Man with no name

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Movie
Original title Man with no name
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1932
length 87 or 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Gustav Ucicky
script Robert Liebmann based
on the novel Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac
production Günther Stapenhorst for UFA , Berlin
music Allan Gray
conducted by Hans-Otto Borgmann
camera Carl Hoffmann
occupation

Mensch ohne Namen is a German drama film from 1932. Werner Krauss plays the leading role under the direction of Gustav Ucicky .

action

The Soviet Union in 1932. A German soldier was badly wounded on the Eastern Front during World War I and has since lost his memory. He doesn't even remember his real name. He has settled in in socialist Russia, and the man expertly runs a state vehicle construction factory. When one day a German delegation visits the factory and he gets his hands on a German magazine, the memory suddenly comes back. His name is Heinrich Martin, he is an industrialist and has his own company in Berlin. Martin then returns to his old home ... and doesn't find anything the way it used to be.

After 16 years of absence, he has to see that his car company, Martin-Werke AG, was bought by his old friend Dr. Alfred Sander is headed. Martin's wife Eva-Maria, for whom Heinrich has been missing since his assignment near Dünaburg in the war year 1916, finally had him declared dead in 1921. Martin is becoming more and more a person without a name. He is not admitted to his confidants and relatives, the authorized signatory of the Martin-Werke does not even allow him to enter his own company premises. The other employees don't recognize him either. And so Martin remains a stranger in this new world. Attempts to get your identity recognized by the police and courts fail.

Visibly alone, Martin only sees a solution in suicide. When he is about to throw himself off a bridge, a man stops him at the last moment. It's about the commission agent Julius Hanke, whom everyone just calls "Jule". He takes him to a pub, where Heinrich finally has the opportunity to talk to someone in detail about his fate. Having become homeless, Jule takes Heinrich Martin with her and gives him shelter. The next morning, Martin met the fun-loving and unemployed stenographer Grete Schulze, in whom the broken man quickly gained confidence.

After all the rejections, Martin makes one last attempt to get to Dr. Sander to advance. He succeeds, but Sander has great doubts as to whether the man standing in front of him is telling the truth and is actually Heinrich Martin. Rather, he thinks he's a fraud. When Heinrich sees his wife and daughter Helene again, they don't recognize him either. Officially declared dead and denied by his closest confidants, the broken man is denied a return to his old life. And so it is Grete, with her natural, clear-thinking manner and her unshakable optimism, who brings him back to life in the moment of greatest emotional distress.

Heinrich Martin begins to rearrange his life, he recalls his old talents and makes an invention that he finally applies for a patent. It is precisely this invention that will later prove that he is mentally clear, since attempts are already being made to declare him insane in court. Because Martin continued to insist on being who he is. But now he wants to go to new shores. In order to finally come to an end with everything that has passed, he therefore names Leberecht Müller as the new name in court where his case is pending. With Grete as his partner, he can start a new life.

Production notes

The film was shot from March 12 to April 22, 1932 in Berlin, including at Alexanderplatz . The premiere of the film took place on July 1, 1932 in the UFA-Palast am Zoo . On March 20, 1971, the film was shown for the first time on German television ( ZDF ). The film is a modernized version of the novel Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac .

Less than six months after the shooting of the Prussian film Yorck was finished , director Ucicky and main actor Krauss also worked together on this project, Krauss's second sound film. The theater actress and Reinhardt's wife Helene Thimig made her film debut here; Man without a Name was her only film before she emigrated.

The film structures were made by Robert Herlth and Walter Röhrig , Herbert Frohberg served as their assistant architect. Günther Anders assisted head cameraman Carl Hoffmann . Eduard Kubat served as manager , Erich Leistner took care of the sound.

A single track was played, the "March of the Unknown Soldier". Man without a name was given the title “artistic”.

At the same time, a French version was made under the title Un homme sans nom with largely unknown French actors (including the later star comedian Fernandel ). This started on September 30, 1932 in Paris .

Reviews

In Oskar Kalbus ' Vom becoming German film art it is said: “With this picture strip, a masterpiece has been created that will endure forever as a milestone in the history of the sound film. The tremendous success is not only due to Werner Krauss, the performances of the other actors are also above the level of the previous good film. Especially Maria Bard, who gave her best and created such a lifelike shorthand typist that we have never seen in the film. "

The Lexicon of International Films writes: "The effect of the pathetically staged film is based on its photography and the skillful guidance of the actors."

In Heinrich Fraenkel's Immortal Film you can read: "Werner Krauss plays with shocking forcefulness the one who was believed to be dead, the one who was struck out of the files and started a whole new life".

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Oskar Kalbus: On the becoming of German film art. Part 2: The sound film. Berlin 1935. p. 56
  2. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films, Volume 5, p. 2559. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987
  3. ↑ Immortal Film. The great chronicle. From the first tone to the colored wide screen, p. 388, Munich 1957

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