Hans Röckle and the devil
Hans Röckle and the Devil is a DEFA fairy tale film by Hans Kratzert from 1974. It was based on the story Master Hans Röckle and Mister Flammfuß by Ilse Korn and Vilmos Korn .
action
The puppeteer and inventor Hans Röckle returns from a trip to his village. Shortly afterwards he receives a visit from the devil Flammfuß personally. He wants to sign a contract with him with which he hopes to win the soul of the intelligent Röckle. In return, Röckle receives magical power in his head and hands so that he can use it to invent everything he can imagine. However, he is only allowed to create each thing once, cannot create money, and has to create new things on a regular basis. As soon as nothing new occurs to him or he loses the desire to invent, so that he does not create anything new within seven times seven hours, according to the contract, his soul should belong to the devil. The devil, on the other hand, determined another aspect shortly before the contract was signed: he wanted to be able to take things made by Röckle for his resolute grandmother, the Ellermutter, with him every now and then. Röckle signs the contract.
Initially, Röckle does not create anything for himself, but wants to do his environment good. For the penniless white seamstress Luisa he creates a sewing box that sews clothes by itself with a magic spell. For her friend Jacob he creates a flute that brings the rain while playing.
Luisa soon caused a stir with her new clothes and was asked as a seamstress in the village. Even the devil soon discovers Luisa's secret and takes the box for the Ellermother, as the contract allows. In Hell, on the other hand, he knows how to activate the sewing box with a magic spell, but does not know Röckle's adage to put a stop to sewing. Hell soon overflows with fabrics that keep coming out of the sewing box and the devil conjures the sewing box back to Hans Röckle out of sheer desperation. But even Luisa does not get lucky with the sewing box over time. Since she sews white clothes faster than everyone else, her employer Reichenbach thinks that the workload is too low and the prices for the linen are too high. He now wants to pay less money to all seamstresses.
Jacob, in turn, goes into the villages with his flute and whistles rain for the drying fields of the farmers. Although the harvest is now ripening, he gets into trouble too, because the rich landowner wants to buy the flute from him so that in future only his fields will be irrigated. When Jacob refuses him the flute, a bounty is placed on him that several farmers could use. The devil also wants the flute as a present for his grandmother, but cannot handle it after the robbery. While one sound brings rain, another brings storm and a closed third storm. The devil, who suspects the "rain of money" behind the closed hole and thus a breach of contract by Röckle, opens it and causes a storm in hell that even extinguishes the fire of hell. Frustrated, the devil sends the flute back to Hans Röckle.
Röckle saw that the things he created with magic tended to cause harm to his environment instead of helping, and therefore have not created anything new out of frustration for some time. The devil rejoices, according to the contract, Röckle is soon to be. Röckle, on the other hand, creates a couple of “time boots” which, similar to the seven-mile boots , are supposed to bring him to the country tomorrow and the day after tomorrow . So he runs away from the devil, who, however, orders him back to his house by blackmail and takes the boots. However, the spell that the devil knows does not refer to the goal, but to bringing the boot wearer back to his place of origin so that the devil now runs backwards. But he manages to take off his boots and send them back to Röckle. Annoyed, the devil tears up the contract with Hans Röckle.
Röckle is already on the way to the next village with his little theater car, Luisa and Jacob to give his puppeteer performances there and, as he says, to look for the country tomorrow and the day after tomorrow . The boots finally catch up with the car - as confirmation that it has won the contest with the devil.
production
Hans Röckle und der Teufel is based on a story by Ilse and Vilmos Korn: "Strictly speaking, this fairy tale adaptation is the first film adaptation of a work by Karl Marx , who thought up the story that Ilse and Vilmos Korn ultimately formed into a book."
The film was shot in Quedlinburg , Wernigerode , Heimburg and on the Roseburg . In addition, individual scenes were created on the so-called " Devil's Wall ".
The film was shown in GDR cinemas on July 5, 1974 and was shown for the first time on January 24, 1976 in the first program of GDR television . In the Federal Republic of Germany , the film ran for the first time on December 6, 1992 on ORB television . In 1997 he appeared on video .
Differences from the book
The film sticks closely to the original, differences mostly consist in omissions. The adaptation does not make it clear that the story takes place in the industrial age . Various characters do not appear, e.g. B. Louisa's grandmother, Jacob's brother Martin, the arch devil or Röckle's talking rooster gold comb . The textile entrepreneur Reichenbach, on the other hand, is a pure invention of the filmmakers. The episode in which Jacob lets the deforested community forest grow again with the help of the Magic Flute is not shown, nor is the stone glow-everything-away , which gives Röckle the magic power in the book, or the fountain of youth that he finds. The master's house is also described in the book with a colorful vault and a secret cabinet , while in the film it looks like a normal building. The reasons for the return of the magic devices by Louisa and Jacob are also shown differently here. In addition, at the end of the film, Röckle does not travel to the land of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow .
criticism
The critics praised the director's “educational empathy”, who did not allow the fable good versus bad to become superficial, and highlighted the cinematic tricks and the glamorous cast.
Renate Holland-Moritz criticized the film as boring and fussy.
literature
- Hans Röckle and the devil . In: DEFA Foundation (ed.): The DEFA fairy tale films . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-032589-2 , pp. 158-163.
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 230-231.
- Ilse and Vilmos Korn: Master Hans Röckle and Mister Flammfuß , Kinderbuchverlag Berlin , Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-358-00917-3
Web links
- Hans Röckle and the devil in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Hans Röckle and the devil in the online film database
- Hans Röckle and the devil at filmportal.de
- Hans Röckle and the devil at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , p. 231.
- ↑ Hans Röckle and the devil. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 30, 2016 .
- ^ AK In: Mitteldeutsche Neuste Nachrichten , July 16, 1974.
- ^ Hans Dieter Tok. In: Wochenpost , No. 30, 1974.
- ^ Renate Holland-Moritz: Children's cinema owl . In: Eulenspiegel , No. 35, 1974.