You mustn't ask my heart

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Movie
Original title You mustn't ask my heart
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1952
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Paul Martin
script Tibor Yost
Paul Martin
production Willie Hoffmann-Andersen
music Willy Schmidt-Gentner
camera Fritz Arno Wagner
Karl Löb
cut Hermann Ludwig
occupation

and Franz Fiedler , Josef Kamper, Ida Perry , Georg A. Profé

You mustn't ask my heart is a German melodrama from 1952 by Paul Martin with Willy Birgel , Heidemarie Hatheyer and Maria Holst in the leading roles.

Filming location Glienicke Castle, which became the Birkhausen Residence

action

Spring 1945. The East Prussian Anna Lohmann is, like so many East Germans of that day, on the run from the advancing Soviet Army. In the turmoil of these last weeks of the war, she loses her two-year-old son Willy. He finds a new father in the kind, rich and noble nobleman von Birkhausen, who calls the child, who does not know his own name, “Peter”. While the lord of the castle has other refugees and displaced persons ready for livable barracks, Anna continues to wander around, always looking for her missing child. After three years, Anna and other displaced persons find a job on the Birkhausen estate. There she discovered her Willy again and asked her employer to hand over her now five-year-old son. But Birkhausen refuses to hand out his “Peter” because the child was legally adopted by them, and so a sensational court case ensues. But Anna Lohmann loses that because she cannot prove that Peter is her Willy, especially since Peter can no longer remember his sire. He has long since accepted the Birkhausen family as his new parents, and the castle has become his new home.

In her desperation, the simple mother, who has been very careless through the past years of deprivation, has no other advice than to kidnap her own flesh and blood during a storm and to hide it with friends for a while. Reunited, mother and child are drawn to Hamburg. As a result of the stresses and strains of the escape, the boy becomes seriously ill and is ultimately in mortal danger. Anna begins to doubt whether her drastic step of taking the son with her against his will was really the right one. And so she finds God in the moment of greatest need for her soul and prays for the life of her child. She promises to leave her Willy to the Birkhausens if he only survives. An operation occurs and the boy survives. Feeling bound by her vows, Anna returns the boy to Mr. and Mrs. von Birkhausen after his recovery, as she instinctively knows that Willy, who has become Peter, will have it better there, especially since the boy has long since established close ties to his new parents Has. In the meantime, research by Birkhausen has shown that Peter is actually Anna Lohmann's biological son. The all-encompassing nobility of all involved culminates in the fact that Anna finally leaves the Birkhausen estate in order not to stand between her biological child and his adoptive parents.

Production notes

You mustn't ask my heart was made in the spring of 1952 in the film studios of Berlin-Tempelhof as well as in the Berlin districts of Gatow and Buckow as well as in Glienicke Palace. The premiere took place on August 28, 1952 in Hanover, the Berlin premiere was on October 27 of the same year.

Producer Willie Hoffmann-Andersen was also in charge of production. Gabriel Pellon designed the film structures implemented by Hans-Jürgen Kiebach , Maria Latz designed the costumes.

Numerous folk and native songs were used. It did Egon Kaiser and his orchestra.

The acting veteran Ida Perry played her last film role here, alongside her daughter Charlotte Ander , who was also involved .

Reviews

The contemporary and later reviews were sometimes devastating. Everywhere the strip was attested to be noble kitsch. Nevertheless, the film was extremely successful at the box office: “People want to cry half-dead about it”.

Der Spiegel judged: "Film production from German soul kitsch."

In Curt Riess ' “That's only once” reads: “A good, a dramatic story - and a very German story. (...) A film could be made here that one would talk about for years. But how are these opportunities wasted! (...) In this film there are really only people who are noble. (...) The only person made of flesh and blood is the mother. Heidemarie Hatheyer plays it. (...) But she only has paper to speak of, and so almost everything gets stuck. "

In the lexicon of the international film it says: "Incredible stirring piece that distributes nobility and sympathy in all directions."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Curt Riess: There's only one. The book of German film after 1945. Henri Nannen Verlag, Hamburg 1958, p. 321
  2. ↑ Short review in Der Spiegel of September 3, 1952
  3. ↑ There's only one time, p. 320 f.
  4. ↑ You must not ask my heart. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 1, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

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