Serenade (1937)

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Movie
Original title serenade
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1937
length 110 minutes
Rod
Director Willi Forst
script Curt Johannes Braun
Willi Forst
production Herbert Engelsing for Deutsche Forst-Filmproduktion
music Peter Kreuder
camera Werner Bohne
cut Hans Wolff
occupation

Serenade is a German feature film from 1937 by Willi Forst with the 20-year-old Hilde Krahl in her first leading role. The film is based on motifs from Theodor Storm's novella Viola Tricolor (1894).

action

The violin virtuoso Ferdinand Lohner, who has enjoyed great success with a Beethoven quartet, has been lonely and unhappy since the death of his wife Maria. Since then he has symbolically kept a seat free for her in the front row of every concert. One day, the orchestra colleague Johann Burgstaller, who plays the cello, invites the young colleague to a family party, in the hope that it will give Lohner some distraction. At the small party the violinist gets to know the young Irene, Burgstaller's niece. The two soon feel sympathy for each other, from which love ultimately grows. Finally Ferdinand Irene makes a proposal, which she accepts despite Uncle Johann's warning that the colleague with the violin is far from over the death of his wife.

Irene moves to Ferdinand's house in the mountains, where he has also housed his son from his first marriage, Heinz, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Leuthoff. While Irene quickly finds a connection with the twelve-year-old Heinz and they both become friends, old Leuthoff is not accessible. Believing that the new girl on Ferdinand's side is illegally spreading herself out here and that she could steal the last thing that was left of her dead daughter, namely Heinz, Ms. Leuthoff tries to make life as difficult for Irene as possible . Irene is not allowed to change anything in the house, which Ms. Leuthoff has designed like a memorial to her deceased daughter. Ferdinand's call to remind his former mother-in-law has no echo. When one day Ferdinand has to go on a concert tour again, Irene has no choice but to take on the fight with the monster-in-law all by herself.

One day Gusti Hollmann visits Irene surprisingly. He is her cousin, and you spend a happy, sociable evening together with Heinz. As soon as Irene is alone again, she must immediately listen to Frau Leuthoff's complaints again. For Irene this woman is becoming more and more torture every day. She decides to take her cousin on a tour into the mountains, whereupon Mrs. Leuthoff telegraphs Ferdinand to come back as soon as possible because his wife is obviously cheating on him with someone else. And so it happens. The two newlyweds break out, and Ferdinand believes the monster-in-law more than his wife. Ferdinand talks about a divorce, and Irene locks herself in her room and swallows a lot of sleeping pills. After he leaves again, Cousin Gustl and Lohner meet in the train compartment and have a clarifying conversation among men, during which Gustl makes it clear to his counterpart that nothing is going on between him and Irene and that this is a very faithful wife. Ferdinand, realizing that he has made a mistake, makes his way home to his wife and wants to ask her forgiveness.

When he comes to the mountains, a heavy thunderstorm is raging. Lightning strikes the Lohner house, which immediately catches fire. Everyone has already made it to safety, except Irene, since she is deeply asleep, pumped full of sleeping pills. Son Heinz, who suddenly remembers that there is still Oskar the rabbit in the house, hurries in and faints at the smoke. Meanwhile, Irene has woken up from her slumber and finds the unconscious Heinz on the way out. She rescues the boy as well as the rabbit and drags them both outside. She suffers severe burns in the process. Ferdinand reaches his domicile when the doctor who has arrived takes him aside and makes it clear to him how bad things are for Irene. Your will to survive, also caused by the sleeping pills, is powerfully cracked. Ferdinand now watches over her sick bed day and night. His love helps Irene over the mountain. Ferdinand promises to be there for her more in the future and to take her with him on his touring trips. House dragon Leuthoff has to leave the property and moves to Munich.

Production notes

The shooting of Serenade began on August 20, 1937, when the outdoor shots began. This ended on September 10th of the same year and took place in Berchtesgadener Land near Bad Reichenhall . The studio recordings were made between mid-September and early November 1937. The film premiered on November 26, 1937 in Berlin's Gloria-Palast .

Hans Somborn and Walter Lehmann took over the production management, Werner Schlichting designed the film structures, which were implemented by Kurt Herlth . Hans Fritz Beckmann wrote the music texts for Peter Kreuder's composition .

The Austrian actor Igo Sym , murdered by Polish underground fighters in Warsaw in 1941, played his last German-language film role here.

The following music tracks were played:

  • Annabelle
  • serenade
  • The time was good

In 1958 Veit Harlan made a remake of this film under the title I will carry you in my hands .

Reviews

Serenade is one of the least known forest films and, while a commercial success, received little critical acclaim. Below are two examples:

Boguslaw Drewnak said: “The film was not one of the best achievements of the later famous filmmaker. That the music played a significant role in terms of motif was already indicated by the title, and indeed the serenade (Peter Kreuder) accompanied the events of the film from beginning to end ”.

In the lexicon of the international film it says: "Weakly played and clichéd-pathetic drama."

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Serenade, circular from Columbus-Film AG. Zurich. Retrieved June 10, 2020 .
  2. ^ Boguslaw Drewniak: The German Film 1938-1945 . A complete overview. Düsseldorf 1987, p. 494
  3. ↑ Serenade. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 1, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

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