Lieutenant Gustl (film)

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Movie
Original title Lieutenant Gustl
Country of production Germany , Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1963
length 91 minutes
Rod
Director John Olden
script dramatized by: Ernst Lothar , TV adaptation: Fred Spirek, screenplay: Norbert Kunze
production Hans Cimbek (production manager)
music Carl de Groof
camera Elio Carniel , Utz Carniel
cut Josef Juvancic
occupation

Leutnant Gustl is a German-Austrian television film from 1963 based on themes from the novel of the same name by Arthur Schnitzler .

action

Vienna 1900: The Austro - Hungarian lieutenant Gustav Wilfert is permeated by the code of honor of the Austrian officers and is therefore repeatedly involved in duels because of alleged insults to his officer's honor . One evening attends a concert with a comrade, the next morning a duel with a lawyer. After the concert he pushes his way to the cloakroom and therefore gets into an argument with the master baker Habetswallner, who is standing next to him. He grabs Wilfert by the saber pommel and insults him as a "stupid boy". Wilfert is so perplexed that he does not react immediately and puts up with it instead of defending his officer's honor. He hopes that no one in the crowd noticed the situation. However, Major Aloys Mokry has observed the dispute and confronts Wilfert. Wilfert wants to portray the exchange with Habetswallner as a harmless conversation, but Mokry does not believe him and tells him that he is no longer capable of satisfactory behavior .

Wilfert wanders aimlessly through the night and decides to take his own life, as he has lost his honor and cannot restore it by a duel with the unsatisfactory master baker. He goes to his fiancée Anna Riedl to say goodbye to her. She loves Wilfert, abhors the ancient code of honor and announces that if Wilfert commits suicide, she will also commit suicide.

Early the next morning Anna goes to the baker Habetswallner to convince him not to tell the matter further. Then she learns that Habetswallner died unexpectedly that night. With this good news (for her and Wilfert), she goes to Wilfert's barracks, who was on his way to his regimental commander, Colonel Brunnthaler, to report the incident. But with that he comes too late, as Major Mokry has already told the regimental commander everything over the phone.

Brunnthaler now convenes a court of honor to determine whether Wilfert has violated the honor of the Austro-Hungarian Army or not. The court called in various witnesses, initially the cloakroom attendant and a servant from the concert hall, but they were unable to make any clear statements about the content of the exchange between Wilfert and Habetswallner. Wilfert's defense attorney, Oberleutnant Doschensky, argues that in the event of an actual defamation, Wilfert would have had to knock down Habetswallner in order to save his honor. The code of honor is therefore contrary to the criminal law.

Then Anna Riedl appears as a witness. She testifies to be Major Mokry's mistress and to have been to a concert with him. She claims that Mokry tried to pin something to Wilfert out of jealousy. But when Mokry herself is summoned as a witness and Anna is confronted with him, her story of lies is revealed: she only wanted to exonerate her fiancé. In a passionate testimony before the officers of the court of honor, she attacks their outdated and unrealistic ideas of honor. Wilfert is proud of the courage shown by his fiancée and announces that if convicted, he will "take the consequences" (that is, kill himself).

While the court is deliberating on a judgment, Wilfert is hoping for an acquittal, but basically adheres to the code of honor. Regarding Anna's criticism of it, he says that she doesn't understand anything about it and that a man has to look death in the eye. In the evening, in Anna's apartment, an orderly brings the written judgment of the court. Wilfert expects a conviction and does not dare to open the letter. He is already mentally occupied with his death when Anna opens the letter and reads it to him - it is an acquittal. Wilfert is happy, speaks of plans for the future, but also of the upcoming duel with the lawyer. Anna is stunned that, after everything that has happened, Wilfert always wants to duel for his honor. She realizes that he will never change, and the final scene in which she removes her hand from his indicates that she will part with him.

Differences to the literary original

The film has mainly the initial situation in common with Schnitzler's novel of the same name, i.e. the situation in the cloakroom and Wilfert's subsequent wandering through Vienna at night, but then develops the plot in a completely different way: The crucial difference is that the novella is a single stream of thoughts on the part of the lieutenant is in which his thoughts about his impending suicide, which he believes to be inevitable, are reproduced. Early in the morning he found out about Habetswallner's death in a coffee house, was immediately lively and well again and immediately forgot about the supposedly inevitable suicide, which ended the novella. In the literary source of the film, therefore, neither Major Mokry nor a court of honor or an engagement appear.

production

The film was commissioned by the NDR by the Dr. Heinz Schneiderbauer KG Vienna and broadcast for the first time on March 26, 1963.

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