Via Mala (1961)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Via Mala
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1961
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Paul May
script Kurt Heuser
Paul May
production Artur Brauner
music Rolf Alexander Wilhelm
camera Richard fear
cut Walter Wischniewsky
occupation

Via Mala is a German film adaptation of the novel of the same name by John Knittel from 1961 by director Paul May . It is the second film adaptation of the material after the film from 1948.

Christine Kaufmann with Christian Wolff, who played together in Via Mala in 1961

action

The old Jonas Lauretz runs a remote sawmill with his family in the Viamala in Switzerland . Lauretz is a violent tyrant and harasses his wife, son Niklas and daughters Sylvia and Hanna at every opportunity. After a binge, Lauretz starts a fight and has to go to jail for it. Now his relatives hope that he will change because of this act.

An old professor whom Sylvia looked after on a regular basis dies while in custody and bequeaths his entire fortune to her. But because she is not yet of age, the money is transferred to her father, who, however, does not find out about it in prison. After his release, he happened to find the savings account and immediately squandered the entire fortune. After this incident, the family had enough and decided to put their long-cherished wish to kill their father into practice. After the committed murder, of all people, Sylvia's fiancé Andreas von Richenau is entrusted with the clarification of the case. This puts the whole Lauretz family under pressure, who tell him the truth in the end, but also justify themselves with the misery caused by Lauretz.

Now, after long deliberations and despite the personal risk, he decides to cover up the murder and initiates the conclusion of the investigation: Jonas Lauretz is declared missing.

For a more detailed table of contents see: Via Mala (Roman) #Contents

Reviews

"Smoothly staged Heimatfilm drama that tries to arouse sympathy for a murder in an extreme case."

- Lexicon of international film

“The staging style fully corresponds to the content of this shameful new fateful film from Germany. And, with a few exceptions, the acting performances are in the same shadow. Christine Kaufmann, in particular, is the wrong choice. This girl can never, ever represent a woman and a mother. "

- Protestant film observer

“The construction of John Knittel's novel could also have provided the template for a bombastic homeland film. However, director Paul May skilfully prevents this and stages a moving family drama, at least in the first half. Gert Fröbe plays old Lauretz so unsympathetically that you just have to feel with your family. As a result, the stripes flattened noticeably after the act, because on the one hand there is no more frost, on the other hand nobody can be interested in the clarification of the 'atonement'. "

- Frank Ehrlacher at moviemaster.de

“Just like Thea von Harbou, Kurt Heuser and Paul May did not adhere to the novel by John Knittel in their script, which raises the question of why the book is being filmed again just ten years after the first West German theatrical screening had to. Only the camera work by Richard Angst and Rolf Wilhelm's film music are noteworthy in this remake. Everything else takes place in the dripping lard of a down-to-earth alpine drama, which is quickly exhausted in platitudes and hackneyed images. "

- The big TV feature film film dictionary

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lexicon of international film (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997
  2. ↑ http://www.moviemaster.de/archiv/film/film_2367.htm
  3. ↑ -jg- in: The great TV feature film film lexicon . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 , pp. 13355-13356.