Little devil (1915)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Little devil |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1915 |
| length | 47 (Vienna 1915) minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ernst Matray |
| script |
Ernst Huldschinsky Jacques Burg |
| production | Jules Greenbaum |
| occupation | |
| |
Teufelchen is a short German silent film fun play from 1915 by Ernst Matray , who also embodies the title role.
action
The devil has upset her stomach, which is why the grandmother lets the doctor from hell come up. He prescribes a devilishly effective elixir, and in a moment the red rascal is so good again that he instantly becomes overjoyed. He clings to some balloons and so sails up to earth. His first encounter with someone is positive: it is a pretty peasant girl who he likes exceptionally well. Even the little one likes the horned Diabolus, but prefers to hide his diabolical insignia and tie a wreath of flowers around his horns. She thinks the hell's tail must also disappear, and so she ties an apron around his loin. When the parents of the farmer girl appear, they are angry about the new acquaintance of their daughter and pull her away from the devil.
It continues its migration. With his miracle elixir, with which he can bring everything dead to life, he is also very successful on earth. He can even use it to get a defective car back on the road. There is a lot of money to be made with these services and so little devil gets very rich in no time. But since he feels a little lonely on earth, Devil brings a scarecrow to life with his elixir, which becomes a person. But as soon as the flesh and blood, the negative side of homo sapiens becomes apparent with the straw head: the devil “friend” has nothing better in mind than stealing his money. This is not the only bad Earthling experience that the guest of Hell is supposed to have. In a bad mood, he asks grandmother to let rain, lightning and thunder crash down on the earth. So it happens, but of all things the devil's love, the peasant girl, is struck by lightning and falls dead. Not a big problem for the son of hell, he has the life-awakening elixir with him. Finally the devil and the peasant girl get married.
Production notes
Teufelchen , shot by Matray immediately afterwards from marionettes , was censored in November 1915 and was probably premiered a little later. The Vienna premiere is assured for December 31, 1915. The length in the Austro-Hungarian version was around 870 meters, divided into two or (in view of the shortness of the film rather unlikely) three acts, depending on the source.
criticism
“Ernst Matray, the excellent actor of the little devil, plays this role with such amusing skill that one really has to laugh heartily at his performance. (…) Certainly this amusing film will evoke storms of hilarity in the audience. (...) There is a lot of witty apprehension of real life in the cheerful joke of this movie game. "