Family day in the Prellstein house

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Movie
Original title Family day in the Prellstein house
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1927
Age rating FSK youth ban at the time
Rod
Director Hans Steinhoff
script Viktor Klein
production Lupu pick
camera Curt Courant
occupation

Family day in the Prellstein house (Austrian title: Café Abeles ) is a German silent film from 1927 directed by Hans Steinhoff . The main roles are occupied by Szöke Szakall , Erika Glässner , Siegfried Arno and Paul Morgan .

Viktor Klein's script is based very freely on the play of the same name by Anton and Donat Herrnfeld from 1905/1906; the subtitles are by Paul Morgan.

action

A Jewish coffeehouse is the meeting place for ordinary people who don't just want to drink and play cards; they also want to talk to each other and do business. Sami bamboo is also a regular guest here. Accrued gambling debts give him the idea of ​​faking his own death because he believes that his heirs would then have to pay for his debts. This plan has also grown in him because he wants to wipe out his jealous wife Flora, who is cheating on him with her cousin Prellstein. His legacy then consists not only of open gambling debts, but all in all of debts. This leads to disputes among the entire family. When a rich uncle arrives from the provinces, one has the hope that he will answer for Sami's debts.

When the person believed dead suddenly reappears, a solution is found thanks to the foresight of the good-natured uncle.

Production notes and background

The film was shot from the end of January to February 1927 in the Rex Film Atelier in Berlin. It concerns a production of the Herrnfeld-Film of the UFA , manufactured by the Rex-Film. It was distributed by Ufa. The film was a cheap Ufa commissioned by Rex-Film. The Jewish producer Lupu Pick had the overall direction. Leo Wiltlin was responsible for the buildings and furnishings. Viktor Skutezky was the recording manager .

The film has a length of 6 acts equal to 2,040 meters. On July 28, 1927, he was subjected to an examination by the censors under the number 16.217 and a "youth ban" was issued. The premiere took place on December 16, 1927 with a duration of 7 days in the Ufa-Theater Königstadt in Berlin. In Vienna, the film premiered on January 27, 1928 in Burg-Kino, Karntner-Kino, Central-Kino, Lowen-Kino and Kalvarienberg-Kino. A restored version was shown for the first time on October 10, 2012 in the Giornate del cinem muto, Teatro Verdi in Pordenone . Piano accompaniment: Donald Sosin.

The brothers Anton and Donat Herrnfeld founded and ran their own private theater , a Jewish dialect theater, in Berlin from 1896 , which bore their name from 1899. It belonged to them until around 1918. There they performed and became stars. The choice of material could be traced back to the international success of the comedy Potash and Perlmutter , which was then successfully filmed by Goldwyn Pictures . At the time, director Steinhoff wrote to the critic Kurt Mühsam that he was hoping for “success from this lovable work [...] with the press and the public” because the film was “new in its genre and form”. Ufa, which had meanwhile been taken over by the right-wing conservative Alfred Hugenberg , was not satisfied with the film and delayed its release. Steinhoff, who believed that the film would hit theaters in April or May at the latest, had to learn that the film company had only submitted it to censorship at the end of July. He was also mentioned only once in the official Ufa film announcements for the new season. The premiere didn't take place until mid-December 1927 in a rather remote Berlin cinema, on the weekend before Christmas. Experience has shown that admissions to the cinema fell sharply during this Christmas period. The film was hardly advertised at all. The budget available for advertising was just 203.70 Reichsmarks, less than 10% of the next lower budget for the premiere of the 1927/1928 cinema season.

With a wink, the cabaret comedians, who were among the best actors of the Weimar Republic, refer to human weaknesses and behaviors that are supposed to awaken memories of their own experiences at family get-togethers in the audience.

criticism

Georg Herzberg's verdict in Film-Kurier No. 298 of December 17, 1927 read as follows: “Within the framework of the available and certainly limited means, Hans Steinhoff has created a clean film about which one can laugh heartily a few times and that of cinema-goers, with the exception of unteachable anti-Semites, will certainly be perceived as a pleasant change from the Rhine, Operetta and Heidelberg. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Horst Claus: Family day in the Prellstein house Filming for Hitler - The career of the Nazi star director Hans Steinhoff , Vienna: Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, 2012. In: Bundesarchiv, Filmblatt 7 at bundesarchiv.de