What a bully

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Movie
Original title What a bully
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1934
length 85 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Robert A. Stemmle
script Hans Reimann ,
Robert A. Stemmle
production Felix Pfitzner ,
Ernst Garden
music Harald Boehmelt
camera Carl Drews
cut Rudolf Schaad
occupation
not in the credits:

So a Flegel (reference title Adventure of a Doppelganger , partly also Der Flegel ) is a German comedy of confusion by the director Robert A. Stemmle from the year 1934. The film comedy is the first film adaptation of the novel Die Feuerzangenbowle by Heinrich Spoerl . As in the 1944 version, Heinz Rühmann plays the main role. Key roles are cast with Ellen Frank , Inge Conradi , Annemarie Sörensen , Jakob Tiedtke , Else Bötticher and Oskar Sima .

The film premiered on February 13, 1934 in Berlin's Ufa-Theater Kurfürstendamm .

action

Dr. Hans Pfeiffer, a successful playwright, is currently writing a new play that will be set in a school. Since he himself has never seen one from the inside because he has been taught by private teachers, he has the idea to visit his younger brother Erich, who is attending grammar school in the small town of Mittelbach. Despite his 22 years of age, Erich is a nasty brat. Hans has been responsible for him since the death of his parents.

Although the brothers are like eggs in appearance, they are very different in nature. While Hans is extremely conscientious and takes life and his work very seriously, Erich lacks this trait almost completely, he often has nonsense in his head and, unlike his spiritualized brother, is more practical. He's basically out of place at high school, which is also confirmed by the fact that he has already stayed seated three times.

Just as Hans is about to visit his brother in Mittelbach, Erich is on his way to see Hans in Berlin for fear of punishment from his humorless teacher Professor Crey, so that the brothers' journeys overlap. And so it happens, as it has to: Erich sees himself pushed into the role of his writing brother, while the latter is confronted with the fact that in Mittelbach he is mistaken for his boorish brother Erich. After lukewarm attempts to clear up the misunderstanding, Hans accepts this role and immediately serves a five-hour sentence for Erich in the dungeon . Of course, this role reversal is not easy for either of the brothers, as they repeatedly find themselves in situations in which they find it difficult to find their way. In the end, however, they manage to settle in and even settle in each other's world. This change is good for both of them, Hans, because he loses some of his seriousness and Erich, who suddenly finds himself confronted with the demands of adult life, because he loses a little his light-footed carelessness. And the love life of both is also developing positively. Hans falls in love with the fun-loving Rector's daughter Eva Knauer, whom Professor Crey has also had an eye on, and Erich conquers the shy secretary Ilse Bundschuh.

The farce of the brothers is ended when the actress Marion Eisenhut, Hans' ex-lover, appears in Mittelbach and puts an end to Hans and Erich's role-play. After the premiere of Hans' play "Between Second and Prima" in Berlin has been cheered by the audience, the brothers come together before the curtain. Erich has now also finished school life, together with Ilse he wants to take over her mother's textile business and lead it to success.

production

Production notes

Felix Pfitzner produced the film for Cicero-Film GmbH, Berlin. The film was shot from November 27th to mid-December 1933 in the Efa studio in Berlin-Halensee, i.e. in just three weeks. One reason for this was Rühmann's full schedule, who played the leading role in at least six films in 1934. As was common in German film at the time, outdoor shots were completely avoided, and the street scenes were all created in the studio. This meant that you were independent of weather and light conditions, which saved time losses. The experienced team around director Robert A. Stemmle and the experienced cameraman Carl Drews also contributed to the fact that such a short shooting time was sufficient.

The buildings go back to Erich Czerwonski . Hans Grimm was responsible for the sound, the sound system came from Tobis-Klangfilm . The first rental took place through Neues Deutsches Lichtspiel-Syndikat (NDLS), Berlin. The film's original negative was destroyed in World War II. Some damaged copies could be saved, from which the present version could be reconstructed.

template

Hans Reimann varies the history of the original Feuerzangenbowle significantly and not only because such a punch does not occur in the film. In the novel itself, the rich drink is the reason why Dr. Hans Pfeiffer, who was raised by private tutors, wants to find out what it is like to be one student among many. In this version, however, Rühmann depicts the Pfeiffer brothers swapping roles. The playwright goes to his brother's school, while the younger brother takes part in the premiere of the new play in the theater. Some pithy school scenes, such as head teacher Bommel's unorthodox method of explaining the function of the steam engine, are also included in this version, whereas the pretended drunkenness of the students in the chemistry lesson is missing, as is Professor Crey's rasping command: “Sentences!” Substitute is created by the scene of the funny-nostalgic dance lesson not contained in the novel. In the finale of the film, the brothers are on the stage together in the theater on the evening of the premiere, a remarkable technical film trick for 1934.

