Madonna of the Seven Moons
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Madonna of the Seven Moons |
| Original title | Madonna of the Seven Moons |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1944 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Arthur Crabtree |
| script | Roland Pertwee |
| production | RJ Minney |
| music | Hans May |
| camera | Jack Cox |
| cut | Lito Carruthers |
| occupation | |
| |
Madonna of the Seven Moons is a 1944 British love melodrama directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger . The story is based on the novel of the same name (1931) by Margery Lawrence .
action
The story takes place in Italy in 1919. Maddalena, a young convent girl, is raped by a gypsy in a forest near Florence. Soon after, Maddalena's father arranged her marriage to a wealthy wine merchant named Giuseppe Labardi. A year later, both parents of a girl named Angela. Maddalena leads a pious and withdrawn life, but her peaceful existence is upset when Angela, now 17, returns to the Labardi house in Rome after five years in a school in England. The young English diplomat Evelyn appears at her side. Angela's modern view of many things shocked Maddalena, who began to behave strangely. At Angela's birthday party, Maddalena suddenly passed out at the sight of Sandro Barucci. This Sandro is a notorious gigolo that Angela met in Cannes. Then Maddalena disappears, takes her jewels with her and scratches seven moons on her dressing mirror with her lipstick. Her husband Giuseppe betrays his daughter Angela and a family friend, Dr. Charles Ackroyd that his wife has already disappeared twice, taken her jewelry and couldn't remember anything when she returned. Ackroyd is fascinated by this case and diagnoses Giuseppe's wife with a split personality . Angela decides to use the jewelry to recreate her mother and begins her search in Florence. Evelyn, now her fiancé, has to return to England at short notice, and that's why Angela gets help from two artist friends, Jimmy and Nesta Logan but also from Sandro Barucci.
In fact, it turns out, Maddalena leads a double life: once as a loving, devout and decent wife and mother, and the other time as gypsy Rosanna, the lover of the notorious jewel thief Nino Barucci, who lives in the house with his mother and younger brother Sandro of the seven moons living in Florence. Rosanna, who does not remember her other life, gives her jewels to Nino, whereupon he finds out her connection to Labardi. He is half mad with jealousy, because Nino has to assume that "his" Rosanna must be the lover of that Giuseppe. And so one day he plans to raid the Labardi house in Florence during Carnival and murder Giuseppe. Sandro, on the other hand, who pretends to just help Angela find her mother Maddalena, lures the daughter to the “Seven Moons” to seduce her there. The mother's fate in her youth threatens to repeat itself with her daughter. Dressed like Nino, namely as a carnival harlequin, Sandro drugs Angela and carries her into the upper chambers of the house. Rosanna, who sees the harlequin, believes that it must be her Nino and stabs his brother Sandro in a fit of jealousy. As he dies, he throws a stiletto at Rosanna and meets her. Angela realizes that the dying Rosanna is none other than her mother. Evelyn and Jimmy Logan join after following Sandro to the Seven Moons thanks to one of Jimmy's sketches. They bring Maddalena back to the Labardi house, where Nino follows them. At Maddalena's deathbed, Nino refrains from killing Giuseppe when he overhears her calling her his wife and places a small cross on her chest.
Production notes
Madonna of the Seven Moons premiered at the end of 1944; the mass start was on January 22, 1945. The German premiere took place in March 1947.
RE Dearing took over the production management. Andrew Mazzei designed the film structures, Elizabeth Haffenden provided the costumes. Peter Murton and Don Chaffey were two of the draftsmen, Albert Whitlock painted the backgrounds. Louis Levy took over the musical direction.
synchronization
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Maddalena Labardi | Phyllis Calvert | Friedel Schuster |
| Nino Barucci | Stewart Granger | Arnold Marquis |
| Mama Barucci | Nancy Price | Ursula War |
| Dr. Charles Ackroyd | Reginald Tate | Konrad Wagner |
| Jimmy Logan | Peter Murray-Hill | Reinhard Kolldehoff |
useful information
In the second half of the Second World War, the producing film company Gainsborough Pictures , starting with The Lord in Gray , developed into the most important company when it came to producing opulent costume dramas and tearful love tugs. Almost all of Gainsborough's films in the 1940s, almost all of which were released on the German market immediately after the end of the war, developed into big box office magnets in Europe - "although the critics wrote them with contempt", as Jörg Helbig recalled. occasionally also on the US market, and also produced numerous film stars, above all Margaret Lockwood , James Mason , Patricia Roc, Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger. Gainsborough's greatest hits include Gaslight and Shadow , Madonna of the Seven Moons, Cornwall Rhapsody , The Woman Without a Heart , Three Marriages , Dangerous Voyage and Paganini .
Reviews
In its issue of March 8, 1947, Der Spiegel wrote: “'Madonna of the Seven Moons' ... contains pretty much everything that is generally certain to guarantee success: a mysterious case of psychology, romance, humor, crime, elegant society, love passion, monasteries, the sacraments of the dead . It is the unconscious double life of a woman: sometimes a lady in a luxury hotel in Florence, sometimes the mistress of a robber captain. Your daughter's dancer is the robber's brother. Connoisseurs can imagine what fruitful entanglements result in this way. An opening title assures that the action is taken from life. People who don't expect much will be disappointed. It's novel-like enough. "
The lexicon of the international film judges: "Soky-kitschy melodrama based on an English trivial novel."
The Movie & Video Guide saw the film as a "tight melodrama, but which in certain circles is viewed as mannered".
Halliwell's Film Guide mercilessly judged: "Kitschy Schmonzes, which was made mouse-dead by artificial representation". On the other hand, the co-founder of the New York Film Festival, Richard Roud, said the strip was "one of the most entertaining British films of the 1940s".
"A stirring piece without a doubt, but also somehow fascinating with its somehow crude representation of good and evil."
Leading actor Stewart Granger found the film, in retrospect, simply "terrible".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Madonna of the Seven Moons in the German synchronous file .
- ^ Jörg Helbig: History of British Film. Verlag KB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999. p. 82.
- ↑ Madonna of the Seven Moons in: Der Spiegel 10/1947.
- ↑ Madonna of the Seven Moons. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2020 .
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 803.
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 634.
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ Madonna of the Seven Moons in DamalsKino.
- ^ Brian MacFarlane: An Autobiography of British Cinema , Methuen Verlag 1997. p. 230.
Web links
- Madonna of the Seven Moons in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Madonna of the Seven Moons on screenonline.org