The key to paradise

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Movie
German title The key to paradise
Original title The Captain's Paradise
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1953
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Anthony Kimmins
script Alec Coppel
Nicholas Phipps
production Anthony Kimmins
music Malcolm Arnold
camera Ted Scaife
cut Gerald Turney-Smith
occupation

The Key to Paradise is a 1953 British comedy film directed by Anthony Kimmins and starring Alec Guinness as the bigamist . His two wives play Yvonne De Carlo and Celia Johnson .

action

The film begins with an execution in northern Morocco. The poor devil to be fusilated is an Englishman, a certain Henry St. James. He's a real rascal who ended up in Gibraltar immediately after the Second World War. In a flashback, his life is reflected: Henry has opened a ferry service with his ship “The Golden Fleece” that connects the British exclave with the one port in North Africa, Kalique. He's a downright rascal, he literally has a bride in every port. The one in Gibraltar is called Maud and is English through and through: good, modest and very, very boring. The counterpart on the Moroccan side is called Nita, a so-called "racial woman", and is exciting, passionate and by the way Henry's lover and wife No. 2. She is 23 years younger than him and calls him "her Jimmy". He takes them out to expensive, chic restaurants and nightclubs every time they meet, where they lead a noisy and wild lifestyle. His togetherness with his first wife with Maud runs in diametrically opposite, well-worn paths: orderly, respectable and extremely sober. Every evening they both go to bed with a mug of cocoa. Henry gives Nita some sexy lingerie, Maud a vacuum cleaner. Every time he translates from one port to another, Henry adapts to the other, who of course has no idea of ​​the competition on the other bank. The captain loves this double arrangement that is very appealing to him: he has found his perfect happiness, his paradise, as the film title suggests.

Henry St. James found himself so perfectly in this perfect menage à trois that one day he made a mistake: Henry's first officer on board his ferry, Carlos Ricco, had always believed that Nita was Henry's wife while he was doing it knew nothing about Maud. When he learns of their existence, he is happy to be able to help his fraudulent boss. Because the good housewife wants to visit her husband in Kalique and comes across Nita there by chance. Henry lets his influence play on the spot and manages to arrest Maud before his double-life hoax with two wives can be exposed. The bigamist even has the cheek to tell Maud that she should never come back to Morocco, because this is not the right place for such a decent English woman, and therefore a “dangerous place”. Years go by and Maud has twins from her faithless husband. The two boys are supposed to go to school in England, and Maud is also keen to return to England, as life far away has lost its fascination for them. Things are reversed: While the gin-loving Maud craves dance and alcohol, Nita finally wants to be happy with her "Jimmy" at home and hearth in Morocco. As Henry has been very satisfied with the status quo so far, he is doing everything to keep everything as it was. As a result, his two wives each laugh at a lover. Henry finds out and leaves Nita with her lover Absalom before an argument can arise. A deadly quarrel breaks out between the two, in which Nita shoots her lover. Quite a gentleman, Henry takes the blame. Back in the present: The firing squad's shots are fired ... and the officer giving the command collapses, hit. Rascal Henry had previously “lubricated” the firing squad properly.

Production notes

The Key to Paradise was written from late 1952 to late March 1953 and was premiered on June 9, 1953 in London. The German premiere took place on January 26, 1954. The German television premiere was on March 10, 1966 on ARD .

Paul Sheriff designed the film structures, Julia Squire the costumes. Muir Mathieson was a conductor. Peter Mullins was employed as a draftsman, cameraman Denys Coop produced the on-site recordings, and Gerry Fisher was camera assistant. Tutte Lemkow and Walter Crisham were responsible for the dances.

Alec Coppel received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay / Best Story Original. Another nomination, the BAFTA Film Award, went to Celia Johnson for Best Actress.

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Captain Henry St. James Alec Guinness Reinhold Nietschmann
Nita Yvonne De Carlo Dagmar Altrichter
Maud Celia Johnson Gertrud Meyen
First Officer Carlos Ricco Charles Goldner Bum Kruger
Lawrence St. James Miles Malleson Carl Voscherau
Absalom Bill Fraser Erwin Linder
major Nicholas Phipps Udo Langhoff
sheikh Ferdy Mayne Benno Gellenbeck
Marjorie Ambrosine Phillpotts Wika Krautz

Reviews

In its edition of March 24, 1954, Der Spiegel wrote: "Anglo-Saxon dry and gleefully over-the-top, in ever new twists of the joke, a masterpiece of unflattering, pure entertainment."

TV Today judged: "Funny dismantling of the man's dream of the" rooster in the basket "."

The lexicon of the international film judges: "Alec Guinness in the main role saves the only moderately funny story from the comedy routine."

The Movie & Video Guide found that Yvonne de Carlo and Celia Johnson would make a good contrast to skipper Alec Guinness.

Halliwell's Film Guide came to the conclusion that the film "was an overly dry comedy in which the idea was funnier than the script", but also stated that Guinness had a "pleasant star performance".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The key to paradise in the German dubbing index
  2. ↑ The key to paradise in: Der Spiegel 13/1954
  3. ↑ Brief review on tvtoday.de
  4. ↑ The key to paradise. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 1, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 197
  6. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 172

Web links