Call of Gold (Adventure Four Divider)

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Movie
Original title Call of the gold
Country of production Germany / France /
Austria / Romania
original language German
Publishing year 1975
length approx. 358 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Wolfgang Staudte ,
Serge Nicola
script Walter Ulbrich
production Walter Ulbrich
music Hans Posegga
camera Alexander David
occupation

Lockruf des Goldes is an adventure four-part series from 1975, for which Walter Ulbrich wrote the script based on motifs from various books by Jack London and documents of the time. The television film is a Walter Ulbrich production by Tele-München in collaboration with Technisonor / Paris and Romaniafilm Bucharest on behalf of ZDF , ORF and TF1 Paris. ZDF first broadcast the four-part series in the 1975 Advent season in its series of ZDF adventure four-part adventures .

action

Part 1: The Klondike fever (ZDF: December 21, 1975 / re-release: August 23, 1977)

San Francisco at the end of the 19th century: the young attorney Harnish is called to the country where old John Tarwater is supposed to be incapacitated because he wants to sell his farm and make his fortune in Alaska as a prospector. The news spreads like wildfire that tens of gold are being found on the Klondike , a small river in northern Canada. Tarwater escapes his incapacitation by voluntarily transferring his property to his daughter and son-in-law, but nevertheless makes his way to Alaska. The lawyer returns to town, deeply impressed by the old man.

Among the departing adventurers who hunt for immeasurable wealth is the lawyer Elam Harnish, in the company of Tarwater and the unscrupulous adventurer Charly Clayton. But after the acid test on the icy Chilkoot Pass , only the toughest men reach their destination, the newly founded gold rush town of Dawson at the mouth of the Klondike into the Yukon . Tarwater, chased away by Clayton, is later killed alone in the icy wilderness.

Part 2: The White Gully (ZDF: December 23, 1975 / August 25, 1977)

Life in the gold rush town of Dawson has normalized. In his newly opened restaurant, the "Tivoli", Charly Clayton ensures that the gold diggers quickly get rid of part of their assets. Cad Wilson, a mediocre singer who is celebrated as a big star in Dawson, falls in love with the superficial casual worker Elam Harnish. It celebrates its 30th birthday with great pomp in the "Tivoli". During the wild booze, a long-lost gold digger named Caribou-Charly falls in - exhausted to death. Obviously he has found the "white gutter", a dried up stream bed on the bottom of which gold has deposited en masse, because he carries a lot of gold with him. Everything is breaking out to find this vein of gold. Elam and his partner Joe seem to be the first to spot them. They want to wait for the end of winter in a hut. There are occasional collisions between the two of them before three other prospectors, Bettles, Breck and Henderson, reach the hut. Five of the men prospect for gold in winter without success. When Bettles apparently killed his two fellow arrivals for no reason, Elam is still able to stop Joe from lynching him before both finally decide his death and hang him.

Part 3: The wild man from Yukon (ZDF: December 28, 1975 / August 28, 1977)

Elam and Joe are not up to the emotional strain. So it comes to an argument, and Elam shoots Joe in self-defense. Meanwhile, Cad Wilson waits in vain for Elam in Dawson. When a guy named the Montana Kid comes to Dawson and says Elam is dead, the desperate Cad sells her belongings. But then Elam does return home. When the Montana Kid is later found murdered, Cad is arrested. Elam travels far outside Dawson to catch salmon. Here he discovers new gold. Charles Clayton, the owner of the "Tivoli", fears that all men will leave the city and buys his secret from Elam. Elam finally has money. He proves to be a shrewd speculator and trader. Father Judge, the city's clerical chaplain and nurse, blames Elam for this. One day Elam is lured into risking his money in fraudulent and high-profile stock market maneuvers in San Francisco. He discovers the intrigue too late ...

Part 4: Vierauge (ZDF: December 30, 1975 / August 30, 1977)

Elam Harnish has returned to Alaska from San Francisco. Together with an adventurer named Andy Carson, he makes his way through the woods. A familiarity emerges between Andy Carson and Elam Harnish after Andy Carson saves his life. One day Andy disappeared. When Elam encounters the Tlingiit tribe, he is surprised to find Andy there. The tribe is ruled by a white patriarch who holds on to anyone who strays to him. Elam knows that any thought of escape is nonsensical. He settles in, even finds gold, but is betrayed by Carson, whom he eventually overpowers and kills. He also meets Labiskwee, the chief's daughter. The girl who loves Elam realizes that the man here can never be happy. She is preparing to escape. One night they both set off on an adventurous wandering that dwarfs everything that Elam Harnish has endured so far. He loses Labiskwee on the way and returns to Dawson alone. He finds an abandoned ghost town. From Father Judge, who is still there to care for a few sick people who have stayed behind, he learns that large amounts of gold have been found on the Bering Strait near Nome . As a result, the people left Dawson in droves within a very short time for Nome. Elam Harnish and Father Judge will follow suit, each following his own calling.

prehistory

The gold discovery in 1897 on the Klondike , a river in Canada , was a sensational event. There, a shovel of sand yielded between $ 800 and $ 1,000. Tens of thousands made their way to the "gold land" at that time. Among them was 21-year-old Jack London. This four-part television film was made according to his records and historical documents.

production

The shooting lasted (with interruptions) from November 1974 to August 1975. 67,000 meters of film material was used, and the location in the geographical triangle Black Sea-Carpathian- Iron Gate was changed 54 times . The gold rush town of Dawson City and the Tlingiit Indian settlement have been reconstructed. Around 12,000 extras took part. The interior shots were made in the Romaniafilm Bucharest studios.

At the premiere on ZDF, a rough cut version approx. 28 minutes longer was broadcast because there were delays in the editing. The first episode was about 10 minutes, all the other about 5 minutes longer. The version known today and also published on DVD was only broadcast in this form when it was re-released in 1977. The edited material is included with the DVD as bonus material.

Together with the four films broadcast under the title “Lockruf des Goldes” , a fifth part was shot with the title “The lost Inka Gold” , which was broadcast for the first time in 1978. The book was also written by Walter Ulbrich and directed by Wolfgang Staudte. Ulbrich had enough material for five films, but was asked to design the fifth part in such a way that it could be broadcast independently of the other four films.

literature

  • Oliver Kellner & Ulf Marek: Seewolf & Co. - The great adventure four-part series of ZDF , Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, ISBN 3896026321

DVD and Blu-ray

  • Call of the Gold (2 DVDs), Concorde Home Entertainment 2005
  • Call of the gold (2 Blu-rays), Concorde Home Entertainment 2012

Film music

  • Call of Gold / Two Years of Vacation: Soundtracks , 1 CD, Tarantula Records SKW-86040 (Germany 1994)
  • Adventure classic - original music from the legendary TV four-part series , 2 CDs, BSC Music / Cine Soundz Prudence 398.6619.2 (Germany 2001)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Staudte - actor, director . In: CineGraph - Lexicon for German-Language Film , Lg. 20, F 30
  2. ↑ Kellner, Oliver; Marek, Ulf: Seewolf & Co. - The great adventure four-part series of ZDF, 2nd edition, 2005, p. 323 u. 330
  3. ↑ Kellner, Oliver; Marek, Ulf: Seewolf & Co. - The great four-part adventure series by ZDF, 2nd edition, 2005, p. 315.