Dangerous Freight (1954)

Movie
Original title	Dangerous cargo
Country of production	GDR
original language	German
Publishing year	1954
length	96 minutes
Age rating	FSK 6
Rod
Director	Gustav von Wangenheim
script	Karl Georg Egel , Kurt Bortfeldt
production	DEFA
music	Ernst Hermann Meyer
camera	Karl Puth
cut	Johanna Rosinski
occupation
Willy A. Kleinau : Tetje Köhlermann Wilhelm Koch-Hooge : Hein Jensen Erika Dunkelmann : Bertha Köhlemann Susanne Düllmann : Helga Martens Eduard von Winterstein : Consul Schröder Kurt Oligmüller : Smith Theo Shall : General Shaper Werner Segtrop : Colonel Lawrence Horst Kube : O'Brien Harald Mannl : Kettler Kurt Jung-Alsen : Harms Hans Fiebrandt : Hahn Alfred Maack : Martens Peter A. stairs : Petersen Horst Drinda : Ahlsen Maximilian Larsen : Wittke Rudolf Ulrich : Shoemaker Albert Hetterle : Stick Walter Lendrich : Breckwoldt Gustav Püttjer : Berndt Horst Preusker : Port Commander Runge Walter Jupé : Tietgen Dieter Perlwitz : Fritz Frank Michelis : Kröger Hans Stetter : Knut Hannjo Hasse : Secretary of Harms Elfriede Florin : nurse

Dangerous cargo is a GDR movie from 1954 . It tells of the successful struggle of West German dock workers against the criminal machinations of the American occupiers.

action

After the end of the war, the American freighter Florida arrives in a West German port city . When unloading, the workers notice that there are not the specified precision machines on board, but napalm bombs . It is also noted that the Americans have already tried this deception in France without success. The French workers did not want to unload the ship, which still bore the name Chicago there and which was obviously repainted by the Americans on the way to Germany.

Now the German dock workers also decide to go on strike. The decision to refuse to work is particularly difficult for Hein Jensen. He found the job with great difficulty and has just become a father, so he urgently needs the wages for his young family. The Americans recognize his plight and want to blackmail him to change his minds. Jensen is outraged by this attempt and shows solidarity with his colleagues. The unanimous strike that followed turns into a great demonstration for peace.

Production notes

The film was produced in the Babelsberg studio . The exterior shots were taken in the port of Rostock and in Wismar . The premiere was on May 21, 1954 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin .

background

Dangerous cargo is considered an important GDR propaganda film of the 1950s:

“The German split resulted in the increasing focus of DEFA - since 1953 a publicly owned company (VEB) - on propaganda films that conformed to the SED program. The GDR film was externally used as a weapon in the Cold War, and it was the rule to distinguish between the West and the wider world. Inside, the film served to secure communist rule. According to the plan, 20 feature films should be produced annually. The focus of socialist film policy was the anti-fascist resistance struggle; In the course of the propagated building of socialism, the SED also decreed what is known as 'Socialist Realism', for which the positive hero was decisive. Western films had no place in the GDR cinema of the 1950s. "

Awards

• VIII. Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (1954): Prize of the Czechoslovak Committee of Peace Fighters.

literature

• “The Second Life of the Film City Babelsberg, DEFA Feature Films 1946–1992” ISBN 978-3-89487-175-8
• "Lexicon of International Films", Rowohlt Verlag Reinbek, 1995, ISBN 978-3-499-16357-9 (page 1861)

Web links

• Dangerous cargo in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Dangerous freight at filmportal.de
• Cinema poster on flimmerkiste.bplaced.net
• Dangerous cargo at the DEFA foundation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Details about the film on defa-stiftung.de
2. ↑ Dr. Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 417
3. ^ The media system of the Federal Republic of Germany VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 978-3-531-13436-9 , p. 116