Curtain up, film off!

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Curtain up, film off! was a weekly series of the first German television from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s . It was broadcast on Fridays between the Tagesschau 4:00 p.m. and the Tagesschau 5:50 p.m.

Pete York , the drummer of the Spencer Davis Group , who also played on the show, "led" the show in the later episodes - with a relatively strong English accent . He took part in many sketches in the opening act and also plays the Bogart blend, which lights a cigarette in the opening credits.

The program was structured like a classic cinema show with a supporting program and a main film.

Procedure and content

Opening credits

In the earlier episodes, after the announcement of the opening and main film by the program speakers (announcers), a burgundy and a brown curtain thinned and the opening film began. After this, the curtains only closed again briefly, only to open again immediately afterwards and release the main film. In the later years, the broadcast began with the exterior view of the model of a villa, which was shown in fast motion over the decades (including its bombing during the war). Then you see a man lighting a cigarette, in the background a 1940s-style cinema called "Broadway" (under the lettering on a luminous display panel flashed: CURTAIN UP - FILM DOWN). The man walks out of the picture and the camera moves towards the cinema, up a flight of stairs and then into a miniature cinema: the hall doors opened and the camera floated over the rows of chairs to the red curtain, which - accompanied by a gong - slowly opened to reveal the screen, on which numbers and characters were projected like a film screening. Thereupon a colorful swirling 60s psychedelic pattern and on it the text "DAS VORPROGRAMM" is displayed. Background music was a piece with a classical touch with light string and brass arrangements.

After a 10 to 15-minute, mostly downright bizarre short film, a gong sounded again and the psychedelic pattern again appeared on the screen with the words “DER HAUPTFILM”. Then a film or an episode from a series was shown.

Preliminary program

The opening program offered cartoons (such as Quark , The Mickey and Donald Show, etc.), as well as short and animated films. Furthermore, there were self-produced western skits (e.g. A man sees bread based on the Charles Bronson classic A man sees red and a duel between two cowboys, in which at the end the two revolvers of the opponents over the counter “rode” to the bet). In addition, the "minute classics", in which a classic film (e.g. 12 noon , The Third Man , etc.) was cut to one minute, were shown. Under the heading "Wonderful world of advertising" ran crazy, funny advertising templates.

List of other short films shown in the opening act:

  • The Kleistermann (cartoon by Ursula and Franz Winzentsen )
  • The story of the waterfall (a true picture story by Margret and Rolf Rettich )
  • The elephant on Papa's car - An unbelievable story (Wh. From 1976 from the series Die Sendung mit der Maus )
  • In search of a monster (film by Franz Xaver Gernstl )
  • The small steam locomotive (two funny adventures of the locomotive Egon and the locomotive driver Hans Dampf)
  • Sand Dune Racing (A film by Greg MacCillivray and Jim Freeman)
  • Play or park (written and directed by Tom Burghard)
  • Mickey Mouse : Donald as the lighthouse keeper
  • The Mickey and Donald Show (A Walt Disney Cartoon Parade)
  • Pluto's Babies (cartoon)
  • Folklore in the shopping network (weekly markets in Europe, Asia, Africa)
  • Zoo Stories (The First Minutes in Bird Life)
  • Are you a coward, Andi Antes? (Swedish cartoon)
  • Victor and Maria - The Moon (English Cartoon)
  • Buster Keaton Films
  • People, animals, poli ticker by Loriot
  • Life by a thread - remarks about the spider (documentary by Horst Stern (1975))

For example, the main films included many of Karel Zeman's fantastic real / trick films , such as B. Reise in die Urwelt (1954), The Invention of Verderbens (1957), The Stolen Airship (1967) and On the Comet (1970), but also other films, mostly adventure films and cartoons.

Another well-known feature film was the Danish fantasy cartoon Walhalla from 1986, in which the little troll Quark played for the first time (the Quark cartoons from the opening act were a spin-off series for the film).

List of other featured main films:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ [2] [3] [4] [5]
  3. ↑ http://www.tvprogramme.net