Slave of the heart
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Slave of the heart |
| Original title | Under Capricorn |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1949 |
| length | 112 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred Hitchcock |
| script |
John Colton Margaret Linden Hume Cronyn James Bridie |
| production |
Sidney Bernstein Alfred Hitchcock for Transatlantic Pictures |
| music | Richard Addinsell |
| camera | Jack Cardiff |
| cut | Bert Bates |
| occupation | |
| |
Sklavin des Herzens (OT: Under Capricorn , German: "Under the { Wendekreis des} Capricorn {s}") is a British fictional film by Alfred Hitchcock from 1949 based on the 1937 novel Under Capricorn by Helen Simpson .
action
In 1831, the genteel, ratty Irishman Charles Adare travels to Australia to start a new life in Sydney with the help of his cousin, who has just been appointed governor . Upon his arrival he meets the "released" landowner and now successful businessman Sam Flusky. At a dinner party in Flusky's house, Charles recognizes his childhood playmate in his wife, Henrietta. Henrietta is alcoholic and delusional. The household is run by young Milly, who is apparently in love with Sam.
Flusky is accepted as a businessman, but not socially. He was convicted in Ireland for the murder of Henrietta's brother, but due to recent doubts he was sentenced to seven years' exile instead of the gallows. Henrietta followed him to Australia and after his release they settled in Sydney. But the marriage got into a crisis, Henrietta addicted to alcohol.
Charles, who is indifferent to the social customs in the convict colony, helps Henrietta regain courage. Sam, who has already given up, supports him. However, Charles falls in love with Henrietta. Milly intrigues against them and makes Sam jealous. At a reception given by the governor, to which Charles and Henrietta himself invite, the sudden appearance of Sam causes a scandal.
Henrietta then sees no other way out than to tell Charles the truth: not Sam, but she herself shot her brother, in self-defense. Sam took guilt and punishment back then. You vowed never to reveal this secret. Sam arrives and expels Charles from the house. A shot goes off in a scuffle, Charles is injured and Sam is accused of attempted murder. This "second" act would bring him to the gallows. Henrietta's self-accusation finds no faith, because Sam as the only witness refuses to confirm her testimony. In her desperation she starts drinking again - animated by Milly.
By chance, Henrietta learns that Milly is the cause of her delusions (she has hidden a shrunken head in Henrietta's bed) and even tries to poison her. Sam now also sees through the connections: Out of love for Sam, Milly intrigued against Henrietta from the beginning and induced her to drink.
Attorney General Corrigan arrives and wants Sam to confirm his wife's testimony. This would save him and bring her back to Ireland for trial. When Sam refuses, he is arrested. However, Charles helps him by portraying the shot at him as an accident. So there is no handle against Sam. Charles goes back to Ireland, Sam and Henrietta stay in Sydney.
background
For Sklavin des Herzens , his second color film, Hitchcock chose a technique similar to that used for Cocktail for a corpse (1948) by recording long uncut dialogues and - freed from the confines of a single room - some breathtaking tracking shots (by the standards of the time) undertook.
Hitchcock varied one of his favorite subjects of guilt and atonement. Henrietta and Sam are chained together by their dark secret. He takes her guilt on himself. A third, Charles, sacrifices his love for Henrietta in order to free both of their nightmare and burden. The initial constellation of the relationship between Sam, Henrietta and the dark secret is reminiscent of Rebecca (1940) or Suspicion (1941).
Ingrid Bergman's role in Sklavin des Herzens became a variation of her role in Notorious (1946): At that time she played a drinker who was alleged to have been guilty of "guilt" from the past (at that time her father's war crimes, later in the film, "murder" her brother) to a husband. In both cases a woman (here the housekeeper, there the mother-in-law) tries to poison her and in both cases she is rescued by an outsider who loves her (here the childhood friend, there the CIA agent). The role of the housekeeper Milly is very similar to that of Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca . Joseph Cotten and Ingrid Bergman had starred together in George Cukor's film Lady Alquist's House five years earlier ; the starting position of the plot (wife on the verge of madness, obscure husband, helping friend from outside) is the same there, only that Cotten plays the outsider.
