Karl Valentine's wedding
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Karl Valentins Hochzeit / Valentins Hochzeit |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1913 |
| length | 10 (today's torso) minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mr. Ansfelder |
| production | Martin Kopp , Munich |
| camera | Mr. Palatz |
| occupation | |
| |
Karl Valentin's wedding is a short, German silent film grotesque from 1912 in which the Munich folk comedian Karl Valentin first appeared in front of the camera.
action
The bachelor Valentin reads a daily newspaper, constantly banging his elbows against the table and throwing several objects on the floor. An advertisement arouses his interest in which a woman willing to marry is looking for a suitable husband. Valentin tears the ad out of the newspaper and looks for the said Mrs. Walzenberger, who is enormous. As soon as Valentin has entered her living room, the erotically starved lady rushes on him and almost crushes the fragile Valentin. But then she lifts him up again with one hand and puts him on the sofa. The marriage candidate is so dominant and does not give a lot of thought to the fact that she sees her future in Valentin.
Resistance is futile, and so Valentin quickly signs his consent to the upcoming marriage. After the ceremony in the registry office, the marriage is celebrated extensively at a party. During the wedding dance, the sedate new wife plopps down with Valentin and falls on her skinny husband. The entire Valentin disappears under the meat mountain of the wives. Then the wedding present escapes, a little bird, and everyone runs after it. Also Valentin and his bride. Both fall again and the bride finally crushes him. "Jesus, now I've crushed my husband," says the subtitle. Then Valentine's lifeless body is put in a wheelbarrow.
Production notes
The film, later briefly referred to as Valentine's Wedding , was presented for the first time in 1912 and marked the beginning of Valentin's film career, which only gained momentum in the early talkies. The copy of the one-act play that has survived today - opening and closing titles are missing - is only 183 meters long, which corresponds to an approximate playing time of ten minutes.
The “bride” is played by a very corpulent man ( Georg Rückert ), as can easily be seen in the present image material. The comedy arises, among other things, from the contrast between the spindly Valentin and Rückert, who seems to be about three times the weight of his play partner.
assessment
Jan-Christopher Horak writes:
“Valentin's first film, KARL VALENTIN'S WEDDING (1912), already shows a tendency towards the sadistic. (…) The strip is typical of many films from this early period: Shot in an outdoor studio and on the street, it consists almost exclusively of long shots that are shot in the medium long shot. (…) The comedy in this film is based on two elements that indicate the man's impotence: Valentine's physical awkwardness and the contrast between the extremely overweight bride and the emaciated groom. Valentin constantly bumps into objects or knocks something over. The bride is tall enough to sit her suitor on her lap and strong enough to toss him around. After giving up his bachelor life, Valentin appears as a husband like a marionette that the wife can handle as she likes. His physical death at the end of the film becomes a symbol of his defeated manhood. This conclusion also heralds a man's hysteria, which is to become characteristic of his later work: all of Valentine's fears about the female sex are concentrated in the overwhelming bulk of the bride. The marriage is presented as a literally crushing event that turns the man into a child with no will of his own. Disguised as slapstick, Valentin presents an extremely dark and misogyne view of marriage. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ some sources name the year 1913
- ↑ Schadenfreude. German film comedies and Karl Valentin , in: Early film in Germany. KINtop. Yearbook for the Study of Early Film. 1st ed. Frank Kessler, Sabine Lenk, Martin Loiperdinger. Basel - Frankfurt / Main: Stroemfeld / Roter Stern 1992, pp. 65–66, 68–69