My Leopold (1931)

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Movie
Original title My Leopold
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1931
length 100 minutes
Rod
Director Hans Steinhoff
script Hans Brennert based
on the Berliner Volksstück of the same name (1873) by
Adolph L'Arronge
production Franz Tapper , Helmut Eweler
music Leo Ascher
camera Willy Goldberger
cut Kurt Bleines
occupation

and Eugen Burg , Gerhard Dammann , Aenne Görling , Kurt Lilien , Anna Müller-Lincke , Heinz Sarnow , Julius von Szöreghy

Mein Leopold is a German folk play adaptation from 1931 by Hans Steinhoff with Max Adalbert in the main role and Harald Paulsen in the title role.

action

Master shoemaker Gottlieb Weigelt has come a long way. He has his own large shop and has employed a foreman and twelve journeymen. His everything is his son Leopold, a good-for-nothing who tries more badly than right as a court trainee, but above all shines through his absence and laziness. But he is very big in spending his father's money. His financial situation becomes increasingly precarious when he meets the dancer Rosita, who turns out to be a very expensive pleasure. Soon Leopold found himself obliged to forge his father's signature in order to trigger the change of his moneylender. Old Weigelt does not realize how deeply his beloved son is slipping into a dangerous situation. He even wrote an angry letter to a judge because, in Weigelt's eyes, he was unable to see the true worth of Leopold. Weigelt's foreman, Starke, tries just as unsuccessfully to open the old man's eyes as does Klara Weigelt, who always received less attention and love from her father than Leopold. She joins the efforts of the strong she loves. Weigelt furiously throws Starke out of his business and breaks away from Klara.

Leopold Weigelt's extravaganzas soon drained all of his father's fortune. Finally, the father's company also goes under the hammer. There is hardly anything left to get from the old man when Leopold leaves. For the first time, the father, who has now lost everything, sees the son's behavior as a real blow. He has to rearrange his life and starts all over again: as a little cobbler in a foreign company. The unscrupulous son has also reached the bottom; in Hamburg he joins a tramp and goes on a tour with him. He and his friend, however, luckily find a job in a machine factory. Now a change is taking place in Leopold's character: he is diligent and reliable, works hard and one day even manages to become a partner in the company. Over the years, Weigelt and his daughter, who has since married Starke, have reconciled. Leopold, who knows nothing of his father's decline due to his long absence, has recently tried in vain to find out his whereabouts. With father Weigelt and daughter Klara, Leopold is also considered missing. Only her husband, Starke, finds out about Leopold's whereabouts and can arrange a reconciliation between father and son.

Production notes

It is a production by Majestic-Film GmbH in cooperation with Orplid-Film GmbH. Mein Leopold was filmed in two Berlin studios from October 17 to November 3, 1931 and premiered on December 18, 1931 in the Berlin Atrium Cinema.

Franz Schroedter designed the film structures. Georg Max Jacoby was the production manager, Bruno Lopinski was the production manager and also a production assistant. Fritz von Friedl and Friedel Sucrow assisted chief cameraman Willy Goldberger . Johannes Brandt wrote the lyrics to Leo Ascher's music . Franz Schröder provided the sound. In the film the songs are heard: Today I'm going all out and I don't know how to tell you .

My Leopold would prove to be extremely popular film material over the decades. Further versions were made in 1913, 1919, 1924 (silent films) and 1955 under the direction of Géza von Bolváry under the title A heart stays alone . In 1987 a version was made for GDR television.

For the writer Hans Brennert , who has tried out silent films, this was the last work he wrote for a full-length feature film and at the same time his only sound film.

Criticism and reception

In the issue of December 26, 1931, the Austrian Film-Zeitung said in a nutshell: "Max Adalbert gives an excellent character representation as the shoemaker Weigelt, Harald Paulsen is excellently suited for the role of the elegant, reckless Leopold."

“The Orplid-Messtro management never made a secret of the fact that it wanted to avoid experiments and specifically produce box office hits. The gentlemen saw the safest way to success in the filming of successful theater plays that were already known to the audience, using famous actors. In the summer of 1931 they therefore relied on the popular play Mein Leopold , which Adolph L'Arronge, the founder of the German Theater in Berlin, had written and which has been one of the long-running popular and sentimental theater entertainment since its premiere in December 1873. By 1931 Mein Leopold had already been successfully filmed three times. Steinhoff's film, however, turned out to be a financial failure in spite of a premier raised as a major social event and despite mostly positive reviews. The company management explains their loss with the catastrophic economic situation in Germany. "

Karlheinz Wendtland was of the opinion that hardly anyone else was “as predestined as Max Adalbert” for the “role of the petty-bourgeois master shoemaker”.

Paul Ickes also praised Adalbert's performance in Filmwoche : “There is not a word to be said about Adalbert with a wig; after all the allotria that he had to play in ten films, this is where the character actor comes into its own; the best role he's had in the film so far. And again - a role that comes from the theater. ”Ickes continued:“ This drive from the bottom up, this wanting to improve for a coming generation - that is the basic idea of ​​every advancement, whether you think of the idea in a bygone age exemplified - or in the present, which knows other conflicts around the same topic. Here, too, lies a bit of an eternal longing for people and men. And if the shoemaker Weigelt is led to the limit of sentimentality, it is not even so 'distant': even today people still cry at every suitable and unsuitable opportunity. It just lies within us. And it's not even the worst valve we have. (Let me say that to those who consider the master craftsman to be unfashionable and the whole conflict to be insignificant and 'bourgeois'). "Ickes continued in his consideration:" The film gets its mark from the type of actors who do not act in theater. Even Fröhlich has a tight manner that one would like to wish him for all future. ”Regarding the role of Harald Paulsen, the critic commented:“ Cold and therefore, in contrast to his father, strong, Harald Paulsen appears as the title son Leopold. The other actors fit in well ... the audience was delighted with everyone and clapped enthusiastically. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "My Leopold". In:  Österreichische Film-Zeitung , December 26, 1931, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / fil
  2. ↑ My Leopold In: Zeughauskino
  3. ↑ a b Karlheinz Wendtland: Beloved Kintopp. All German feature films from 1929–1945 with numerous artist biographies, born in 1931, Medium Film Verlag Karlheinz Wendtland, Berlin, first edition 1989, second revised edition 1991, pp. 242, 243 Film 176/1931. ISBN 3-926945-09-5