Waterloo (1929)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Waterloo |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1929 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Karl Grune |
| script |
Bobby E. Lüthge Max Ferner |
| production |
Max Schach for Emelka , Munich |
| music | Hansheinrich Dransmann |
| camera |
Fritz Arno Wagner (chief camera) Josef Wirsching Hugo von Kaweczynski |
| occupation | |
| |
Waterloo is a German silent film from 1928. Directed by Karl Grune , Otto Fee plays the hero of the battle of the same name , the Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher .
action
The monumental, equipment and war film depicts the course of the eponymous decisive battle against Napoleon and the events that took place immediately before in a patriotic-German-national manner.
About the short content: While the Corsican emperor lives in exile on the island of Elba , after the defeat of France a congress on the redesign of Europe is taking place in Vienna . In the midst of complicated negotiations, Napoleon managed to flee to mainland France. Marshal Ney is appointed by France's King Louis XVIII. sent out with his troops to prevent Napoleon from advancing to Paris. But instead of arresting him, numerous soldiers defected to the returnees. Napoleon soon regained power in France and Ludwig had to go back into exile in Belgium.
The European statesmen have not remained inactive since the bad news of Napoleon's return and have again forged an alliance against Napoleon. The British send the still young Duke of Wellington as commander in chief , who is supposed to hold up another advance of Napoleon. His closest ally is the elderly, 72-year-old Field Marshal Blücher, whom the Prussians send into the field. One promises one another to stand by one another in the fight against Napoleon. A first encounter between the French and Prussians in the battle of Ligny on June 16, 1815 leads to a severe defeat by Blucher, who is also wounded in the turmoil.
Wellington then decides to place the French two days later near the small town of Waterloo (in present-day Belgium) . But the battle turns out differently than hoped, Napoleon's troops fight skillfully and daringly. Wellington, too, is almost in danger of defeat, when at the last moment Marshal Forward, as Blücher's name is popularly full of awe and admiration, appears with his soldiers in the hilly landscape and thus helps the Alliance to victory.
Production notes
The film was produced on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Munich production company Emelka (founded on January 1, 1919). Waterloo was conceived as a huge battle and history painting and, with ten nudes and 3505 meters in length, it is also enormous (for silent film conditions). In a way, the film can be seen as a continuation of the film Queen Luise , which was staged by the same director the year before .
The film was shot at Schleißheim Palace in the Isar Valley and in the Munich- Geiselgasteig studio . The film passed the film censorship on December 29, 1928 and was premiered on January 11, 1929 in two Berlin premiere theaters.
In a short scene, Blücher actor Fee also appears in his prime role as Frederick the Great - at the same time emanation and admonition of the legacy of the great Prussia - in order to give his Marshal Vorwärts another, original Prussian legitimation. CineGraph even found in its Fee biography that “Fridericus trains […] also the Blücher in Grunes WATERLOO (1928), played by Fee,”.
As in his two-part Queen Luise film, director Grune brought in the French Charles Vanel for the role of Emperor Napoleon. Blücher's most important ally in the defeat of the French Emperor also occupied Grune according to a national key: the Duke of Wellington was portrayed by the largely unknown British Humberstone Wright.
The film structures were made by Ludwig Reiber , the technical management was taken over by his brother Willy Reiber .
Reviews
The film received very different ratings, depending on the time and political position.
In the early phase of the Third Reich, Oskar Kalbus ' Vom Werden German Filmkunst' wrote: Karl Grune's “Waterloo” (1929) is a happy mixture of poetry and truth: Napoleon between Elba and St. Helena, the Congress of Vienna, the great battle through which Europe was liberated from Napoleon for the second time. This time the focus is on Blücher, portrayed by Otto Fee, historically completely real, even down to the smallest features of Marshal Vorwärts.
From the point of view of the Polish nationalist Jerzy Toeplitz - Napoleon was the hope for the Poles at the beginning of the 19th century regarding the regaining of state sovereignty - the assessment of Waterloo was, as expected, completely different. In its story of the film it says in communist-ideological Terminology: "For example, Karl Grune, who created the interesting expressionist film Die Strasse in 1923, directed two historical films with revanchist tendencies: Queen Luise (1927) and Waterloo (1929), whose hero is Marshal Blücher."
In Karl Grune's CineGraph biography, both his Queen Luise two-part and his Waterloo production were described as two "luxuriously furnished historical films ", the latter "being based on Abel Gance's NAPOLEON and projecting some scenes onto a three-part screen."
Web links
- Waterloo in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Waterloo at filmportal.de