Girl Behind Bars (1949)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Girl behind bars |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1949 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred Braun |
| script | Otto Heinz Jahn |
| production | Artur Brauner |
| music | Herbert Trantow |
| camera | Fritz Arno Wagner |
| cut | Walter Wischniewsky |
| occupation | |
| |
Girls behind bars is a German youth film drama made in 1949. Directed by Alfred Braun play Petra Peters and Richard Häussler the leading roles.
action
The setting is early post-war Germany. Under suspicion of complicity in an attempted robbery, Ursula Schumann, who is still too young for the prison, is taken to a welfare institution for neglected or criminally turned girls and young women. This “reformatory” is run by Irmgard Rechenberg in a contemporary, authoritarian manner and with a hard hand. Unconditional obedience is expected from the sometimes recalcitrant, sometimes even downright rebellious girls. Ursula, who remains silent about the crime she is accused of, has considerable difficulties in adapting to this new environment, which is further promoted by the behavior of fellow prisoners who reject her. The conflicts soon escalate. The main focus of the plot are the diverse interactions between the inmates, but also the divergences between the girls and the female prison staff.
When Ursula found out one day of the death of her mother, Frau Schumann, she no longer felt compelled to remain silent about the crime she was accused of. She explains the connections, and it turns out that she and her mother once fell into the hands of an unscrupulous criminal named Richard Halbes, who was her mother's lover at the time. Both tried to commit robbery and murder allegedly alleged to be Ursula on the sensitive art dealer Peter Breuhaus and had to go to jail for it, while Ursula was transferred to the home, even though she informed the police about the planned crime immediately before the act. With that, fate took its course. Now that all the facts are revealed, Ursula is released and she turns her back on hell behind bars. She can finally begin a new life at the side of the man she has grown to love, Mr. Breuhaus.
Production notes
Girl Behind Bars was shot between March 4th and April 21st, 1949 in the film studios of Berlin-Tempelhof or in Berlin (outdoor shots). The film was made during the Berlin blockade , premiered on August 14, 1949 during the 10th Venice International Film Festival (August 11 to September 1, 1949) and was awarded an honorary diploma. The German theatrical release was on November 15, 1949 in Cologne and Berlin. In Germany, the film was rated “artistically valuable” by the FSK.
Conrad Flockner took over the manufacturing and production management. Willi A. Herrmann designed the film structures.
Ruth Hausmeister , who later became very famous , made her film debut here.
The CCC film Girls Behind Bars , made in 1965, is not a remake of this film.
Reviews
"Psychological-pedagogical crime study with a focus on the depiction of the milieu and character drawing."
The online edition of Cinema found the film to be "a somewhat too pathetic milieu study".
Klaus Kreimeier, on the other hand, found that the girl behind bars "adopts motifs from the important film MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM in a flattened form "
Individual evidence
- ^ Girls behind bars in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed April 1, 2020
- ↑ Short review on cinema.de
- ↑ Klaus Kreimeier: Cinema and Film Industry in the FRG, p. 155. Kronberg im Taunus 1973