Even if such a brat doesn't always follow the plot of the original, the film made a significant contribution to the success of the book. Heinrich Spoerl was at the beginning of his career as a writer and in his function as a lawyer earned a living for his family. The movie offered the author better marketing of his work. Spoerl's proposal arose to add the following to his novel Die Feuerzangenbowle : “This is the novel based on which the film So ein Flegel with Heinz Rühmann was made.” The book sold better and better over the years. Spoerl himself wrote the script for the 1943 film. At that time he was already one of the most popular writers in the country.

reception

Approval and publication

The film hit a youth ban on January 25, 1934, which inevitably led to a loss of profits. The reasons listed in the ban were “endangering public order and security”, “violation of religious or moral feelings” and “damage to the German reputation”. In the Third Reich the censorship authority was subordinate to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels , whose subordinates refused the unlimited release of the film at the time. The plot of the film was in stark contrast to the National Socialist demands on a teaching institution. In the opinion of the censors, the state institution of schools was exposed to ridicule, and German youth should not be confronted with anything like that.

The film, which premiered on February 13, 1934, came to the German Democratic Republic's cinemas on April 3, 1953 under the title Adventure of a Doppelganger and was shown for the first time on September 2, 1958 on the DFF 1 program . It was published in Denmark on August 1, 1935 under the title Sikken en Laban . The film bears the international title Such a Boor .

On October 18, 2004, Universum Film GmbH released So A Flail on DVD. In 2005 it was the second film in the De Agostini series The Great German Film Classics . Part of the publication on DVD is a 16-page magazine with a lot of information about and about the film.

Movie review

“After a long time, finally a nice, German comedy […]. The author-director RA Stemmle is in his element here; because he has already encountered the school environment on stage with the opposite sign in his play 'Kampf um Kitsch'. There is nothing musty about this history of confusion; Heinz Rühmann, Annemarie Sörensen, Rudolf Platte and Oscar Sima [sic] were seldom so relaxed, light and lively. Sometimes put on pure nonsense, you laugh honestly at this entertaining film [...]. "

- Pem

“The predecessor of the Feuerzangenbowle with a fitting milieu comedy , in which a stage writer catches up on lost schoolboy experiences: The similarity with his brother temporarily stamps the author as senior prime minister, while he slips into the role of the writer. Heinz Rühmann in a well-played double role. "

- kabel eins, two thousand and one, Düsseldorf art cinemas

The author and critic Karlheinz Wendtland stated that this was "the first attempt" to bring about "a film as successful as 'Die Feuerzangenbowle' (Germany 1944)". He, too, had already been occupied by Heinz Rühmann, albeit in a double role, who was both successful writer Dr. Hans Pfeiffer, as well as his brother Erich, who has been sitting down three times. Wendtland found that the later version from 1944 "made much more use of the possibilities of Spoerl's book", in this version "everything remains in the beginning, but also enriched with a figure", which "later fails. , namely the dance teacher ”. Wendtland went on to say: “Rudolf Platte turned this batch roll into a showpiece of parodic art. A good ensemble with the star Heinz Rühmann brought the film to a great audience success at the time, which was certainly the reason for the later remake. By the way, the melody composed by Harald Böhmelt for the film was used until the end of the war in a modification of the text 'In the night, there be careful, the air raid protection!' sung. [Note Original text: In the night, watch out, love! ] Yes, melodies lived through the sound film back then. "

In De Agostini's film magazine “The great film classics” it says on page 4 about the role reversal of the Pfeiffer brothers: “It is thanks to Heinz Rühmann's high level of acting that the role reversal does not cause confusion among the audience. He not only changes clothes and hairstyle, but his whole being. And so there is never any doubt about who you are looking at, Hans or Erich. "

Jens Wiesner, a freelance writer at Stern , was of the opinion that “stupidly” the further course of the plot “didn't have much to do with the classic that fills the lecture halls year after year”, as the director “of the newly invented subplot to give way too much space at the theater. The teachers Bömmel, Crey and Knauer still exist - but they "simply lack the wit and the warmth compared to the version of '44". This is “best visible” in the “iconic scene about the 'steam engine', which also made it into this version”, but in comparison it appears “strangely bloodless”. Rühmann himself is also “just better ten years later; the looks more mischievous, mischievous and yet always peppered with this faint longing of a man for childhood, which he never had ”.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f “The great German film classics”, Issue 2: Such a flail - first film adaptation of the Feuerzangenbowle. Verlag De Agostini Deutschland GmbH, 2005, editing: Holger Neuhaus, Joachim Seidel, pp. 4–8, 12–14.
  2. ↑ pem : Sharply seen - but correct. Colors, flails and mayflies. In: Der Morgen - Wiener Montagblatt , December 2, 1935, p. 10.
  3. ↑ What a bully. In: kabel eins film lexicon. ProSiebenSat.1 Digital GmbH, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on September 14, 2015 .
  4. ↑ What a bully. In: zweiausendeins.de. Two thousand and one, accessed October 3, 2016 .
  5. ↑ What a bully. (No longer available online.) In: filmkunstkinos.de. Film art cinemas in Düsseldorf, archived from the original on October 3, 2016 ; accessed on October 3, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filmkunstkinos.de
  6. ^ Karlheinz Wendtland: Beloved Kintopp. All German feature films from 1929–1945 with numerous artist biographies born in 1933 and 1934 . Published by the author Karlheinz Wendtland, Berlin, Chapter: Films 1934, Film No. 22.
  7. ↑ Jens Wiesner: “Such a flail” - Do you know the original version of the Feuerzangenbowle? Instead of a Pfeiffer with three “Fs” there are two Heinz Rühmanns. But we miss the hot drink. “Such a Flail” is the first film adaptation of “Feuerzangenbowle” - but is it better? In: Stern , December 27, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2018.