Behind the monastery walls (1952)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Behind the monastery walls |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1952 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Harald Reinl |
| script | Harald Reinl Erich Kröhnke |
| production | Venus-Film, Munich ( Olga Chekhova ) Delta-Film, Munich ( Walter Traut ) |
| music | Giuseppe Becce |
| camera | Franz Koch |
| cut | J. Joachim Bartsch |
| occupation | |
| |
Behind the monastery walls is a German film drama by Harald Reinl with Olga Chekhova , who also produced the story with her company, in the female lead. For the male lead, Frits van Dongen , who returned to Germany after a twelve year absence from Hollywood , was engaged. The story was based on the play The Unholy House by Hans Naderer .
action
After 1945, the Second World War left Thomas Holinka on the wrong track. The trained gardener is sentenced to three months in prison for being drunk and resisting state violence. After his release, he goes back to his old apartment, where he had to leave his girlfriend Kathrin and the illegitimate child behind. But they were evacuated, and the mother and their four-year-old son - there was a great housing shortage in Munich in the early 1950s - found accommodation in a dilapidated hole near a gravel pit. After Holinka has tracked down Kathrin and son Peter, he tries to find a more dignified place to stay for all three, but his previous conviction and the large number of other apartment hunters make this undertaking seem hopeless. Another problem with Holinka is his propensity for excessive alcohol consumption, and to make matters worse, he also has a passion for gambling; he was particularly fond of seventeen and four .
On his foray through the Munich area, Holinka discovers an apparently empty monastery and breaks into it. This deserted place seems to him ideal for accommodation. A little later he moves there with Kathrin and Peter and sets up a little room. In the next few days, Holinka begins to look for work, but his belligerence ruins everything. When his job search again bears no fruit, he gets drunk in a bar. The next day, another unpleasant surprise awaits Holinka and Kathrin. Three gentlemen from the building department visit the monastery and make it clear that the nuns who have been absent due to the previous occupation with war refugees will soon return home. Holinka stands with her legs apart in front of the officials and makes it clear to them that he will not allow himself to be driven away from here. The police arrive at the moment to force Holinka with his wife and child into the fresh air when the nuns return to the monastery. Since the Mother Superior rejects violence and also has an eye on the little child, she decides that Holinka and his small family can stay for the time being.
The mother superior tries to look behind Holinka's hard shell and to help him, even if he proves to be extremely rough despite the kindness of the monastery head. “Eating, drinking, women, killing each other, that's life!” The bitter man shouts in her face. The matron replied that kindness and caring for strangers in need for a lifetime is a much better alternative. Holinka has nothing but scorn and ridicule for this attitude. The decision of the superior to give the three homeless people temporary shelter behind the monastery walls does not meet with approval from all monastery residents, especially the subprioress reminds that Christ "drove out the molesters of his temple with a whip". It is difficult for the Mother Superior to crack the hard shell of the war returnee and look behind Holinka's facade. He shows himself to be a deeply bitter man who was only five years in the war, had lost faith in God there in the face of the atrocities, then also lost his home and was finally a prisoner of war for many years. The superior makes it clear to Holinka that some of the nuns who live here also lost everything in the war.
One day the subprioress rushed to the Mother Superior and reported with indignation that the monastery outside had already been given the name "The Unholy House" because of the tolerance of the godless and unbelieving Thomas and his wife who was not married to him. The measure seems full when Holinka's strange friends from the demimonde want to visit him in the monastery. Once again the superior stands in front of the uninvited guest and tells Holinka that she has confidence in him and lets the people into the monastery. The result is dance, loud music and lust deep into the night. The prioress begins to doubt her own generous decision. The subprioress has meanwhile drawn up a letter with which she intends to inform the superior general about the "scandalous" events behind the monastery walls. Holinka, Kathrin and their visitors have spoiled the spirits of the nuns' piety, and so they all move to the inn in the next town. When Holinka returns to the monastery deep in the night, drunk and molesting a young, terrible nun in this state, he seriously injures his hand. The prioress informs the local doctor Dr. Riedinger, and they both fix the bleeding drunkard. Holinka is now, in view of the fact that she cannot find a job in this state, full of self-pity and freaks out when the monastery sister procurator slips Holinka's son Peter a piece of cake one or the other time. Holinka does not want to have given anything to anyone or anything, and that should also apply to Kathrin and Peter. Meanwhile, the half-silly friend Holinkas, Joschi Panek, and Kathrin, who is already pregnant again, are digging.
