Mrs. Venus and her devil

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Movie
Original title Mrs. Venus and her devil
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1967
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Ralf Kirsten
script Ralf Kirsten
Manfred Krug
Brigitte Kirsten
production DEFA ,
KAG "Babelsberg 67"
music André Asriel
camera Hans Heinrich
cut Christa Helwig
occupation

Frau Venus und ihr Teufel is a German comedy film of the DEFA of Ralf Kirsten from the year 1967 .

action

Hans Müller from Berlin is going to Thuringia with his girlfriend Maria on a Monday to visit the Wartburg . Both like each other, but only Maria says that she loves Hans. Hans, on the other hand, doesn't want to commit himself, he doesn't know whether there isn't another woman somewhere in the world whom he could love even more than Maria. When he arrives at the Wartburg, Hans is in a bad mood. It starts to rain and on Mondays the castle is closed. Nevertheless, both ring the bell and soon Mrs. Venus opens for them , who they do not recognize as the patron saint of love. She leads them through the castle, shows them more or less casually various exhibits and reports on several cases in which people killed themselves out of love. Hans reacts sarcastically, he has no understanding for such reactions out of love. He wants to go and the woman shows him the exit - in reality a window into the past, from which Hans falls into the depths. Maria jumps after him out of love.

Hans seems to wake up in the meadow where he last stopped with Maria. His car rolls up without a driver and stops by him. There is nothing to be seen of Maria and so Hans drives off alone. He meets two horsemen in costumes from the Middle Ages, which he takes for film extras. When they attack him, he blows them away with a loud honk. He parks the car in a cave and rides on one of the knights' horses. In a monastery he steals the clothes of a monk and overhears the daughter of Landgrave Josephine during her confession. She feels trapped at the court and would like to live and love like normal people. Hans encourages her and receives a medallion from her as a confession. The captured monk calls for help and Hans flees. He meets Countess Irene of Greece, who is on her way to Landgrave Hermann von Thuringia, who is looking for a wife. In reality, Irene is the rejuvenated woman Venus, who tells Hans that the year 1200 is written. She took Hans into her service and passed him off at court as the singer Tannhauser . In the meantime Maria has also found herself at court, who with her short hair is mistaken for a boy. Maria, who now calls herself “Moritz”, is assigned to Hans as a squire.

Hans gets entangled in amorous escapades, so he spends a night with Frau Venus, although he was actually looking for Josephine, to whom he wanted to return the medallion. When Hermann von Thuringia knocks at his supposed lover Irene von Greece, Hans has to flee and forgets his boots. Maria manages to get Hans replacement shoes because the Landgrave has announced that he will execute the owner of the boots. Hans, in turn, finally realizes that “Moritz” is really Maria.

A little later, the singer's war that Hans had feared takes place at the Wartburg . Different knights compete against each other in a singing competition, including the tender knight Walther, who has loved Josephine for a long time, but is rejected by Hermann as a son-in-law. At the end, Hans has to sing and, due to the rigid expressions of those present, finally intones a jazz song in which he propagates physical love between the sexes, following initial medieval tunes. Walther then challenges him to a duel for insulting the women, which, however, is soon interrupted by Ms. Venus. In the tournament that followed, Maria rescued Hans several times by ambushing attackers with a pistol. Hans receives the tournament chain from Josephine, but soon enough of the Middle Ages. He realized that he loved Maria. She encourages Josephine to decide in favor of Walther across the board and to visit the man who has fled. While she is gone, Maria pretends to be Josephine and meets Hans, who wants to give Josephine her medallion back before he leaves the castle. He confesses to Josephine that he has fallen in love with a woman, Maria, and only then realizes that he is talking to Maria herself. They later sing a duet in which they are surprised by one of the castle ladies. The knights now hunt down the couple, who manage to escape with Mrs. Venus and in turn drive the knights away in the car. However, when the carriage gets stuck on a bridge, Hans and Maria are overwhelmed by the knights, especially since Mrs. Venus has disappeared as if by magic.

Both are now to be executed at the stake. The arrival of the supposedly real Irene of Greece falls into the ceremony, who turns out to be the wife of Heinrich von Thuringia and is actually the old woman Venus, who Hans and Maria met at the Wartburg. She brings the couple, who would have remained true to the slogan of true lovers - love to death - at the stake back into reality. Both are a little later on the meadow not far from the Wartburg. They decide to bring a bouquet of flowers to the old woman in the castle. Nobody opens it and so they put the bouquet at the castle gate, where it disappears a short time later as if by magic.

production

The Wartburg, location and location of the film

The shooting took place at the Wartburg in Thuringia , among other places . The costumes were created by Elli-Charlotte Löffler , the film structures were created by Hans Poppe and Jochen Keller . It was the first major film role for Ursula Werner, who was still an acting student at the time of shooting.

The film premiered on June 25, 1967 on the Erfurt open-air theater and was shown in GDR cinemas on July 7, 1967. On November 1, 1968, the film was shown for the first time on DFF 1 on East German television. In 2007 the film was released on DVD by Icestorm.

Ruth Homann , Manfred Krug and Reimar J. Baur sing in the film . The music was played by the 6 jazz optimists, among others. It was after On the sunny side , description of a summer and after me, Canailles! the fourth film collaboration between director Ralf Kirsten and leading actor Manfred Krug.

criticism

In retrospect, the critics of the GDR called the comedy a "comedy-cheerful contemporary film that is difficult to classify in a historical guise, for inexplicable reasons titled Frau Venus und ihr Teufel ".

Frank-Burkhard Habel wrote that the film "due to the contrast between the present and comedy [...] sometimes [looked] tough and [...] many effects [gave away], which some comedic performances were able to make up for."

“Ralf Kirsten tries to counteract the German Middle Ages and the present in Ms. Venus and her devil , in order to teach a light footing in matters of love [...] to appreciate the higher values ​​of today's freedom of love through Ms. Venus [...] at the Wartburg. But the interesting and conceptual design is sluggish and indistinct, ”said Klaus Wischnewski.

The film service called Ms. Venus and her devil "mediocre, dramaturgically somewhat confused and lengthy entertainment, with which the team Kirsten / Krug in vain to the outstanding public success of Mir, Canaillen! tried to connect. "

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ms. Venus and her devil on progress-filmverleih.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.progress-film.de  
  2. ^ Konrad Schwalbe: Ralf Kirsten. The present serious and entertaining . In: Rolf Richter (Hrsg.): DEFA feature film directors and their critics . Volume 1. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1981, p. 60.
  3. ↑ Mrs. Venus and her devil . In: F.-B. Habel: The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, p. 181.
  4. ^ Klaus Wischnewski: Dreamers and Ordinary People 1966 to 1979 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 217.
  5. ↑ Mrs. Venus and her devil. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used