In the trenches
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | In the trenches |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1914 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Walter Schmidthässler |
| script | Walter Schmidthässler |
| production | Imperator-Film, Berlin |
| occupation | |
| |
Im Schützengraben is a propagandistic, German war silent film from 1914 by Walter Schmidthässler with Otto Reinwald in the role of a boy who becomes a courageous hero at the moment of the war.
action
The action takes place on the eve and at the beginning of the First World War . The family of the factory owner Schubert lives in harmony in a small German border town. The couple has three children; Son Alfred, daughter Elfriede and the baby boy Heinz, a quiet but clever boy. The father, a staunch, patriarchal patriot, has one thing to criticize about his youngest boy: he thinks Heinz is a coward. He justifies this with the tender nature of the boy, to whom all rawness and rudeness is alien and to whom everything loud is repugnant. His older brother Alfred understands Heinz well, and both are of one heart and one soul. Alfred works in his father's business and is also reserve lieutenant; as such, he hears what is currently being whispered in the garrison: war is in the air! He only shares his impressions with the father. The murmur of war also has a crippling effect on business development.
Mr. Ford, a young American who also lives in town, is a welcome guest in the Schubert house. He is smart and charming and has his eye on the lovely Elfriede. And above all: he is rich and therefore a good match in the event of a marriage. If there weren't a catch with the story: Elfriede likes him too, but he's not exactly her great love. Ford has to painfully acknowledge this and pulls back a little, but does not completely cut off contact with the Schuberts. When hostilities broke out in early August 1914, this had an enormous impact on Schubert's operations. Trade with neighboring countries suddenly collapses and outstanding payments are no longer made. The company is on the verge of ruin, and to make matters worse, Schubert's right-hand man, his son Alfred, has to step into the field. For little Heinz, his move out is a catastrophe: he desperately clings to his brother and does not want to let go of him until his bossy father steps in and the curse word “coward!” again degraded.
A world collapses in Heinz, he no longer wants to put up with his father's humiliation. And so he makes a lonely decision the next night. While Alfred is on guard at the border to prevent the enemy from entering Germany, Heinz sneaks up to the front line to help his brother. It's already under heavy fire. Heinz quickly begins to make himself useful in the company and gives his comrades important services. When the ammunition runs out, the hero's hour strikes in Heinz. He tears himself free from Alfred's arms and climbs out of the trenches, crawls over minefields, squeezes through barbed wire and crawls over soldiers' corpses, swims through muddy trenches, and all just to reach the place where more ammunition is suspected. Heinz grabs an abandoned officer's horse and rides on until he finally arrives at a fully loaded ammunition wagon. All around these are horse carcasses, other victims of the war. Heinz harnesses his horse to the wagon and rides it back to his unit at the highest possible speed. He passes burning villages, comes under shell fire and finally reaches his comrades unscathed, for whom Heinzen's commitment means victory. Mr. Ford achieved another victory at home: With his money he saved Schubert's ailing company and through this selfless commitment he finally took the heart of beautiful Elfriede by storm.
Production notes
In the trenches is a typical example of a cinematic snap shot as an immediate reaction to the outbreak of the First World War . The three-act act was censored in December 1914 and premiered on New Year's Eve in Berlin's Marble House .
The three acts of the film have the following titles: Act 1: Coward. The burning village. Act 2: In the trenches. At the right moment. 3rd act: The baptism of fire. The young hero
Im Schützengraben is not atypical of Schmidthässler's cinematic oeuvre during the First World War. Up to and including 1917 he made other national patriotic or propagandistic and anti-British films, including Goldene Herzen in Eisener Zeit (1914), The loyal German Heart (1914), In the Fire of the Ship Cannons (1915), The Hero of the Submarine (1915), In last second (1916) and when free the sea for German travel (1917).
The film is also of historical importance for one reason: 30-year-old Emil Jannings was in front of the camera for the first time.
Contemporary history
In 1935, from a National Socialist point of view, Oskar Kalbus tried to classify this film genre under the chapter heading “Feldgrauer Filmkitsch”, which experienced a real boom in the German Reich in 1914 and 1915 in particular. He writes:
“A certain trunk of experienced film manufacturers could not be frightened, however. First of all, they let their manifold relationships play out in order to be exempted from military service, because they felt called to offer the German people sensational hits "panem et circensis" in their quieter homeland, bearing in mind an ancient Roman experience : Relaxation and distraction, encouragement and encouragement. The cinema should now offer all of this. It was hoped that the general joy in the victories of our army would give rise to the desire for communication, for distracting experiences and, above all, for people to be gathered together in the “little man's theater”. In addition to the current film recordings from the theaters of war, the field-gray film kitsch - or the so-called "patriotic" film of 1914/15. "