Love is duty free

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Movie
Original title Love is duty free
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1941
Rod
Director EW Emo
script Fritz Koselka
production Vienna film
music Hanns Elin
Max Niederberger
camera Georg Bruckbauer
occupation

Love's Duty Free is the title of a 1941 political comedy published propaganda function of Wien-Film in Germany connected Austria . Directed by EW Emo .

action

The Austrian government is once again in acute need of money and so you get to the bold idea of the duties of a Swiss banking consortium to lease . The matter should of course remain top secret for as long as possible. The Swiss envoy ( Theodor Danegger ) takes everything home by train. However, it has to go through customs at Feldkirch . There the ambitious customs inspector Laurenz Hasenhüttl ( Hans Moser ) does his job . He would love to become chief inspector and so he examines the train from Vienna to Zurich particularly thoroughly. Overzealous, he considers the Swiss bank envoy and the finance minister's lover, who happens to be traveling with him, to be a sought-after fraud couple. The customs treaty found - completely incomprehensible to him - reinforces this view even more.

The supposed crook couple under lock and key, Hasenhüttl drives to Vienna to his employer, the Minister of Finance ( Hans Olden ), in anticipation of special commendation and promotion . As soon as he got there, he reads in the newspaper that the pair of crooks he was looking for had been arrested somewhere else. Hasenhüttl immediately turned to the newspaper editorial team to correct their supposed error. However, the editor-in-chief recognizes the customs contract presented as evidence and makes Hasenhüttl, against his knowledge and will, the uncoverer of a major political scandal to which not only the finance minister's marriage, but also the entire Austrian government falls victim. The new finance minister - he would not have taken office without Hasenhüttl - finally appoints him as chief inspector.

Interpretation of the film

This well-constructed political comedy with Hans Moser as a strange, but nevertheless authoritarian customs officer, is a mockery of democratic institutions, cabinet politics and the free press in general, and the First Republic in particular. The Chancellor was played by Oskar Sima, who in his younger years almost exclusively represented types with a negative character. The finance minister was portrayed as incompetent - not least because he seemed to be more knowledgeable about nightlife than about state budget. His wrong decisions were always compliantly carried out by his subordinates, with catastrophic consequences for the budget. The whole republican system is portrayed as corrupt and incompetent. This can be seen as funny in the sense of a satire, but if you take the political background into account, it is primarily intended to justify the annexation of Austria as liberation from a corrupt and incompetent state. On the other hand, the word Austria is used constantly in this film - in a derogatory way, of course. In doing so, the film refutes the widespread belief in Austria that the word Austria was forbidden during the Nazi era. When the Swiss envoy and his lover “Milena” were arrested, the customs officer found that their real name was “Machek”, which reinforced his belief that they were a fraud couple. The actual customs fraudsters also have Slavic names: Havlicek and Czamska. This, too, is a further use of the National Socialist ideology, which the Slavs viewed as " subhuman " and tried to underpin this claim, among other things, by criminalizing the entire people .

Awards

Reviews

“Despite some tips against the Republic of Austria before the 'Anschluss' to Nazi Germany and mockery against the weaknesses of the civil service, a hardly harmless comedy; it lives above all from the play of Hans Moser, who caricatures the authoritarian uniform wearer. "

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Love is duty free. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 16, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used