Soldiers of Fortune (film)

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Movie
Original title Adventurer
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1957
length 91 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Arthur Maria Rabenalt
script Kurt E. Walter
Michael Mansfeld (arrangement) based
on a template by Walther von Hollander
production Walter Koppel for Real-Film , Hamburg
music Bert reason
camera Albert Benitz
cut Alice Ludwig-Rasch
occupation

Knight of Fortune is a German fiction film directed in 1956 by Arthur Maria Rabenalt with Barbara Rütting , Paul Hubschmid and Heidemarie Hatheyer in the leading roles.

action

Germany in 1946. Alexander Haupt is a young, committed journalist with heart and soul. He emerged unencumbered from the Nazi era. Now he has founded the magazine "Rundblick" with the approval and license of the US military government. He is supported by his partner Renate Bergmann, who is also a committed newspaper maker who is completely absorbed in her work and who is also the mother of a daughter who is going through puberty. Although Renate gets on well with her partner Haupt, there is no romantic relationship between the two of them, as he, too, focuses entirely on his job and chases after success. Both journalists manage to turn the respected paper into a great success story,

Years later, Alexander marries the much younger Alice Dreher, daughter of a print shop owner with a National Socialist past. Alice rarely gets to see her husband, who is now also a publisher. The newspaper, which is famous for its independence and incorruptibility, soon gets into turmoil. Because her father, a former party member, tries to acquire shares and thus influence the newspaper and the publishing house. He absolutely wants to prevent an article about former Nazis who were able to get back into influential positions in the still young Federal Republic. There is a serious conflict between families. For Alice, the question of loyalty arises. Ultimately, she stands behind her husband.

But Alice makes life difficult for her husband in other ways: she suffers from severe attacks of jealousy. She can't stand that Renate Bergmann obviously plays such an important and central role in Alexander's life. When Alice dies in a car accident, Alexander Haupt, who has recently made more and more (lazy) compromises, recalls his old ideals, determined by the journalistic ethos.

Production notes

Soldiers of Fortune , occasionally sold with the subtitle "A story from today", was created in Hamburg in autumn 1956 and was originally intended to be called women without men . The film passed the FSK exam on February 4, 1957 and was premiered on March 6, 1957 at the UFA-Palast in Essen .

Gyula Trebitsch was the production manager. The film structures were designed by F.-Dieter Bartels and Hans Joachim Maeder, the costumes come from Trebitsch's wife Erna Sander , as in the case of most Real Film productions .

Regine Feldhütter, who plays Heidemarie Hatheyer's 14-year-old daughter here , is her actual daughter (from her first marriage to director Wilfried Feldhütter).

The strip was a commercial failure. In view of the critical undertones regarding social conditions in the Federal Republic, the SED authorities approved the film for showing in the GDR that same year. There was soldier of fortune on August 23 1957th

Reviews

“And so a film that could reveal certain unpleasant conditions in the press becomes a somewhat confused story with jealousy and a tragic outcome. The longer the film lasts, the less it deals with the problems of the time and the more with private affairs. "

- Curt Riess : There's only one. The book of German film after 1945, Henri Nannen Verlag, Hamburg 1958, p. 381 f.

"Occasionally his (Rabenalts) work showed approaches to critically deal with the realities of the Federal Republic of Germany ('The marriage of Dr. med. Danwitz' and 'Soldiers of Fortune')."

- Kay Less : The film's great lexicon of people . Volume 6, Berlin 2001, p. 381

“The film from the West German cinema of the 50s tries to denounce the corruption of ideals by the spirit of the economic miracle. Too superficial and, due to the interwoven banal act of love, too noncommittal to appear critical of time. "

- Lexicon of international film

"An emphatically 'timely' and, in a certain sense, socially critical work that castigates the materialistic flattening and emotional readiness for corruption, which was granted to so many idealistic endeavors when the courageous will to rebuild in the chaos of the first post-war years was followed by the 'economic miracle'."

- Heinrich Fraenkel : Immortal Film. The great chronicle. From the first tone to the colored wide screen. Munich 1957, p. 453

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Curt Riess: There's only one time, p. 381
  2. ↑ cf. Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. P. 197
  3. ↑ Soldiers of Fortune. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used