Front stairs - back stairs
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Front stairs - back stairs |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1916 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Urban Gad |
| script | Urban Gad |
| production |
Paul Davidson for PAGU, Berlin |
| camera |
Axel Graatkjær Karl Freund |
| occupation | |
| |
Front stairs - back stairs , also known as front stairs and back stairs , is a German silent film in three acts that was shot in 1914, but only shown in 1916. Asta Nielsen plays the lead role, directed by Urban Gad .
action
Patch tailor daughter Sabine Schulze lives with her parents in the simplest of circumstances in a room in the back of the house. In the front building resides, among other things, hussar lieutenant von Hammeln, a womanizer who, however, has notorious financial worries. Sabine is courted by waiter Lehmann, to whom she is "pretty much" engaged according to her parents' wishes, but whom she persistently ignores. Only when one day he gave her a lottery ticket filled in with her date of birth (25 [.] 3 [.] 82) does she notice him and give him a kiss in thanks. However, your goal is a better match. When she has to clean the front stairs one day, to her chagrin, she meets von Mutton. Both chat with each other and the lieutenant spontaneously arranges a rendezvous with Sabine. They go to a café, and von Hammeln is already irritated by Sabine's behavior on the way there, since he tries in vain not to cause a stir with her as an improper match. Even in the coffee house where Lehmann works as a waiter, Sabine stands out for her unconventional, rough manner, whereby she tries to ignore Lehmann. The lieutenant is embarrassed, especially since Sabine proudly shows him her lottery ticket in the café. When they both leave, Sabine forgets the lot on the table and Lehmann sadly takes it.
Sabine goes with von Hammeln to his apartment and indulges in luxury. She fends off his sometimes rabid advances. Back in her room, it is her mother who reproaches her for her behavior. The excitement subsides when von Hammeln pays the family a visit shortly afterwards: the parents' concern for their daughter turns into pride. In order to get out of his financial difficulties, von Hammeln is also looking for a lucrative "public" relationship and wants to become engaged to the daughter of the Commerce Councilor Goldsohn, which Goldsohn forbids. Sabine, on the other hand, suddenly becomes a good match: Von Mutton learns from the newspaper that Sabine's lottery ticket has won her and made her richer by 250,000 RM. Without further ado, he goes to Sabine in gala uniform and with a bouquet of flowers and asks her for her hand. Sabine, who knows nothing about the loss of the lottery ticket and the main prize, accepts the engagement with surprise and delight. Various activities follow, including a visit to the fair, for which Sabine is dressed up by her older sister, who is having an affair with Goldson. While Sabine tried out the various attractions enthusiastically, von Hammeln already felt sick while riding the ship swing. Von Hammeln has long been planning to escape the inappropriate relationship and steals a compromising photo of Goldsohn from the Sabines family.
Of necessity, von Mutton invites Sabine and her parents to a masked ball. The parents appear as a knight and the island of Cuba, while Sabine arrives disguised as a dragonfly in the hall. All three attract attention with their masquerade, but at first bask in the glamor of society. After a while, however, Sabine withdraws with Lehmann, who works as a waiter at the event. She realizes that she belongs much more to him than to von Hammeln. Both team up and can trick two noble women into playing cards. Meanwhile, von Hammeln has succeeded in blackmailing Goldsohn and is allowed to marry his daughter. Sabine and her parents are no longer of interest to him and he meets them with the coolness of his class. Due to the conspicuous behavior of the family, von Hammeln has father, mother and daughter thrown out, which only succeeds after a few fistfights. Sabine announces that she is happy that she comes from the back stairs. Lehmann follows the family home and finally shows Sabine her prize ticket. The family and Lehmann celebrate the win.
Production notes
The comedy Vordertreppe - Hintertreppe is based on motifs from the play Die Ehre by Hermann Sudermann from 1890. The film thematized the very sensitive social issue of class differences and class conceit in Wilhelminism and asked in a humorous way the question of the extent to which two people from different walks of life interact can be happy. Thematically similar, but dramatic and with clearly more socially critical undertones, was the Gad / Nielsen film Poor Jenny , premiered in 1912 , which also contained a "very similarly staged scene" with the scene of cleaning the stairs. The front staircase set was also used for the film The Daughter of the Country Road .
The film was shot in the Union studio in Berlin-Tempelhof in 1914 . Production manager Ernst Körner also assisted director Gad as an assistant director. The film constructions come from the hand of Fritz Seyffert . The release of the film was delayed by the outbreak of the First World War . It was submitted to censorship on September 3, 1915, with various scenes being censored. Among other things, a scene was deleted in which Sabine was physically harassed by mutton, as well as two sliding dance scenes at the masked ball. However, the censors did not release the film for children. The film premiered on March 24, 1916 in the Union theaters in Berlin. It also ran internationally, including from 23 August 1916 in Denmark (under the title Forhus og Baghus ) and 1918 in the Netherlands, in cinemas.
Front staircase - back staircase has three acts and was originally 1,074 meters long. The longest copy of the film that has survived is 742 meters long. Copies of the film are in the possession of the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv , the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung , the Deutsches Filminstitut and the Gosfilmofond Moscow.
Reviews
In issue no. 483 of March 29, 1916, Der Kinematograph said that Asta Nielsen made the viewer regret “that we so rarely see her in humorous roles. She is and remains one of our most versatile artists. Urban Gad has once again proven his great mastery through the authentic style of the staging. You didn't just see the room in the back - you smelled it too. "
Reclam's guide states that “the greatest asset is undoubtedly the Nielsen game. But the camera also occasionally came off the template: Once Gad put it on a carousel so that the dance of the world flying by directly reflects the girl's joy. "
Heinrich Fraenkel found that the film “became famous through the great art of the Nielsen, despite the kitschy treatment of social issues”. Other critics saw “certain socially critical attitudes” in the film, so the film with its ironic point of view signals approaches for “bringing an albeit superficial reflection of social conditions of the Wilhelminian era into the film as well”, whereby it also approaches contemporary plays by Lean against Gerhart Hauptmann or Arno Holz .
literature
- Front stairs - back stairs . In: Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann (ed.): Nachtfalter. Asta Nielsen, her films . Volume 2 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria publishing house, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902531-83-4 , pp. 187-197.
Web links
- Front steps - back steps in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Front stairs - back stairs at filmportal.de
- Front stairs - back stairs on the Det Danske Filminstitut website with stills and a cutout
Individual evidence
- ^ Annette Förster: Between seduction and comedy. Asta and Musidora . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2010, p. 68.
- ↑ The daughter of the highway . In: Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann (ed.): Nachtfalter. Asta Nielsen, her films . Volume 2 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria publishing house, Vienna 2010, p. 167.
- ↑ a b front stairs - back stairs . In: Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann (ed.): Nachtfalter. Asta Nielsen, her films . Volume 2 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria Publishing House, Vienna 2010, p. 187.
- ↑ Often the wrong date is 1915, i. H. before the censors released it and one year before the reviews in the film magazines of the time (March 1916) appeared. Correct, however, in: front stairs - back stairs . In: Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann (ed.): Nachtfalter. Asta Nielsen, her films . Volume 2 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria Publishing House, Vienna 2010, p. 187.
- ↑ Front stairs - back stairs on the pages of the Danske Film Institute .
- ↑ Ansje van Beusekom: stage and screen: performances in the Netherlands from 1911 to 1920 . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria publishing house, Vienna 2010, p. 400.
- ↑ Thomas C. Christensen: The lost shadow. Copying situation of the long feature films Asta Nielsen . In: Heide Schlüpmann, Eric de Kuyper, Karola Gramann, Sabine Nessel, Michael Wedel (eds.): Impossible love. Asta Nielsen, her cinema . Volume 1 of Edition Asta Nielsen. 2nd Edition. Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2010, p. 466.
- ↑ Kinematograph Critique (1916) in filmportal.de
- ↑ Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski (collaborators): Reclams film guide . Stuttgart 1973, p. 133.
- ^ Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. The great chronicle from the Laterna Magica to the sound film . Munich 1956, p. 389.
- ↑ Front stairs - back stairs . In: Günther Dahlke, Günter Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginning to 1933. A film guide . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1988, p. 29.