People on Sunday

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Movie
Original title People on Sunday
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1930
length 74 minutes
Rod
Director Robert Siodmak
Edgar G. Ulmer
script Billie Wilder ,
Curt Siodmak ,
Robert Siodmak (anonymous)
production Moriz Seeler for Filmstudio 1929, Berlin
music Otto Stenzeel
camera Eugen Schüfftan
Fred Zinnemann
cut Robert Siodmak
occupation

In small guest appearances: Valeska Gert , Kurt Gerron , Ernö Verebes , Heinrich Gretler

People on Sunday is a silent film by Robert and Curt Siodmak , Edgar G. Ulmer and Billy Wilder . It was produced by Moriz Seeler's production company "Filmstudio 1929" and was created in 1929 and 1930 in Berlin and the surrounding area. The premiere was on February 4, 1930. He is one of the late representatives of the New Objectivity in film.

content

The film begins on a Saturday at Berlin Zoo . The hectic hustle and bustle of people, cars, S-Bahn, buses and trams is shown. This is followed by the introduction of the main characters - the taxi driver Erwin and his girlfriend, the mannequin Annie; the extra Christl and her friend Brigitte, a record seller; finally the wine representative Wolfgang.

Wolfgang speaks to Christl in front of the Zoo station, they go to a street café and arrange to go on a Sunday excursion to Nikolassee . This is followed by shots of ships on the Spree and children on the bank. Change of scene. Erwin comes home after work, Annie is lounging on the chaise longue . He sits down at the set table, drinks, eats and reads the newspaper. Then they both get ready to go to see the latest Garbo film in the cinema. A quarrel arises, eventually they tear up each other's numerous star postcards . The visit to the cinema is canceled, instead Erwin and Wolfgang, who is the neighbor of the two, play cards.

Sunday. You can see pictures from Berlin. Parks, street scenes, views from the light rail . At the station Berlin-Nikolassee Christl waiting as agreed at Wolfgang; she has her friend Brigitte in tow. Wolfgang comes accompanied by Erwin. Since Annie apparently prefers to spend Sunday in bed, the four of them go to Wannsee . On a secluded stretch of shore they change their clothes, go swimming, put on records and eat potato salad and hot sausages.

This is again followed by documentary recordings of a hockey game , from the zoo , from Berliners on the balcony and at the windows. A nap is taken on park benches. In Annie's newspaper, Carl Bulcke's serial novel And So You Spend Your Short Days is open (Bulcke was the top German film censor until 1924). The Hausvogteiplatz , the center of the Berlin clothing industry appears Sundays deserted. Pictures of tombs of a stonemasonry and dilapidated backyards create an ambivalent mood: a single gentleman is delighted at the monument to the “Great Elector” , strollers accompany a band of music in step. In the Strandbad Wannsee, on the other hand, there is hustle and bustle and a colorful mess. A photographer shoots souvenir pictures for everyone. A large number of beach visitors are portrayed with the (film) camera: some shy, others happy, others in the typical poses of film stars.

At the Wannsee, Christl jealously realizes that Wolfgang is turning to the less stubborn Brigitte. The two disappear in the adjacent forest, where a love scene occurs. Camera work and mise-en-scène indicate that they are having sex. Reunited, the four go on a pedal boat ride, during which the men - to Brigitte's disappointment and Christl's slight satisfaction - flirt extensively with two women rowing past. Due to the delay, the boat trip is more expensive than expected, so that Erwin embarrassingly has to borrow a mark from Christl . Then they take the bus back to the city. Here they part ways, not without Brigitte and "Wolf" agreeing to meet again next Sunday. At home, Erwin finds Annie still sleeping in bed.

The epilogue, under the subtitle “And then on Monday”, is followed by hustle and bustle on the streets, people on their way to work or school. In between, the subtitles "work again", "everyday life again", "week again" are displayed. Brigitte is selling again in the Electrola store. The film ends with the sentence, the words of which are faded in one after the other: “4 million are waiting for the next Sunday”.

background

The film depicts the life of young people in the metropolis of Berlin at the end of the 1920s . Four of the five main actors were in front of the camera for the first time, only Christl Ehlers had already played a leading role in the fairy tale film Frau Holle a year earlier . The story of how it was made makes the film one of the first independent films and a forerunner of post-war neorealism . Menschen am Sonntag is also worth seeing because of its documentary film footage of the still undestroyed capital in a summery weekend atmosphere.

The film was made possible because Robert Siodmak received 5,000 marks as a gift from an uncle and his brother Curt had a story for a film that could be made with little effort. The later Oscar winner Billy Wilder wrote the script with Robert Siodmak. The Siodmak brothers, like Wilder, continued their careers in the United States. Edgar G. Ulmer was primarily supposed to make B-films in Hollywood . The director Kurt Gerron and the dancer Valeska Gert (in the photography scene) have short appearances .

The film was shot from July 10th to December 11th, 1929, initially under the direction of Rochus Gliese . The premiere took place on February 4, 1930 in the Union Theater UT Kurfürstendamm.

Version

The original version, which is no longer there, was 2,014 meters long. The version that now exists consists of a 1,615-meter-long version from the Nederlands Filmmuseum , whose missing scenes have been supplemented as far as possible with preserved sequences from the Cinémathèque Suisse , the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique and the Fondaziona Cineteca Italiana . The German subtitles were rewritten based on existing text sources. The result is a 1,856 meter long final version.

criticism

“A semi-documentary collage of game scenes and social reportage, one of the outstanding works of the German silent film avant-garde through visual verism, representation and communication of social reality. The precise and authentic observations from the milieu of the employee culture, exemplary of the social development of the late 1920s, have the character of a historical document; the staging style of the film, which develops its episodes from the flair of the original locations and the spontaneous self-portrayal of its amateur actors, influenced poetic realism in France in the 1930s and shaped the style of Italian neorealism. "

- Lexicon of international film

See also

Berlin - The symphony of the big city

literature

  • Rudolf Freund: People on Sunday . In: Günther Dahlke, Günther Karl (Hrsg.), German feature films from the beginning to 1933. A film guide. Henschel Verlag, 2nd edition, Berlin 1993, p. 214 f. ISBN 3-89487-009-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the opening credits and Robert Siodmak, Hans C. Blumenberg (Ed.): Between Berlin and Hollywood. Memories of a great film director. Herbig, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-8004-0892-9 , pp. 42-43.
  2. ↑ Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 312.
  3. ^ A b People on Sunday in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  4. ↑ Jens Bisky, Berlin, Biography of a Big City, Berlin 2019, p. 509
  5. ↑ Robert Siodmak - author, director . In: CineGraph - Lexikon zum Deutschsprachigen Film , Lg. 14, F 1