House of Longing
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | House of Longing |
| Original title | Give Us This Day |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1949 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Edward Dmytryk |
| script | Ben Barzman |
| production |
Rod E. Geiger Nat. A. Bronstein |
| music | Benjamin Frankel |
| camera | CM Pennington-Richards |
| cut | John D. Guthridge |
| occupation | |
| |
Haus der Sehnsucht (OT: Give Us This Day ) is a British social drama set in New York directed by Edward Dmytryk from 1949.
action
New York, early 1920s: Italian immigrant Geremio works as a bricklayer. The meager income enables him to lead a life of privation. But it is time, he believes, to finally get married despite all the lack of money. And so he asks the neighbor Kathleen, with whom he has fallen in love, whether she wants to marry him. She refuses, not without arrogance, since he earns too little as a bricklayer. When his friend Luigi showed him a picture of the Italian Annunziata one day, Geremio immediately hit him. He writes to the young woman that he has fallen in love with her and wants to marry her. Annunziata agrees - provided that he owns a small house.
Geremio has been saving for some time, but his money is still far from being enough for his own house. And so he tricked Annunziata into thinking he was the owner of the house, whereupon she came from Italy. Both marry and spend three honeymoon days in a house specially rented by Geremio, which Annunziata believes is Geremios. After the first disappointment, both of them are now saving to stay together. But routine soon comes into her life: a child is born quickly, and then another and another ... The economic crisis as a result of the stock market crash of 1929 quickly shattered dreams of owning a house, and in the end Geremio temporarily loses his Job.
In order to support the family, he is now even ready to take a very dangerous job, which his former foreman Murdin offers him. The doubts he has are wiped away by the absolute need to finally make money. He persuades his buddy Luigi and three other colleagues, with whom he was always on the construction site, to come with him. What had to happen happens: Luigi is seriously injured as a result of an industrial accident and remains crippled. Geremio begins to drown his feelings of guilt in alcohol and tied up with Kathleen again. But then he finally comes to terms and wants to warn the other workers about the miserable safety conditions on the construction site. But suddenly the ground on which he is standing gives way and Geremio falls into a concrete tub and sinks. He tries to save himself with the last of his strength and spreads his arms so that he appears like Christ on the cross.
After a hearing, Annunziata receives $ 1,000 in compensation from the insurance company. Desperate, she asks the priest who is standing by her, "What is a human life worth?" Now, as a widow, after nine years of hard savings, she could finally afford the long-awaited house with this amount ...
Reviews
The modern film critics almost always found praise for the film, which was scourged as “socialist” and “Marxist” by some contemporary critics in the USA at the time because of its socially critical statement and its strong doubts about the “American Dream”. One of the leading critics, columnist Hedda Hopper , repeatedly attacked director Edward Dmytryk personally.
Reclam's guide commented, “Dmytryk's best film. Here, the milieu of the Italian workers in New York is portrayed precisely and realistically - the primitive apartments, the backyards, the dirty streets. Dmytryk makes it quite unpathetic how the constant worry about the job and the livelihood can wear out a life, how a happy marriage is gradually deformed by the worries of everyday life. "
The Lexicon of International Films stated: “A shocking drama with a precise setting of the milieu. The sincerity of the social commitment compensates for formal inadequacies. "
The film's large personal lexicon called Haus der Sehnsucht an “excellent social and milieu study”.
Only Halliwell's Film Guide complained: "An unconvincing, self-pitying wallow, a very curious enterprise for a British studio".
background
Director Edward Dmytryk escaped to Great Britain for two films in the late 1940s when he was de facto boycotted in his home country due to his temporary refusal to cooperate with the Committee on Un-American Activities and to name the names of alleged communists in Hollywood. His main actor Sam Wanamaker was also on the black list and went to England for the same reason. Screenwriter Ben Barzman was the third member of the film team who had left the United States to flee McCarthy's anti-communist "witch hunters" for Europe.
The premiere took place on October 14, 1949 in London . In the Federal Republic of Germany , Haus der Sehnsucht was shown for the first time on July 21, 1950.
The film was based on the story Christ in Concrete by Pietro di Donato .
Production costs were around $ 500,000.
Alex Vetchinsky designed the film structures .
Web links
- House of longing in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Film review in toptenreviews.com
Individual evidence
- ^ Geoff Mayer, Brian McDonnell: Encyclopedia of Film Noir. Greenwood Press, Westport 2007, pp. 171-172.
- ^ Reclam's film guide. By Dieter Krusche, collaboration with Jürgen Labenski. P. 320, Stuttgart 1973
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films Volume 3, S. 1515. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
- ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 2: C - F. John Paddy Carstairs - Peter Fritz. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 408.
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 405