Murder on Christmas Eve
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Murder on Christmas Eve |
| Original title | L'Assassinat du Père Noël |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1941 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Christian-Jaque |
| script | Charles Spaak |
| production | Alfred Greven |
| music | Henri Verdun |
| camera | Armand Thirard |
| cut | René Le Hénaff |
| occupation | |
| |
Murder on Christmas Eve is a French detective film from 1941. Directed by Christian-Jaque , Harry Baur and Raymond Rouleau star . The story was based on a literary model by Pierre Véry .
action
The story takes place in a snow-covered place in the French Haute-Savoie . Year after year, the old globe manufacturer “Papa” Cornusse, father of a daughter named Catherine, dresses up as Santa Claus and delights the little ones in the village with his imaginative and exciting stories. During Christmas Eve this year, eerie things happen in the community on the edge of the Alps: first a vicar is knocked down and the precious diamond he is guarding, the ring of St. Nicholas, disappears from the village chapel without a trace. A little later, an even more dramatic crime apparently occurs. Shortly before midnight mass, Papa Cornusse drives to his daughter Catherine, who is doing some work in the castle of the eerie Baron Roland. The baron, suspiciously eyed by the villagers due to his mysterious past and cosmopolitanism, shares a secret love for Catherine, who in her naivete dreams of a knight in shimmering armor who leads her to the altar.
The enthusiasm of the fragile Catherine, in turn, meets with great displeasure from the teacher Léon Villard, an unpleasant and devious-looking type. With his marriage proposal, he has already met with rejection from Cathérine. Therefore Villard tries to blacken the baron and spreads the rumor that he brought leprosy into the seclusion of the Savoy from his countless journeys through the world . It had already broken out on his right hand; the very right hand over which Baron Roland always wears a glove. First the disappearance of the precious diamond, which lies in the Christmas crib every year, then that of Santa Claus Cornusse hits this mixed bag like a bomb. When Santa Claus is found dead, the suspicion sent by Villard immediately falls on the baron. But the dead one in the Santa Claus costume is not Cornusse ...
Production notes
Murder on Christmas Eve , later also referred to as Murder on Santa Claus , was the first film by the German-financed and controlled production company Continental Films , installed in Paris in October 1940, under the direction of CEO Alfred Greven . The film went into production on February 17, 1941 on location near Chamonix and was premiered on October 16, 1941. In Germany, the film was shown in a dubbed version supervised by dialogue director Hans Conradi in 1946. The German television premiere was on December 22, 1985 on GDR television.
Guy de Gastyne created the film structures.
useful information
After the liberation of the country in 1944/45, a lot was hidden in this film and numerous allegorical allusions to the Nazi occupation and the “stolen French innocence” by the German invasion of 1940 were seen. Political symbolisms were suspected behind various scenes.
Reviews
In the lexicon of international films it says: “Dark, poetic crime film that illuminates its plot with soothing irony; Staging and camera technology excellent. "
"The poetry, the sensitivity and the mystery that emerges from the novel by Véry find perfect expression here."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Murder on Christmas Eve on dievergessenenfilme.wordpress.con
- ↑ Murder on Christmas Eve. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 1, 2019 .
Web links
- Murder on Christmas Eve in the Internet Movie Database (English)