As long as the heart beats
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | As long as the heart beats |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred Weidenmann |
| script | Herbert Reinecker |
| production | Walter Ulbrich |
| music | Hans-Martin Majewski |
| camera | Igor Oberberg |
| cut | Lilian Seng |
| occupation | |
| |
As long as the heart beats is a German film drama from 1958 by Alfred Weidenmann with OE Hasse in the leading role of a school director suffering from cancer. Heidemarie Hatheyer plays the leading female role at his side .
action
Stuttgart in 1958. Senior Studies Director Dr. Hans Römer has earned the reputation of a conscientious but also very strict teacher at a high school in the city. His life is not very different from many other well-established career people in the young Federal Republic of the economic boom . His marriage is frozen in everyday life, Mrs. Römer takes care of the household. Both of the almost adult children, the daughter Renate and the son Eberhard, are now going their own way.
One day, during a routine check-up for Dr. Romans a disaster. He's stealing the x-ray plates to find out. Then the bad news hits him to the core: The medical examination by the school doctor Dr. Bernburg has revealed that he is critically ill with advanced cancer. He gets certainty with the help of a trick in which he tells Dr. Bernburg stole the X-ray plates to present them to a specialist. He is told that he has no more than one year to live. Surgery is possible, but the disease is so advanced that it has little chance of success.
This news is devastating for Hans Römer, and the dejected man begins to rethink himself and his previous life. Dr. Römer wants to use the remaining time with his family and from now on enjoy every minute. From then on, the routine of marriage and family gives way to a new vital force, the marriage, frozen in the mundane, is revitalized, and Römer and his wife are getting closer again after long years of living side by side. Dr. Römer, whose change to goodness, mildness and goodness is also evident in dealing with his students, decides to fight as long as his heart beats, as the film title suggests. And so he dares the dangerous operation. His daring and daring to live pays off, the operation turns out well.
Production notes
Filming of As long as the heart beats , a side work by Weidenmann, began on September 2, 1958 and ended the following month. The film was filmed in and around Stuttgart . The premiere took place on December 27, 1958 in Berlin's Gloria Palast .
The film structures were designed by Rolf Zehetbauer , while his long-time employee Herbert Strabel took care of the painting. Fritz Schwarz was responsible for the sound. Trude Ulrich created the costumes .
The 20-year-old Grit Boettcher made her film debut here.
useful information
In 1958, the re-establishment of the UFA under the direction of Arno Hauke had resumed its film production. After two cinematic innocuous ( Mama Is not that fabulous? , Stefanie ) should As long as the heart beats , the first dramatic large fabric of the new UFA. But the “Ufa's first problem film” became a general “film problem”, as “Zeit” found in its February 13, 1959 issue (see reviews), and it also flopped at the box office.
Reviews
At that time it was said in a longer consideration under the title “Problem film in the outdated UFA style”: “That starts nicely with pictures of a graceful city (...). With good faces. And soon the hospital will also be there, a favorite place in our problem films. The subject is serious and topical. (...) The film boldly approaches its topic, but when it gets difficult, it leaves it and avoids the severity of the answer. ”Finally, the critics stated“ effective images and effective but somewhat old-fashioned image cuts ”and criticized“ clichés like the picture of this manager of the economic miracle ”(Ernst Schröder was meant). Cameraman Igor Oberberg photographed “conventionally and artistically”.
Numerous other sheets also hardly left a good eye for Weidenmann's staging. The Berliner “ Abend ” wrote: “Apparently still moved by the marble blocks of its past, Ufa seems determined to continue polishing away the rough plaster of life in its films.” Friedrich Luft found that the UFA producers had simply “got into the Beat the bushes of the Kintopp Convention ", and the telegraph judged:" A Ufa film, licked and lacquered as if time had stood still. "
The film service says: “The formally endeavored film fails to convincingly deal with the situation of a person in the face of imminent death. Instead, the script is limited to a smooth, edifying, fairly smooth story that gently ripples over the problem. Upscale German cinema entertainment. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Resurrection , cover story in Der Spiegel of January 21, 1959
- ↑ Overriding the topic , criticism of February 13, 1959
- ↑ Review overview in Spiegel 4/1959
- ↑ As long as the heart beats. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 24, 2019 .
Web links
- As long as the heart beats in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- As long as the heart beats at filmportal.de