Tango Notturno
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Tango Notturno |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1937 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fritz Kirchhoff |
| script |
Rolf E. Vanloo Philipp Lothar Mayring |
| production | Rolf E. Vanloo |
| music | Hans-Otto Borgmann |
| camera | Fritz Arno Wagner |
| cut | Gertrud Hinz |
| occupation | |
| |
Tango Notturno is a German love melodrama from 1937 by Fritz Kirchhoff with Pola Negri and Albrecht Schoenhals in the leading roles.
action
The story takes place in England. The young pilot officer Billy Sefton comes home from abroad and is the first to go to his club. There he met numerous comrades whom he would definitely like to bring a souvenir from abroad: It is a record on which a certain Mado Doucet sings the "Tango Notturno". The composer of the piece, Jac Gerard, is also present in the club and then leaves the premises depressed. Gerard strolls through the streets and remembers the central episode in his life, which is closely linked to the "Tango Notturno". He once wrote this piece, at that time still completely unknown and unsuccessful, for the then famous singer Mado, which ensured him a resounding success. The audience was ecstatic, and the piece of music brought Mado and Jac together too. Both married, and a little later Mado gave birth to a son.
Things suddenly got complicated when one day the aviation officer Eddie Lincoln returned to England from the tropics. He and Mado once had a passionate affair, and unlike Mado, he simply cannot forget them. So Eddie regularly indulges in the bottle. Mado, who sees him completely drunk, feels something like complicity in his pathetic situation and tries to rebuild Eddie with words. For this reason, she leaves her and Jac's house, leaving both of them with their son Charlie, who has just recovered from an illness. When Mado returns from Eddie to home and hearth, a catastrophe has happened in the meantime: the still ailing boy fell down the stairs in search of his mother and was killed in the process. Jac returning home is beside himself and has to find out that Mado was not home at the crucial time. The father of the dead child assumes that his wife, completely distraught, may have been with a lover and blames her for Charlie's death. Mado runs completely headless out of the house to leave everything behind. Mado Doucet has disappeared, and her social decline seems unstoppable. Eddie, who found out about the disaster, wants to at least do his own thing and explain to Jac that there was nothing between him and Mado - on the contrary: she had brought him to the point that he wanted to do without her for good. Thereupon Jac went feverishly in search of his hiding wife.
While Jac is pondering the past in the present, a careless woman scurries past him, but Jac immediately recognizes: it's Mado! She is very sick, run down, and does drugs. Jac follows her to her pathetic little room, where he speaks to his wife. Mado seizes this chance and wants to pack up her belongings when Jac tries to settle the remaining rent of the room with the landlady Mrs. Wattson. She doesn't give Mado a good hair and is extremely free to express her opinion: Namely, that someone who has sunk so deeply will no longer get out of the dirt and can only drag others into the abyss with him. Mado, hearing this, is now finally on the ground: She takes up a gun and shoots herself. Since no one can testify to her suicide, Jac Gerard is arrested and charged with murder. He remains silent in court because he is complicit in Mado's act of desperation. And again it is Lincoln who saves Jac, now his friend. Eddie tells the judge the whole tragic story of Mado, so that Jac is eventually acquitted.
Production notes
Filming began on October 4, 1937 and ended at the beginning of the following month. The film was shot in the UFA studios in Neubabelsberg. The premiere took place on December 23, 1937 in the Berlin Tauentzienpalast .
Hans Conradi took over the production management, Otto Lehmann the production management. The film constructions come from Erich Czerwonski and Carl Böhm .
music
Pola Negri sings the Tango Notturno as well as the chanson “Isn't happiness coming today”. Hans Fritz Beckmann wrote the text to the music by Hans-Otto Borgmann .
The orchestra Die Goldene Sieben plays.
useful information
Originally, so it was thought in the circle of Joseph Goebbels, Marlene Dietrich was supposed to play the role of Mado Doucet, who refused to return to Germany. Only then did they resort to the Negri.
Reviews
In its review, the Österreichische Film-Zeitung named Pola Negri a "versatile artist who knows how to interest both as a celebrated diva and as a downcast woman who has fallen into misery ..."
The film service judged: "The film is especially remarkable because of its leading actress: Pola Negri plays genre-fair and quite impressive with the pathos of a silent film diva."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . Volume 8 (entry Vanloo), Berlin 2001, p. 139
- ^ Ulrich J. Klaus: Deutsche Tonfilme, 8th year 1937. p. 178 (94.37), Berlin 1997
- ^ "Tango Notturno". In: Österreichische Film-Zeitung , December 24, 1937, p. 3 (online at ANNO ).
- ^ Tango Notturno. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 26, 2019 .
See also
Web links
- Tango Notturno in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Tango Notturno at filmportal.de