. He resigned as a result of differences with the author, and Otto Schneidereit began shooting on October 5, 1960. “ DEFA feature films 1946–1964. Filmography . State Film Archive of the GDR, Berlin 1989, p. 373
2. ^ Film review by L. Schmidt in: Junge Welt , December 23, 1961.
3. ^ Film review in: Berliner Zeitung , December 23, 1961.
4. ↑ A handful of notes. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .