Child of the Danube
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Child of the Danube |
 | |
| Country of production | Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1950 |
| length | 111 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Georg Jacoby |
| script |
Friedrich Schreyvogel , Georg Jacoby |
| production |
Karl Brenneis for Nova-Film, Wien-Film |
| music | Nico Dostal |
| camera |
Walter Riml , Hanns König |
| cut |
Paula Dworak , Leontine Klicka |
| occupation | |
| |
Kind der Donau is an Austrian music film by Georg Jacoby from 1950. It was the first Austrian color film. In Germany the film ran under the distribution title Das Kind der Donau .
action
The three friends Georg, Heinrich and Oskar are moving along the Danube and are looking for a place to stay for the summer. After time and time again neither the landlord nor the room rate matched their expectations, the writer Georg allows himself to be transferred to an old Danube ship that seems abandoned. Meanwhile, Heinrich and Oskar stop at a nearby restaurant where they see young Marika dancing and listening to her songs. Both are already planning to make a star out of her, one is a hit writer and the other stage builder.
Georg has meanwhile found a bed on the boat and is surprised when suddenly Marika stands in front of him at night and rudely wakes him up. She lives on the ship that once belonged to her father. She shows Georg into the little cabin where her late father's friend, Christoph, used to sleep. Georg and Marika get along well until Georg stays away one night and only comes back to the ship in the early morning. While Marika thinks he was strolling around, Georg actually applied to a newspaper and was put on the night shift to pack the newspaper. He plans to use the money to make Marika fulfill her greatest dream: to get the ship afloat again and to be able to sail along the Danube as before.
Heinrich and Oskar meanwhile try to bring Marika out as a star in the theater. When the director of the theater canceled all interviews due to the current theatrical crisis, all the rejected actors decided to put on their own play under Marika's direction in an old amphitheater not far from the Danube. There are rehearsals, stage clothes are made from tablecloths and the stage decorations are also made by hand. The dress rehearsal goes without any problems and the first performance is already sold out.
Georg doesn't know anything about this, since he sleeps during the day and works at night. Due to a colleague who visited him once on the ship and had to assume from Marika that she had a relationship with Georg, tensions arose between Marika and Georg, but these seem to have been overcome. Georg is all the more pleased to report to Marika about the decision of his newspaper editor: He has agreed that Georg will write a series of reports about his life on a Danube ship that sails on the Danube. The newspaper also wants to cover the costs of getting the ship afloat and maintenance during the voyages. Marika decides against it, however, if she doesn't want to let the theater group down as the leading actress. There is a break between Marika and Georg, who leaves the ship during a thunderstorm . During the thunderstorm, lightning strikes the theaters and everything burns down.
Georg, who found out about the misfortune in the newspaper, returns to Marika. He convinces the troupe to start over at another theater and, despite difficulties, launches an article in the newspaper asking for the theater group's support. A little later the time has come: the premiere of the theater group's folkloric play begins in a much larger theater. Since the tenor cannot perform due to hoarseness, Georg takes over his role, who also wrote the piece himself. Marika is initially not very enthusiastic when she stands across from him on stage, but both get closer during the performance and finally end up as a couple.
production
Child of the Danube was filmed in 1949 in the Vienna Atelier Rosenhügel and in the Linz area. At that time, the Rosenhügel studio was under Soviet general management and control. The press used this fact for anti-Soviet reporting:
“The [Soviet] Rosenhügel films are made up in 'German'. They are shot with German and Austrian audience favorites and run under the unsuspicious name of 'Wien-Film am Rosenhügel'. [...] The innocent moviegoers in the Federal Republic, who have not seen a Soviet German Defa film for years , are entertained with Soviet-Austrian films. For example, you saw the colorful Marika Rökk revue film 'Child of the Danube' ... "
Leading actress Marika Rökk found retrospectively that the child of the Danube , "filmed with a lot of folklore and under Russian sovereignty in the Rosenhügel studios in Vienna, [...] [got] into the mill of world views". The film was shot in Agfacolor and was the first Austrian color film after 1945. Marika Rökk had already played the leading role in the first German color film Women are better diplomats . The cost of the film was seven million schillings . The film music came from Nico Dostal, the lyrics were written by Erich Meder . The titles were accompanied by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra . Members of the Vienna State Opera Ballet can be seen in dance scenes .
The premiere of the film took place on August 2, 1950 in Salzburg. The German premiere took place on August 4, 1950 in East Berlin. The film only opened in Germany on February 24, 1951.
criticism
The lexicon of international films described the Danube child as "a dance and song film built on the skill, the charm and the Hungarian-Viennese 'heartiness' of Marika Rökk with a correspondingly thin storyline".
Web links
- Child of the Danube in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Child of the Danube at filmportal.de
- Pictures of the film on cinema.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Child of the Danube. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 31, 2018 .
- ↑ The red rose hill . In: Der Spiegel , No. 28, 1954, p. 29.
- ↑ Marika Rökk: Heart with paprika. Memories. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 236.
- ^ Personal details : Georg Jacobi . In: Der Spiegel , No. 42, 1949, p. 34.
- ^ Alfred Bauer : German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 126
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 4. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 2014.