Martina (film)

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Movie
Original title Martina
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1949
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Arthur Maria Rabenalt
script Gerte Illing
Werner Illing
Otto Bernhard Wendler
production Heinz Rühmann
Alf Teichs
music Werner Eisbrenner
camera Albert Benitz
cut Walter Wischniewsky
Walter Boos
occupation

and Antonie Jaeckel , Alfred Beierle , Margarete Kupfer , Dieter Angermann , Reinhard Kolldehoff

Martina is a German contemporary drama from 1949 by Arthur Maria Rabenalt . The performers Jeanette Schultze as heroine Martina and Cornell Borchers than her sister the leading roles.

action

The girl Martina embodies the conflict of an entire generation in Germany in the 1940s. In the late phase of the Second World War she served as an anti-aircraft helper in the “final battle” for “Greater Germany”, but in the last days of the war she slipped into the abyss and ended up in the clutches of a pimp. Martina Rieß becomes the "fallen girl" Tiny Kuczinsky, who one day ends up in the juvenile court after a raid on the "Eterna", a disguised brothel from the occupation at the end of the 1940s. In the corridor of the court she meets her older sister Irene, who, an absolute counter-proposal to the uninhibited Martina, chose a completely different path after 1945 and earned a modest prosperity as a psychologist. Tiny alias Martina is put by the juvenile court in a welfare institution from which she piles up one day. In freedom, she first unleashes Irene's Swedish friend Volker, a successful photographer who did not know that Martina is Irene's sister, then gets back on the old, "crooked" path and begins to sell herself and her body again. Following a brief moment of inner realization, Martina returns, after she has found out that Irene and Volker are more or less together, into the hands of the child welfare and thus into the home and reconciles with Irene, only to come back soon after her release to drift away.

Martina soon gets caught up in the pull of the demi-world, and the young woman finds herself again in a criminal environment in which her former pimp Donny is in charge. He is now also active in the counterfeiting milieu. Donny plans to put counterfeit money into circulation and threatens the owner of a printing company who does not want to cooperate. Martina witnesses a murder committed by Donny on the man who tries to resist. She escapes from a boarding house where she is staying and is the victim of an accident when she runs under the wheels of a truck. Martina's life is on the knife edge when the renowned Professor Rauscher, with whom Irene works regularly, begins to operate on Martina. During the anesthesia, some things become clearer as a result of the questioning by Irene: Martina suffered from the belief that she had killed a man. With Irene's help it becomes clear that Martina once defended herself from the stranglehold of a stormy lover and Donny, her future pimp, then killed the man. But Donny let Martina believe that she herself killed the rapist. This guilt threw them off course early on. Now that her trauma has been resolved and Martina is on the way to recovery both physically and mentally, all things finally come together for the better: Martina finds her way back to Volker, while Irene and the trauma surgeon who saved Martina's life also meet in private.

Production notes

The shooting took place under difficult conditions (power cuts, mostly night shoots, etc.) in March 1949 in the western part of Berlin that was cordoned off by the Soviet occupiers. The film, produced by Heinz Rühmann and his partner Alf Teichs , premiered on July 8, 1949.

Werner Drake is the production manager. The film structures were made by Willi A. Herrmann and Gabriel Pellon , the costumes were made by Gertrud Recke.

Reviews

Despite its commercial failure in the premiere year, the film received considerable attention in the press then and now. Below are several examples.

In the mirror you can read: “The screenwriter Grete Illing and director Rabenalt wanted to create the" Vamp 1949 "with the title character. Martina was to become the vamp with a bourgeois past, with a sentimental longing for parents and a pretty house. The intention remained recognizable through Jeanette Schultze's photogenic, unused face. The star discoverer Rabenalt brought a new face to the screen: Cornell Borchers, a blond Irene von Meyendorff guy. The contrast between the fiery Jeanette and the cool Cornell was charming. The film could score another plus for itself. It was shot as the only Comedia film in blocked West Berlin. "

The contemporary criticism also noted that the ladies in “Martina”, also and above all the eponymous heroine herself, seemed to be always up to date in terms of fashion despite the rubble age, which prompted the critic Wolfdietrich Schnurre to remark that one is wearing here "Excellent tailored wardrobes that outweigh entire fashion journals".

The Wiener Filmzeitung counted the film as "the most interesting thing that German production produced after the war."

The lexicon of the international film says: “After escaping from a reformatory, a girl finds accommodation with her sister, a neurologist. It befriends the sister's fiancé, but waives it and goes back to the institution. After her release, she initially gets on the wrong track. A sentimental film from post-war cinema. "

However, the film also addressed a circumstance that was critically viewed by the US occupying power, whose military presence, according to the Allied military censors, was not allowed to be criticized: the constant evasion of the fraternization ban. In retrospect, the Tagesspiegel reads: “The topic of the film at that time particularly troubled the male part of the German population: the“ Miss problem ”. Fräuleins, these were the women who, despite the prohibition of fraternization, got involved with the soldiers of the victorious powers. Even the Bishop of Passau was indignant in the pulpit over "German girls" who "literally impose themselves on foreign soldiers in a whore-like manner". The fact that Martina is an “American slut” is only hinted at - probably with due regard for the Allied censorship. Once she gets into a Cadillac with a suitor. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Corine Defrance / Bettina Greiner / Ulrich Pfeil (eds.): The Berlin Airlift. Cold War memorial site. Berlin 2018. p. 253 f.
  2. ↑ This circumstance also reflected the film seal at the beginning of the film. There it was written: "Made in blocked Berlin". In the center of the sign was the Berlin bear with the chains broken.
  3. ↑ From the gutter to heaven. Review in: Der Spiegel from July 14, 1949
  4. ^ Welt am Sonntag, August 21, 1949
  5. ^ Wiener Filmzeitung from September 2, 1949
  6. ↑ Martina. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 10, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ↑ Rubble Films: Risen from Archives. in: Der Tagesspiegel from August 14, 2010

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