Ingrid Bergman was Hitchcock's dream cast for the female lead from the start. As Sam, the former groom, he would have preferred to have seen Burt Lancaster , who "literally" would have been "seen" according to Hitchcock. Costing $ 2.5 million, the film became a financial failure that sealed the demise of the Transatlantic production company.
synchronization
The German dubbed version was created in 1950 at the International Film Union. The dubbing direction was done by Alfred Kirchner, the dialogue book was written by Herbert W. Victor .
| role | actor | German Dubbing voice |
|---|---|---|
| Lady Henrietta Flusky | Ingrid Bergman | Ingeborg Grunewald |
| Sam Flusky | Joseph Cotten | Wolfgang Lukschy |
| Charles Adare | Michael Wilding | Erwin Linder |
| Milly | Margaret Leighton | Gisela Trowe |
| Governor, cousin of Charles | Cecil Parker | Alfred Haase |
| Major Wilkins | Francis De Wolff | Hans Nielsen |
| Reverend Smiley | Victor Lucas | Martin Hirthe |
criticism
Slave of the Heart was initially received mostly negatively by the public and critics. One of the reasons for the poor audience rating was presumably the fact that expectations were largely disappointed. Viewers who had read the underlying novel expected a comedy; those who had been guided by the film announcements expected a Hitchcock-typical thriller - both groups of viewers were disappointed by the costume film, which turned out to be a psychodrama. Ingrid Bergman's adulterous affair with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini was not exactly conducive to a favorable reception of the film in prudish America.
In Europe, the film was received with far greater approval; numerous French film critics count Les Amants du Capricorne among Hitchcock's masterpieces. In his interview with Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Bogdanovich mentions that in the Cahiers du cinéma of the 1950s, Capricorn was described as one of the director's most beautiful films.
“Hitchcock, the master of melodrama, stumbled. Among those who wanted to forget this film as quickly as possible, there was probably Hitchcock himself. "
“Historical melodrama about sacrifice and guilt, with a strong atmosphere and little tension. Hitchcock, who says he could never feel comfortable in costume pieces, experimented unsuccessfully with color-dramaturgical effects and unusually long takes in this film, which he made again in England after long Hollywood years. "
Cameo
Exceptionally, Hitchcock makes two brief appearances here; First he can be seen on the market square (with a coat and a brown hat), ten film minutes later he can be recognized again as one of three men on the stairs of the governor's palace.
DVD
In 1995, ZDF presented Sklavin des Herzens to the German audience for the first time in full. Some versions of the film published on DVD contain the scene that was not shown in the German theatrical version. From about 12 minutes on, immediately after Charles' first meeting with Sam Flusky, he talks to his cousin in the governor's palace about his new acquaintance, while the latter takes a bath in a wooden tub and occasionally talks to his secretary. The roughly four-minute scene - in the original with German subtitles and noticeably poorer image quality - ends with the governor's express order to Charles to turn down Flusky's invitation. These scenes were dubbed for a television broadcast on Arte .
Others
The film was released in theaters in the Federal Republic of Germany on November 17, 1950, and the German television premiere ran on January 31, 1972 at 9 p.m. on ZDF .
literature
- Helen Simpson : Under Capricorn . W. Heinemann, London and Toronto 1937, 305 pp. (No German translation so far).
- Robert A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky, eds. Joe Hembus : Alfred Hitchcock and his films (OT: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock) . Citadel film book from Goldmann, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-442-10201-4 .
Web links
- Under Capricorn in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gereon Stein: Slave of the Heart on synchrondatenbank.de. Retrieved May 27, 2019 .
- ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Slave of the heart. Retrieved February 3, 2018 .
- ^ Robert A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky: Alfred Hitchcock and his films . Ed .: Joe Hembus. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1976 (original edition).
- ↑ IMDb as of February 10, 2009
- ↑ Slave of the Heart. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ^ Lexicon of International Films
- ↑ Sklavin des Herzens ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at arte.tv
- ^ Filmdienst.de (credits) and This week on television . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1972 ( online ).
