Gerhard Ritterband

Gerhard Ritterband (born May 8, 1904 in Berlin ; † September 29, 1959 in West Berlin ) was a very busy German actor of the silent and early talkies era; later he became a film producer.

Career

Ritterband belongs to the first generation of youth actors in German films even before Gustl Starck-Gstettenbaur . At the age of 15, he appeared in front of a cinema camera for the first time in Ernst Lubitsch's film “The Doll” in 1919; in it he played the cheeky apprentice of the doll maker. Encouraged by the success, he switched to acting and was used in 5 other films in similar roles in the same and the following year.

He played the messenger boy in "Sklaven des Kapitals" and the boy Bobby in "The Inheritance of New York" (both Germany 1919, Wolfgang Neff ). He was the 'Berliner Range' in the "Fight with the Dragon" (1920, Carl Müller-Hagens), the runner Emil in the "Princess of the Nile" (1920, Martin Zickel ) and the Piccolo Fritz in "Va banque" (1920 , Leo Lasko ).

Fritz Lang brought him in for a small role in his film "Vier um die Frau", which was originally to be called "Fighting Hearts". and came to the movie theaters in 1921.

In 1935, the film historian Oskar Kalbus was to refer to him as the "Filmlausbub Gerhard Ritterband".

Even in the still young sound film, Ritterband was cast again and again, for example in the singing film "The luring goal" with star tenor Richard Tauber (1930) and in film operettas such as "Liebeskommando" with Dolly Haas (1931), "A song, a kiss, a girl" with Gretl Theimer (1932) and in Hans Behrendt's “Hochzeit am Wolfgangsee” (1933).

Successful in the field of young comedians, he was a popular supporting actor in German film until 1933. He embodied baker boys, newspaper boys, cadets, even high school students and theater managers.

After the handover of power to the National Socialists , he was classified as a half-Jew under the racial laws . As he was no longer allowed to play in front of the camera, he first tried his hand at producing short films, but then emigrated to England . There he married in 1937.

After the war he returned to Germany and his hometown Berlin. As a producer and co-owner of the film company "Sonne Film GmbH", he was involved in the making of the cultural football film "Hinein" in 1950.

Gerhard Ritterband died on September 29, 1959 in Berlin.

Filmography

• 1919: the doll
• 1919: slaves of capital
• 1919: The New York Inheritance
• 1920: caliber five point two
• 1920: Va banque
• 1921: From the black book of a police commissioner, 1st part
• 1921: The Chicago Inn
• 1921: The dance about love and happiness
• 1921: The beggar countess from Kurfürstendamm
• 1921: The disturbed wedding night
• 1921: The big and the small world
• 1921: The Secrets of Berlin, Part 2
• 1921: The love affairs of the beautiful Evelyne
• 1921: The red night
• 1921: The four for the woman
• 1921: A day on Mars
• 1921: An unsolved case
• 1921: Chechen revenge
• 1922: The street girl of Berlin
• 1922: The novel of a poor sinner
• 1922: The five Frankfurters
• 1922: The seventh night
• 1922: Your valet
• 1922: In the fight with the invisible enemy
• 1922: Maciste e la figlia del re della Plata
• 1923: Maciste and the Chinese chest
• 1925: The motor bride
• 1925: The secret of old Mamsell
• 1925: Life's dice game
• 1925: The big city of the future
• 1925: The little one from clothing
• 1925: Finale of love
• 1925: love, suffering and sport
• 1925: Niniche
• 1926: Annemarie and her Ulan
• 1926: The bank crash under the linden trees
• 1926: The captain of Köpenick
• 1926: Escape to the circus
• 1926: The Sanssouci mill
• 1926: Honey, cash in
• 1927: Benno stand-up collar
• 1927: bigamy
• 1927: The house on Krögel
• 1927: The victory of the youth
• 1927: The woman with the world record
• 1927: The most sophisticated woman in Berlin
• 1927: § 182 underage
• 1928: The young lady from Argentina
• 1928: The dance student
• 1928: Fair of Life
• 1928: Swap faces
• 1928: The girl with the whip
• 1929: The Ship of the Lost People
• 1929: The seventeen year olds
• 1929: Column X
• 1929: Beware of easy women
• 1929: Inherited drives
• 1930: the tempting goal
• 1931: Cadets
• 1931: love command
• 1932: A song, a kiss, a girl
• 1932: Under a false flag
• 1933: Wedding at Wolfgangsee

Illustrations

• Still photo from the film “The Doll” (1919) with a knight band as an apprentice
• Still photos from the films “Die Fahrt ins Blaue” (1919), “Das Haus am Krögel” (1927) and “Der Tanzstudent” (1928) in the Saxon image archive. State and University Library Dresden and in the German Film Institute DIF
• Test card of the voluntary self-regulation of the film industry Wiesbaden, No. 717

Web links

• Gerhard Ritterband in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Thomas Staedeli: Portrait of the actor Gerhard Ritterband. In: www.cyranos.ch. Retrieved February 1, 2012 . 

literature

• Ursula Hardt: From Caligari to California. Erich Pommer's Life in the International Film Wars. Berghahn Books, Providence RI et al. 1996, ISBN 1-57181-930-4 .
• Oskar Kalbus (Hrsg.): On becoming German film art. Volume 1: The silent film. Cigarette picture service Altona-Bahrenfeld 1935.
• Helga Wendtland, Karlheinz Wendtland: Beloved Kintopp. All German feature films from 1929–1945. Artist biographies L - Z. Medium Film Wendtland, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-926945-14-1 .
• Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , pp. 603, 675.

References and comments

1. ↑ Ritterband played a newsboy, cf. Hardt: From Caligari to California. 1996, p. 223.
2. ↑ But that overlapped with the title of a film made in 1912; Movie poster , a Summary for movie encyclopedia 2001: Four men compete for the affection of a woman: The round of intrigue and criminal maneuvers consists in motion, as a broker for his beloved above all woman against counterfeit money a valuable jewelry in a thieves and Hehlerspelunke buys. In doing so, he comes across the image of a man that he has already discovered in his wife, which leads to jealousy and many a hectic hustle and bustle around the coveted but innocent woman.
3. ↑ cf. film portal .
4. ↑ Oskar Kalbus (Ed.): On becoming German film art. Volume 1: The silent film. 1935, p. 130
5. ↑ Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 603.
6. ↑ A photo of him from 1953 in the archive of social democracy (AdsD)
7. ↑ Another photo of Ritterband together with his partner Franz Fiedler and the former Berlin soccer player and today's trainer Hanne Sobeck in the Archive of Social Democracy (AdsD), taken on March 13, 1950. The film INSIDE! GERMAN FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP 1950 (BRD 1950, director: Walter Rohde) documents the final between VfB Stuttgart and Kickers Offenbach on June 25, 1950 in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. But the film is more than a football report, because it also portrays the players who all still had a job, showing them training and driving to Berlin. He observes the construction work on the Olympic Stadium and strolls along the Kurfürstendamm ( message ( memento of the original from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove it Note. At bundesarchiv.de)