Hannibal Brooks
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Hannibal Brooks |
| Original title | Hannibal Brooks |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language |
English German |
| Publishing year | 1969 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Winner |
| script |
Ian Lafrenais Dick Clement |
| production | Michael Winner |
| music | Francis Lai |
| camera | Robert Paynter |
| cut |
Peter Austen-Hunt Lionel Selwyn |
| occupation | |
| |
Hannibal Brooks is a British war film by Michael Winner, made in Austria and Bavaria in 1968, starring Oliver Reed , Wolfgang Preiss and the actors and actresses at the time, Helmuth Lohner and Karin Baal .
action
In the late phase of the Second World War, the British soldier Stephen Brooks, who was trying to repair his broken-down tracked vehicle, was taken prisoner by Germany in northern Italy. He is deported by train to southern Germany, where he is to be put in a German prisoner of war camp. During the train ride, he meets the quirky, eccentric and extremely freedom-loving US soldier Packy, who immediately dares to attempt an escape, although Brooks doesn't think so. The escape failed promptly, and Brooks and the others finally ended up in the Stalag 7 A camp at the gates of Munich. Soon the Briton, who is more peaceful at heart, is assigned to the Hellabrunn Zoo as a zoo keeper. Brooks, who initially doesn't feel like shoveling away animal manure, soon becomes friends with the Asian female elephant Lucy. When the Americans bomb the Bavarian capital, the zoo and its animals are also hit. The old elephant keeper Kellermann, who had trained Brooks in the past few days, dies like some of his colleagues and various zoo animals in a particularly severe air attack. Thereupon zoo director Stern instructs Brooks to accompany the 15-year-old, good-natured Lucy on the transfer by train to the Innsbruck zoo. He was guarded by the blonde soldier Kurt, a contemporary who was particularly loyal to the regime, and Willi, a deeply anti-militarist and Nazi-critical soldier from the "Ostmark". Also there is Vronia, a Polish forced laborer who is used by the Germans as a cook. But SS Colonel von Haller, who is in command of the train, refuses to take the small squad with him. The four of them then walk south with Lucy to cross the Alps: Stephen Brooks becomes “Hannibal” Brooks.
Soon there were conflicts in the group because Nazi Kurt turned out to be an unpleasant, brutal contemporary. Since he often reaches for the bottle, he begins to pester Vronia and threaten the elephant. At one of these moments, Brooks has a serious argument, who kills him when Kurt, drunk, waves the gun and threatens to shoot Lucy. Willi, who then suggests that everyone should head towards the Swiss border to get to safety, proceeds together with Vronia, while Brooks wants to follow suit with the slower Lucy. While man and elephant stride leisurely along streets and green meadows, they repeatedly get involved in the war, as they come into contact with von Haller's dangerous SS men on the one hand, but also in the crossfire of some escaped Allied prisoners of war under the leadership of Packy, who could actually free, advised. At one point, Lucy, who trudged leisurely, who in the meantime fell ill with mumps and had to be treated by a veterinarian, almost stumbled onto a mine that was buried for the German SS column. Packy's people take the Germans under fire, and the somewhat restless elephant can barely be kept out of the line of fire. Another time, Brooks causes Lucy to knock down several lashed tree trunks, which then roll down a slope and remain on railroad tracks, so that a train carrying German tanks derails. When one of Haller's men saw Lucy trudging up a steep mountain pass with Brooks, Brooks tried to cut off their path by means of a cable car. Willi torpedoed this venture, but the Austrian patriot was struck down by several bullets from a German soldier dying in front of the valley station. Vronia was also shot in the back. Meanwhile, von Haller, who is playing the wrong game with Brooks, distances himself from his people, since he himself no longer believes in the "final victory" either. At the Swiss border it is again the strong Lucy who removes the last obstacle with her massive body by tearing down the border post and allowing Hannibal, Packy and his partisans to enter Switzerland without permission.
Production notes
Hannibal Brooks was filmed in English, some passages in which German soldiers speak to each other were also originally spoken in German. The shooting took place in the summer of 1968 in Montafon (Vorarlberg) as well as in Schröcken, Bregenz and Tyrol, some recordings were made in the Hellabrunn Zoo and in the Munich settlement Ludwigsfeld with numerous locals as extras. The barracks of the Allach subcamp served as a Stalag backdrop for the Anglo-American film prisoners of war. The world premiere took place in London on March 13, 1969, the German premiere of the film was on October 9, 1969.
The buildings were designed and implemented by John Stoll and Hans-Jürgen Kiebach . Hans Jura was the chief camera for the second recording team . Erwin Lange (incorrectly spelled “Irwin Lange” in the opening credits) was responsible for the special effects. Eberhard Junkersdorf was one of four unit managers.
The elephant was actually called "Aida" and came from Erie Klants Zoo in Valkenburg, the Netherlands . The pachyderm was trained by André Beilfuss.
To record the derailing train with tanks, the Vorarlberg Montafonerbahn (which was electrically operated from the start) procured a steam locomotive 93.1340 of the ÖBB , locomotive No. 93.1340. The catenary was dismantled on a section of the route along the river Ill (the masts can be seen in the film) so that the locomotive could drive into the tree trunks without disturbing overhead lines and fall derailed down the slope (for this purpose the tracks were swiveled and camouflaged). However, the machine anachronistically carries a Giesl ejector , which was only installed after the war. The locomotive and the remains of the train were dismantled on the spot and then scrapped; the Montafonerbahn received a high allowance from the producers for the two-day line closure.
Reviews
"A film fairy tale with a lot of sentimental kitsch and the turmoil of war, in which the German stargarde doesn't look good either."
In the lexicon of the international film it says: "A strange mixture of comedy and melodrama, which is supposed to satirize the war, but stylistically turned out too inconsistent."
"Varies from comedy to melodrama ... good action climax."
“Strange action adventure that seems undecided as to whether to take itself seriously. Some passable sequences. "
“English film that turns the war into an exciting adventure in which, as in the Wild West, the good are almost always lucky and the bad are almost always unlucky. The ingenious trick of the film is to be rejected, with the speculation on the love of animals to induce the viewer to judge in a simple black and white manner. "
Web links
- Hannibal Brooks in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hannibal Brooks on siedlung-ludwigsfeld.de
- ↑ Magazine "modern railway» 1968/35: Montafon train in the movie, publishers Alba Dusseldorf, September 1968
- ^ Peter Strasser: Along the Montafonerbahn . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2014, ISBN 978-3-86680-659-7 .
- ↑ Hannibal Brooks. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 12, 2015 .
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 454/1969