My name is Robert Guiscard

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Movie
Original title My name is Robert Guiscard
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1960
length 72 minutes
Rod
Director Herbert Fuchs
script Wolfgang Hildesheimer
production Erich Neuberg
music Paul Stockmeier
camera Raimund Herold, Peter Jasicek, Gerhard Wanderer, Harald Windisch
cut Josefine Ramerstorfer, Erich Burkl
occupation

My name is Robert Guiscard is an Austrian television comedy from 1960 about the life of an art forger . The plot is based on Wolfgang Hildesheimer's radio play Encounter in the Balkan Express from 1953. The ORF production was first broadcast on March 18, 1960. The first broadcast in Germany followed on June 30, 1961 in the 2nd program of ARD .

action

Robert Guiscard is a successful art forger - among other things, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris is in truth from him. On his way back from Egypt, where he was selling fake Rubens paintings to local businessmen, he met Liane on the train - a young attractive woman who works as a spy for the fictional Balkan state Procegovina. At night he sneaks into Liane's sleeping car compartment in pajamas. When he wants to return to his compartment the next morning, he finds out that the train has been divided: One part is on its way to Paris with all of their belongings and he is sitting in the train part to Procegovina. In addition, the train suddenly stops: The train driver, the conductor and the stoker pretend that the locomotive is defective and extort money from Guiscard in return for "repairing" the locomotive and driving it on.

Guiscard arrives penniless in the Procegovinian capital and has to make ends meet as a street painter . Liane meets him again and takes him back to her apartment. Through her mediation he gets an appointment with the minister of culture and director of the national museum, to whom he offers a fake Rembrandt . He is enthusiastic, but since the state coffers are empty, Guiscard gives him the Rembrandt. Thereupon he admits to have forged the picture and offers to manufacture further works of old masters for the museum , which could be sold abroad to improve the state treasury. He could even invent a real Procegovinian national painter from the 17th century. His alleged works, which are actually Guiscard's works, will then be "discovered" in an old monastery. The idea is passed on to the Prime Minister and the Prince and finally put into practice: The Procegivin Baroque painter Ayax Mazyrka directs the interest of the international art scene to his home country and attracts visitors to the National Museum. Guiscard pays well for the creation of Mazyrka's works and moves into a villa with Liane.

When a request for a raise is rejected by the Prince, Guiscard begins to forge and sell drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger on his own . To do this, he invents members of the English court who are said to have portrayed Holbein, including a Lady Viola Pratt. What he doesn't know, however, is that this lady actually existed, it was actually drawn by Holbein, and the owner of the real drawing, a descendant of the lady, happened to get his hands on Guiscard's fake. This Mister Pratt now travels to Guiscard and confronts him with his exposure. He does not want to bring Guiscard to court, but rather take him to England and, with his help, enter the art trade.

On the train ride, Pratt, Guiscard and Liane encounter the same corrupt train crew as they did when they arrived. Guiscard has a plan to get rid of Pratt: When he is going to the toilet in another car, Guiscard pulls the emergency brake and the previously bribed conductor disconnects the car with Pratt. Guiscard tears up the forged Holbein drawing, but can only be happy for a moment when a customs officer finds hashish in his seat cushion and arrests him as a smuggler. In prison, however, he is allowed to continue painting and when the real smuggler is caught, he is set free.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Text of the radio play in: Mensch und Zeit. Anthology of German Radio Plays . Ed. by Anna Otten. NEw York: Appleton - Century - Crofts 1966, pp. 147-176.
  2. ↑ Entry on the crime thriller homepage , last edited on October 31, 2015