Glorious Times (1950)

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Movie
Original title Wonderful times
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1950
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Erik Ode
script Günter Neumann
Fritz Aeckerle
production Alf Teichs ,
Heinz Rühmann
music Werner Eisbrenner
camera Fritz Arno Wagner
cut Walter Wischniewsky
occupation

Herrliche Zeiten is a compilation film in the form of a historical number revue and compiled from historical documentary film recordings , which covers half a century of German history (1900 to 1950). Willy Fritsch leads through the small framework story and speaks the connecting texts that Günter Neumann wrote. Fritschs Schulze is the archetypal “little man from the people”, “who blindly clings to the promises of the respective rulers and relentlessly longs for“ wonderful times ”.” Erik Ode took over the direction of the plot.

action

Based on the famous words of Kaiser Wilhelm II. "Glorious times I lead you towards!" A gullible and ultimately very naive model German named August Schulze leads from New Year's Eve 1899/1900 through 50 years of German history with all its ups and downs. Every decade, Schulze, dressed in a wide variety of suits and uniforms, briefly takes stock and looks into the future as if this year was the present. With his assessments and prognoses he is regularly wrong, because “this average German is someone who knows everything exactly. And he always knows better. You can't fool him ”. His standard saying is: “Think of my words!” And so the greats of world history as well as the great evildoers and fools are the focus of this time review with two devastating world wars. The SMs (His Majesty) and the PGs (Party Members ); from Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Emperor Franz Joseph, the captain of Köpenick, King George V, Tsar Nikolaus to Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill as well as Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Benito Mussolini, Aristide Briand, Friedrich Ebert, Josef Stalin, Buster Keaton and other. The time review ends with a view of the ruins of the Reichstag building, in front of which a resigned August Schulze finally understands the signs of the times and expresses his hope for a united Europe in the hands of the next generation: "Then you won't be a foreigner in any country in Europe "We are only residents of Germany. (...) Neighbors will be able to visit each other without tripping over barbed wire. Passports? Well, you won't achieve anything with a passport! (...) Well, gentlemen, I see them Development!"

Production notes

Glorious Times was prepared in 1949 and completed in the spring of 1950. It was based on the arduous preparatory work of Neumann, who mainly compiled the film from Albert Fidelius' film archive and viewed 120,000 meters of film material. The premiere took place on May 26, 1950 in Berlin. The production costs were estimated at 300,000 DM. A few days after the premiere, the producing film company Comedia-Film by Alf Teichs and Heinz Rühmann had to file for bankruptcy.

music

Werner Eisbrenner is responsible for the film music and the FFB Orchester Berlin plays. There are also some chansons written by Günter Neumann, interpreted by Edith Schollwer , Erik Ode, Ewald Wenck and Tatjana Sais . Schollwer, Wenck and Sais belonged together with Neumann to the Berlin cabaret Die Insulaner . The sung pieces of music Always in front , Niche is over a Sunday in Berlin , Mariechen, let me into your kitchen , do you know him? and others, however, are only included in the film and have not been commercially released.

Reviews

The film was very well received by the press and audience, at least in West Berlin, and was a considerable box-office success there.

During the time the following was to be read: “To make an exciting film from the material of the archives - this intention would have failed from the start if Günther Neumann had not accompanied the figure of the normal contemporary Schultze, who was partly completely invisible, partly from bliss of the family photo album, joining the series of pictures to one another in a conference. This conference, which Willy Fritsch speaks and portrays with beautiful self-denial, makes Neumann's film more than an album of reminiscences. It is cheerful, ridiculous, grotesque, but no less serious and thoughtful in this film, and the self-talk that Neumann lets his normal contemporaries hold are, on the whole, a sad record of the absence of reason, which in this half century decisive fact. "

“Documentary film material from world and film history from 1900 to 1950 is combined with a little play into a tragicomic, cabaret-style satire without too much bite. (…) In the all too brief, arbitrary compilation of the historical material, the film offers a certain entertainment value, but only limited informational value. "

- Lexicon of International Films

Awards

  • Culturally valuable rating of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
  • Silver Laurel (1950) of the silver and gold laurel prizes donated by David O. Selznick in 1949 "for the best film in German that promotes international understanding"

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Glorious Times in: German Historical Museum. Berlin during the imperial era
  2. ↑ a b c d Curt Riess: There's only one. The book of German film after 1945. Henri Nannen Verlag, Hamburg 1958, p. 235 ff.
  3. ↑ Monologue quote from the film
  4. ↑ Günter Neumann had to look for the film snippets that were later used under difficult conditions - as a result of the war, numerous film documents had been burned, otherwise destroyed or stolen by Soviet soldiers
  5. ↑ The century is 50 years old in: Der Spiegel of December 29, 1949, accessed on July 6, 2020
  6. ^ Review in Die Zeit of June 1, 1950
  7. ↑ Glorious Times in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on July 1, 2019 Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  8. ↑ Dr. Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946–1955 , pp. 118 f.

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