Game on board
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Game on board |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1936 |
| length | 82 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Herbert Selpin |
| script | Herbert Selpin Walter Zerlett-Olfenius |
| production | Martin Pichert for the Neucophon sound film production |
| music |
Michael Jary Heinrich Strecker |
| camera | Bruno Timm |
| cut | Alexandra Anatra |
| occupation | |
| |
Spiel am Bord is a German crime comedy and a game of confusion from 1936. The film was made on board the Bremen during an Atlantic crossing to New York .
action
Bremerhaven . The Transatlantik Liner Bremen is located at the quay wall. The passengers enter the ship that is to take them to America via the gangway. Music plays on land, and on board the ship's combo tunes in to the folk song Muss i denn, muss i denn out to the town hall. Meanwhile, down on the pier, young Viktor Müller is still tinkering with his old-timer until it is hoisted onto the ship with the aid of a crane. Meanwhile, two elegantly dressed men, who are later to turn out to be crooks and fraudsters, watch the passengers - obviously with the intention of spying out valuable prey. They too, the Marquis de la Tours and the Baron von Western, go on board. Among other things, they observe a somewhat confused and excited man, the secretary Black, who is frantically looking for his boss. This is the multi-million dollar industrialist Corner, an American who travels on board completely incognito under the innocuous name Miller.
Viktor Müller is traveling, it seems, to the USA as a stowaway. For this reason he tries quickly to find a suitable hiding place on board and not to attract further attention. The two fraudsters Marquis de la Tours and Baron von Western soon cast their eyes on the obviously wealthy Mr. Henning, who is traveling with his daughter Astrid. They sense easy prey and try to gain his trust in order to take him out on occasion. De la Tours tells Henning, who wants to sell a valuable stamp collection, that he knows the company president, Corner, who is interested in Henning's stamps. But de la Tours is really concerned with the commission he hopes for himself after a possible deal between Corner and Henning.
Mr. Corner alias Miller and Viktor Müller become friends on the crossing because of their name similarity. This soon leads to a mix-up, because de la Tour now believes that the poor miller is the rich Mr. Miller, who the crook knows is none other than Tycoon Corner. One night de la Tours saw the secretary Susanne Rauh talking to Viktor Müller and drew the wrong conclusions. He thinks she knows the real Mr. Corner alias Miller and can persuade the young woman to establish contact with this alleged "company president Miller", who he thinks Viktor Müller is. However, Susanne is angry at first that Viktor Müller lied to her because he was actually that Mr. Corner, as she had just found out from de la Tours.
Müller himself cannot really interpret the confusion and Susanne's behavior at first and tells his new friend Corner / Miller about it. While having a drink at the ship's bar, he finds out about Corner's true identity. Viktor promises him slightly drunk that he will continue to play his own role as 'President Müller / Miller' for the time being. After old Henning gave him his stamp collection, the two crooks try to take it from him again, since they found out that Viktor Müller is not Mr. Miller alias Mr. Corner. To get rid of the stowaway, de la Tours and his accomplice try to throw him overboard. But Viktor, who now believes that Susanne must be the accomplice of the two men, can escape the two at the last moment.
The following day the Bremen arrives in New York Harbor. De la Tour and Baron von Western are now in a great hurry to disembark. But the chief on-board policeman Miss Distelmann, who traveled incognito herself, did not fall on her head and can arrest the two villains with the on-board security staff. And since she is on the move, she also wants to have the “stowaway” Viktor Müller taken away, who has just returned Mr. Henning's stamp collection. She is all the more surprised when he presents her with his first class ticket. Then everything clears up: Müller is really a reporter on a business trip; he was supposed to write a report entitled "As a stowaway across the ocean". Susanne, whose innocence also quickly turns out, and he sink into each other's arms.
Production notes
Spiel am Bord was the film adaptation of the play of the same name by Axel Ivers from 1935.
The content-wise completely insignificant film, a side work of Herbert Selpin , is especially important because it was made almost half a century before Das Traumschiff , mainly on board a passenger ship during a regular week-long passage through the Atlantic. Interesting, documentary impressions of life on a pre-war passenger steamer are conveyed.
On August 14, 1936, the Bremen set sail from Bremerhaven. As the passenger lists show, the following people from the film crew were on board: director Selpin, production manager Martin Pichert , actors Viktor Kowarzik (d. I. Viktor de Kowa ), Carsta Löck , Mechthilde Reif (d. I. Susi Lanner ), Alfred Abel (with his wife Elisabeth, 52, and their daughter Ursula, 21), Hans Joachim Schaufuss , the screenwriter Walter Zerlett-Olfenius , the sound engineer Wilhelm B. Suckau (i.e. Bruno Suckau , whose profession is incorrectly stated here as "actor"), the cameraman Bruno Timm , the camera assistant Fritz Wunderlich, the cloakroom attendant Johannes Krämer (who is incorrectly referred to as a cameraman on the passenger list), the unit manager Erich Frisch (here incorrectly called "director") and Heinrich Landsmann (i.e. Heinz Landsmann, here incorrectly "filmoperator") called) as well as some technicians like the sound assistant Karl Diepolt.
For the 24-year-old Rüsselsheim actress Erika Bert (actually Seibert ) who was also traveling, Astrid in Spiel am Bord was the only film role in her entire career.
The travel writer and actress Luise Ullrich was also on board , but she was not part of the Spiel on Board crew and traveled to America for other reasons.
The film structures designed by Erich Czerwonski were made in the UFA studios in Berlin-Tempelhof , the exterior shots ( port impressions ) in Bremerhaven and New York.
The two music tracks in the film were My love song sounds over blue waves and Yes, on the sea, nothing is going on . Ralph Maria Siegel wrote the texts for this.
The film premiered on November 3, 1936 in Wesermünde . The first performance in Berlin took place on December 10, 1936 .
The safe return of the Bremen from hostile waters after the outbreak of the Second World War not only led to numerous press reports in the Reich in December 1939, but also to the re-screening of this feature film.
criticism
"Game on board, which was filmed on the 'Bremen', is a unique documentary about this still legendary ship"
'The German Film 1938-1945' also praised the central factor of the film, its authenticity: "The viewer could get to know the ship from the stairway to the furthest corner like a passenger traveling along."
The lexicon of international films judged the content of the film: "Undemanding entertainment"
See also
Web links
- Game on board in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Play on board in filmportal.de
- Game on board in Murnau-Stiftung.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Film archive Kay Less
- ↑ There are fewer ship papers in the film archive
- ^ Ulrich J. Klaus: Deutsche Tonfilme, 7th volume, year 1936. P. 196, Berlin 1996
- ↑ Bogusław Drewniak: The German Film 1938-1945, Düsseldorf 1987, p. 350
- ↑ Play on board. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .