Cheer up, Charly!

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Movie
Original title Cheer up, Charly!
Country of production German Empire
original language German
Publishing year 1926
length 100 minutes
Rod
Director Willi Wolff
script Robert Liebmann
Willi Wolff
production Ellen Richter
Willi Wolff
camera Axel Graatkjaer
Georg Krause
occupation

Cheer up, Charly! is a German silent film melodrama written on both sides of the Atlantic in 1926 by Willi Wolff with his wife Ellen Richter in the lead role. The story is based on a magazine novel (Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, 1926) by Ludwig Wolff .

action

The eponymous Charly is not a man, but the brunette Charlotte Ditmar, who everyone just calls “Charly”. In her life, after a period of happiness with her husband Frank, things go badly wrong: Frank left Hamburg for the United States because he wants to borrow money from his wealthy uncle. He left Charly at the port of Hamburg. In her desperation about the pain of separation, she loses consciousness and wakes up again in the strange environment of a shipowner. She doesn't know what (and how) happened to her. Charly then goes back to her hometown Berlin, confused. Left behind by everyone Frank, she has to earn her own money in order to survive financially and starts working as a mannequin. Her husband has meanwhile become a made man over in the States, in New York, thanks to his reorientation and new connection to the American Margie Quinn, a millionaire's daughter, and lives a luxury life determined by splendor and glamor in a pulsating metropolis with all its glitter and Glamor between Broadway and Brooklyn Bridge. The Ditmar couple finally divorced.

Now free and unbound again, Charly is reorienting herself in terms of male technology and falls into the hands of the French Marquis d'Ormesson (who quickly turns out to be half-silk), whom she follows to Paris. However, the French are more appearances than real ones and show that they are nothing more than a con man and card-cheater. Her next liaison with a nobleman also turns out to be a bad mistake. Charly meets the Duke of Sanzedilla and they both get married. But the duke is a fake dog and the wedding is fake. And again the Berliner stands alone, like a doused poodle in the rain. Now it's “Cheer up, Charly!” Ironically, the earlier encounter with the Hamburg shipowner John Jacob Bunjes, which started under such bad omen shortly after the departure of her renegade ex-husband, has now turned out to be her lifeline. This Hamburg grand seigneur is, unlike all of the grandiose title holders who have proven to be a stray in Charlotte's life, not only down-to-earth, but also real and honest. As his wife, Charly is certain that she will finally be happy again.

Production notes

The shooting took place in September 1926 in the Efa studios in Berlin as well as in Hamburg, Paris and New York (all outside shots). The premiere was on March 18, 1927 in Berlin's UFA Theater Kurfürstendamm.

Ernst Stern designed the film structures.

Reviews

“The author Robert Liebmann contrasts this abundance of events with his“ experience ”. He lets people travel and write letters, speak flowers and titles, and put the title End under the work when the innocent citizen on the floor thinks that the story is just beginning. The spatial separation of the scenes may have made the author's work very difficult. But such films must be made a little more fluid and coherent in 1927. With primitively built manuscript barracks this can no longer be done today, when we know authors who also build massive houses from such building materials. Willi Wolff finally has the opportunity to work in the travel film style again. He's got routine in it, as the exterior shots of New York and Paris show. Unfortunately he is unlucky enough to have seen all of this done quite often and not just routinely. (...) He works very well, the director. As he is used to in long directing practice. This "well-tried routine" is the headline for the blackest chapter in the decline of German film. (...) In this extremely conservative film, it is not surprising that Ellen Richter plays the leading role. And when the whole plot turns into a farce. "

“The variety of exciting events that this film brings captivates the audience from the first to the last scene. Some of the subtleties contained in the novel by Ludwig Wolff, which was published in the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung at the time, were thrown overboard by the manuscript authors Willi Wolff and Robert Liebmann in order to adapt the material to the laws of film dramaturgy, but it still is enough of the tasty remains to ensure the success of the film. (...) Willi Wolff, the director, has won the magic of authenticity from all the sets, it's just a shame that the leading actress does not meet the demands of her role in the same way. One has to acknowledge that Ellen Richter, with admirable self-denial, allowed her opponent Margerie Quimby to overshadow her so much with her special charm and her sure-footed game. But this time Ellen Richter's facial expressions were paler than ever, her playing mannered and her appearance, despite the sumptuous robes she wore, not such that her role was necessarily credible. Anton Pointner, on the other hand, was the always sympathetic young husband who was happily indulged in happiness at the side of the beautiful dollar millionaire. "

“It is a German-American joint film. American photography slays German photography. Less through mood painting than through interesting camera settings. The young German sees the hotel, his gaze wanders up the skyscraper wall. He almost bends his neck. Magnificent cityscapes of New York. It is a shame that the film, like the thrilling novel by Ludwig Wolff, is lost in impostor and gambling clichés. Ellen Richter is seriously tragic, while Michael Bohnen is at times pleasantly surprised by slight bon vivant traits. "

“The Ufa-Theater Kurfürstendamm traditionally hosts the premieres of films that Ellen Richter has made in her own company under the direction of her husband Willi Wolff. In the past, these were often beautiful travel images, moving and adventurous persecution stories. But after she has traveled all over the world, she has settled down and feels an acting ambition that goes far beyond her capabilities. (…) There is a limit to the assessment of acting achievements in film, at which all gallantry has to stop. Here this limit has already been exceeded so far that it is actually quite embarrassing. Michael Bohnen is personable, but appears strangely soft. A few good recordings from New York and a few ideas from manuscripts by Liebmann are a meager consolation in this poor work. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Herzberg in Film-Kurier, Berlin, Volume 9, No. 67, from March 19, 1927
  2. ↑ Kurt Mühsam in BZ am Mittag , Berlin, Volume 50, No. 76, from March 19, 1927
  3. ↑ Berliner Börsen-Courier , Volume 59, No. 133, from March 20, 1927
  4. ↑ Axel Eggebrecht in Berliner Tageblatt , Volume 56, No. 134, from March 20, 1927

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