Benthin family

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Movie
Original title Benthin family
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1950
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Slatan Dudow
Kurt Maetzig
Richard Groschopp
script Johannes R. Becher
Slatan Dudow
Kuba
Ehm Welk
production DEFA
music Ernst Roters
Werner Neumann (bar music)
camera Robert Baberske
Karl Plintzner
Walter Roßkopf
cut Ilse Voigt
occupation

The Benthin Family is a German DEFA feature film by Slatan Dudow , Kurt Maetzig and Richard Groschopp from 1950. It was made as a prestige project on the occasion of the founding of the GDR in 1949.

action

Two family stories are linked shortly after the end of the Second World War in Germany: Gustav and Olga Benthin live with their daughter Ursel in Magdeburg next to Annemarie Naumann and their sons Peter, Klaus and Hanno and their daughter Hede. Gustav Benthin runs the Merkur company, which deals with the smuggling of goods to the West. Brother Theo Benthin, on the other hand, lives and works in Braunschweig and pays Gustav to buy up as much as possible in the apparently bankrupt East in order to be able to sell the goods on at a profit. Some of the business runs through a branch of the Merkur-Werke in Berlin. At first Peter worked for Gustav as a driver and smuggled goods to Berlin or across the border to the West. Peter in turn recruits Klaus. He makes money by bringing refugees across the border. The young Hede goes to the West as a beautician with her boyfriend and she seems to be doing well.

The West wants to bleed the East to death due to a lack of raw material supplies. Soon the furnaces in the Berghammer steelworks stand still because coal is missing. The clinic attached to the plant cannot work either because there is no medical device. The clinic's chief physician is Dr. Benthin, the third of the Benthin brothers. He was supposed to be the clinic facility of Dr. Take over Fitsching, who wants to give up his clinic. Fitsching, however, sells to Gustav, and Theo tries to stop the state from investigating by returning the facility. The police have long been on the heels of Gustav and Theo Benthin. Dr. Fitsching flees across the border with Klaus' help. However, Klaus' little brother Hanno suddenly falls seriously ill and needs an emergency operation. Because the doctors in vain on Dr. Waiting for fitsching, Hanno dies. Theo and Gustav, on the other hand, speculate about the currency reform. They invest their assets in worthless machines, but their own financier does not want to buy the goods from them. The Merkur-Werke are bankrupt, especially since Gustav acts carelessly and is finally arrested by the police. Theo has to enter into a deal with his lender Mr. Brown: The loans are converted into shares and Theo remains the silent owner of the Brown company. Theo is forced to accept.

Klaus was placed with a refugee aid. It has to prove itself in the Berghammer steelworks. He starts out as a new worker and shows himself to be a good worker after minor teething problems. After the bankruptcy of Theos Merkur branch in the west, Peter, in turn, had visited his sister Hede. In the meantime she has declined and lives with other unemployed people in a basement bunker that has been converted into a collective dormitory. Since Peter cannot find a job, he finally reports to the Foreign Legion. Hede returns to the east with her boyfriend and they both find work in the Berghammer steelworks. Klaus, who is allowed to qualify in his job, returns home shortly before his further training. He found his mother, who was formerly a nurse and now delivers magazines, a job as a nurse in Dr. Benthin's Clinic. Gustav Benthin's daughter Ursel, who is now a couple with Klaus, also stayed here. She wants to study medicine and stay in the east.

The German Democratic Republic is founded. Numerous workers take to the streets with banners and Hede and Klaus are among the crowd. Annemarie Naumann, however, receives a message that her son Peter died as a foreign legionnaire for France in Vietnam. She bursts into tears, but regains her composure by looking at the crowds.

production

The Benthin family was commissioned by the SED in early 1950 as a prestige project on the occasion of the founding of the GDR. Originally Wolfgang Staudte was supposed to direct, but he canceled. As a result, Slatan Dudow was commissioned to direct in May 1950 and had to give up his project Always Ready . Dudow made the condition not to be named in the credits as a director. Before that, he had protested in vain against taking over the directorship, as he recognized the script's weaknesses. He later received support from Kurt Maetzig, while Richard Groschopp contributed night shots to the film. He is not named in the credits as a director, while Maetzig and Dudow agreed to be named subject to certain conditions (wording: "Directed by a collective under the direction of ...") after a letter of appeal from Anton Ackermann .

The Benthin family was filmed from June 1950 in the Berlin-Johannisthal studio and in Berlin and the surrounding area. Joachim Barckhausen and Alexander Graf Stenbock-Fermor were responsible for the dramaturgy . The film structures are by Erich Zander , Wilhelm Depenau , Karl Schneider and Artur Schwarz , the costumes were created by Georg Schott . The trick camera work comes from Ernst Kunstmann . The film had its film premiere on September 8, 1950 in the Leipzig Capitol and was released in GDR cinemas on September 15, 1950. It started in time for the 1950 elections, which was the deadline for the film set by the SED. In May 2004 it was released on DVD by Icestorm .

criticism

Ralf Schenk wrote that the figures were "laid out like a woodcut, sharply separated into good and bad". For the film service , the Benthin family was an “agitation crime thriller with a clear good-bad drawing. Can only be used as a historical document on the cinema during the Cold War. "

literature

  • F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 164-165 .
  • Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Ed.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg . DEFA feature films 1946–1992. Henschel, Berlin 1994, pp. 57-60.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ralf Schenk: In the middle of the Cold War 1950 to 1960 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg . DEFA feature films 1946–1992. Henschel, Berlin 1994, pp. 58, 60.
  2. ↑ Ralf Schenk: In the middle of the Cold War 1950 to 1960 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg . DEFA feature films 1946–1992. Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 57.
  3. ↑ Benthin family. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used