Tormented hearts
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Tormented hearts |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1913 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hans Oberländer |
| production | Oskar Messter |
| occupation | |
| |
Gequalte Herzen is a German silent film drama filmed in 1912 with Lissy Lind in the lead role.
action
first act
Ernst von Duchow struggles with death in the hospital, his daughter Henny takes care of him until his last breath. Duchow has failed a lot in his life, and now he threatens to leave his daughter with a mountain of debt. With the last of his strength, he writes to his old friend Hugo von Strela, asking him to look after Henny in the future. Strela immediately rushes to his deathbed and makes this promise to his moribund friend. As soon as the old man died, Strela took Henny into his house, where the young woman soon settled in well. One day a lawyer arrives and tells Strela and Henny that their father has indeed left behind a mountain of debt. Without hesitation, Strela agrees to pay off this debt. In the course of the first year since Henny's arrival, Hugo realizes that he has grown very fond of this girl and that he feels more than just fatherly affection for her.
Hans von Strela, Hugo's nephew, returns home after a long service as a Schutztruppe officer in the German colony of Cameroon . He meets Henny at his uncle's. After Henny's initial shyness, the two young people warm to each other and begin to develop sympathy for one another. First a shy handshake, then the first deep kiss, and that's it for both of them. Henny rushes home and sees Hugo looking at a photograph of her lost in thought. Surprised by Henny, Hugo confesses his love to her. Her reaction is more than cautious, as she has just lost her heart to Hans. But out of gratitude, the young woman renounces her love happiness and gives in to Hugo's wooing. Instead, Hans receives a letter in which Henny asks him to forget her, as she will turn to Hugo out of gratitude for all that his uncle has done for her since her father's death.
Second act
Years have passed. Henny has become Hugo's wife and Hans has returned to the colonies, where he has been serving again for four years. Hugo sees his wife pondering more and more often and thinks he knows that she is not really happy in marriage to him. Then the news arrives that Hans is returning. In joyful anticipation, Henny sets the table and decorates it with roses, although on the other hand she tries to suppress her feelings that have flared up again. But when the two stroll through the park by the lake again, the old feelings are back in their old strength and depth. Finally they both sink into each other's arms, watched by Hugo, who can look down to the lake from the terrace. The husband realizes that he is not the right person for Henny and writes her a letter in which he admits that he is too old for her and that she is freeing up for Hans. On the envelope he writes “To my beloved, unfaithful wife”. But then Hugo hesitates for a moment, burns the letter and carelessly puts the envelope in a book.
The next morning two workers find his body on the lakeshore and bring it into the house. Hugo, disappointed in life, took the same. Both Hans and Henny are deeply shaken, but after a year of mourning, the tortured heart gives their Hans a yes. The marriage was happy, but one day Henny was leafing through a book and the envelope with Hugo's inscription promptly fell towards her. Since the envelope is empty, Henny does not immediately understand the context of these words, but realizes that this could only have to do with Hans and both rendezvous in the park and at the lake. She is horrified because she had no idea that her first husband had known about it and finds that she, too, had forfeited the right to true marital happiness. In the feverish fever that followed, Henny wanted to kill himself and chose the bite of a poisonous snake that Hans brought to Germany from his time in Cameroon. She is already reaching for the reptile when her husband comes home and at the last moment hurls the poisonous reptile away. He has her motives explained to him and answers her with deep love that she has to go on living for him because he can no longer imagine life without her.
Production notes
Tormented Hearts was filmed in the Messter-Film-Atelier in Berlin's Blücherstraße 32. In December 1912, the two-act act passed the censorship and was premiered on January 31, 1913.