When the General Superior arrives, the nuns discuss the events of the past few weeks and exchange different opinions. The superior general finally makes the decision that Holinka and his followers have to leave the monastery. Right now, however, Holinka seems to be on the right path back to life, as he is doing his old job for the first time and is putting the completely overgrown monastery garden back in order. After all, his wife even gives him a hand. A Solomonic solution is found for the housing problem: Holinka leaves the monastery and is allowed to settle on a monastery property right next door and even build her own house there. Due to a cleverly formulated intrigue by Paneks, Holinka begins to doubt the sincerity of the monastery director again and he, who recently renounced alcohol, starts drinking again and also plays 17 and 4 again. Holinka drinks so much schnapps that he does not notice how Panek cheats on him at a card game and then gambled away his hard-earned small credit. When he nods off drunk, Panek and his companion rob him of the rest of the money. Later, Holinka poses Panek and his friend on the small town street at night. In the subsequent fight, the two crooks are injured. The approaching police found that Panek was playing with marked cards and that Holinka had to be reimbursed for his lost money.
When Kathrin gives birth to her child in the monastery, Holinka who has returned cannot find any of the nuns who can help him with the birth. In his desperation he runs to the monastery bell and lets it ring a storm. The superior is outraged by this, but her anger evaporates as soon as she learns the reason for Holinka's action. The nuns help with the birth, and Dr. Riedinger one. When everything finally turned out for the better, even the incredulous Thomas found back to faith and prays at the side of the young, terrified nun. The prioress now knows that she did everything right.
production
Production notes
Behind monastery walls , whose working titles were The Unholy House and The Nun and the Sinner , was made between November 9, 1951 and February 1, 1952. During this time, however, there was a one-month break from shooting. The film was shot in the Munich-Geiselgasteig studio (interior shots) as well as in the St. Zeno Abbey (Bad Reichenhall) , in the Seeon Abbey , in Wasserburg am Inn , on the Chiemsee and in Munich (exterior photos).
Co-producer Walter Traut was also the production manager. Robert Herlth designed the film structures carried out by Gottfried Will. Josef Illig did the camera work under Franz Koch's chief camera . It does Max Greger and his dance orchestra.
Frits van Dongen (Maharajah in Richard Eichberg's double feature The Tiger von Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb ), who had made a career in Hollywood as Philip Dorn since 1940, went to Germany for this film in 1951, where he last played the leading role in Veit Harlans Sudermann in 1939 -Adaption The trip to Tilsit had returned.
The 63-year-old silent film star Hanna Ralph played his last film role in Behind Klostermauern . The 83-year-old acting veteran Hedwig Bleibtreu also gave her farewell performance in front of the camera (with a tiny role at the beginning of the film).
publication
The film premiered on April 22, 1952 in the Munich Chamber Light Play. The Berlin premiere was on August 8, 1952. The film was shown in Austria under the title The Desecrated House , in Denmark it was released in February 1954, in Portugal in August 1954 and in the USA under the title The Unholy Intruders in 1961. It was also published in Belgium.
Reviews
In its issue of July 2, 1952, Der Spiegel wrote: “Behind the monastery walls, Olga Chekhova, disguised as the“ Reverend Mother Prioress ”, is wrestling with a“ contemporary problem ”. The godless, 17 + 4 playing refugee (Frits van Dongen), who has nested in the monastery with his gracefully decollete, wild wild wife (Katharina Mayberg), should be encouraged to contemplate and to work. Boogie-woogie rhythms of the partying refugees accompany the evening prayer of the sisters. The fourth film by producer Chekhova, made after a great financial trouble ... is played cleanly. Successful batches, especially little Peter Fischer. "
"Well-cared for routine melodrama, whose religious motivation as well as the time background remains staffage."
Web links
- Behind monastery walls in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Behind the monastery walls at filmportal.de
- Behind the monastery walls Fig. Title page Illustrated Film-Bühne 1306 (in the picture: Frits van Dongen, Katharina Mayberg)
- Behind the walls of the monastery - 1952 full film
Individual evidence
- ↑ CineGraph : Harald Reinl, Delivery 7, F 3
- ↑ The Unholy Intruders English movie poster in the IMDb
- ↑ Der Spiegel , issue No. 27/1952
- ↑ Behind the monastery walls. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 1, 2018 .