Way into the past
Way into the past is a top-class, Austrian melodrama from 1954 . Under the direction of Karl Hartl , the couple Paula Wessely and Attila Hörbiger , Willi Forst , Willy Fritsch , Josef Meinrad , Maria Holst and Rudolf Fernau play the leading roles.
action
Gabriele Gärtner, the wife of a bank director in Graz, had to find out one day that her husband Berthold had speculated on the (for the time) considerable sum of 40,000 schillings . He now has to raise the sum within three days to repay it. Gabriele then sets heaven and hell in motion to help her husband. Without telling him the real reason for her trip, she goes to Vienna to beg four old friends for the necessary sum. It will be a partly wistful, but partly also disillusioning and humiliating journey into the past. The friends of yore live in a wide variety of social and financial circumstances. Two of them, Clemens Monti and Stefan Berg, actually had the opportunity to borrow the money they once knew from their friends. But one, a conductor, is too stingy and the other, a banker, has one condition. Since he still loves Gabriele, he demands in return that she leave her husband and marry him after a divorce.
The other two friends are unable to cash such a large sum of money and lend it to Gabriele. There is the ex-German racing driver Werner Schrey, a fine guy in and of himself, but who has long been drawing on the fame of bygone times. The other, Franz Nägele, an owner of a hairdressing salon who is still unmarried because of her, is himself dependent on the goodwill (and financial aid) of his sisters. Disappointed, Gabriele then returns to her husband and confesses her unsuccessful efforts to raise money. In the end, however, the decent Franz proves to be the couple's last-minute rescue. Figaro was able to trick his sisters and raise the money for Gabriele and Berthold.
Production notes
The strip produced by Paula Wessely's own production company is particularly significant due to the fact that it has a star cast that had never existed before in Austrian film. Produced in the summer / autumn of 1954 in the Thalerhof studio in Graz with outdoor shots from Vienna and the surrounding area, Weg in der Past passed the German FSK exam on December 13, 1954 and had its world premiere a week later in Nuremberg . The film could be seen for the first time in Vienna on December 28, 1954; in Berlin , Weg into the Past started on February 1, 1955.
Otto Dürer and supporting actor Karl Schwetter were in charge of production, while Werner Schlichting created the buildings . Herbert Janeczka set the tone.
Two decades after the first collaboration between the two big stars of Austrian film, Weg in the past brought them back together: Paula Wessely and Willi Forst, who had hired the actress as the leading actress in his film Masquerade . Forst protégé Maria Holst ( Burgtheater , operetta , Viennese blood ), who embodies his wife here, also took part. For Forst and Willy Fritsch, on the other hand, the way into the past meant a reunion in front of the camera after 22 years, after Fritsch last played in Wiener Blut under Forst in 1942 . As early as 1932, the two applicants Willy I and Willy II for the favor of Lilian Harvey were both very successful in the legendary box office success A blond dream . It was the first appearance in front of the film camera for Rose Renée Roth , who returned to the USA, who was just 52 years old .
Reviews
Paimann's film lists summed up: “Old fable with character roles, but which are prepared with knowledge of their possibilities, just as the actors interpret their characters in a lifelike manner. Well-balanced dialogues, differentiated presentation. "
The review of the released DVD, which was taken from film.at , read as follows: “This well-made and coherently staged strip may be based on a treatment by (unnamed) Walter Reisch. The book gives Wessely more than ample opportunity to demonstrate her steadfast composure in all situations, but at the same time condemns her to surrender to the soloistic caprices of the men's quartet, which are heterogeneous in tone and gesture. The compulsion to keep things short, which goes along with the episodic concept, nevertheless makes 'Way into the Past' one of the better films of the late Wessely. Josef Meinrad stands out among the men; at his side one would have liked to see the Wessely again. "
“After shallow entertainment films in the Federal Republic, he succeeds [note. Karl Hartl] is meant in the middle of the 50s with WEG IN DIE VERGANGENHEIT (with Paula Wessely) and the committed, idiosyncratic interpretation of MOZART (with Oskar Werner) thematically and formally ambitious productions. "
"In the form of a chamber play, carefully staged episode film of high theatrical quality."
Web links
- Way back in time in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Path into the past at filmportal.de
- Way into the past Illustrierter Film-Kurier No. 2041
Individual evidence
- ↑ corresponds to a good 2900 € today
- ↑ Way into the past In: Paimann's film lists
- ↑ Path into the past adS suchebiete.com/DVD (with cover picture Das Neue Filmprogramm with from left to right Rudolf Fernau, Willy Fritsch, Willi Forst, Josef Meinrad, Attila Hörbiger and in the middle Paula Wessely)
- ↑ way in the past adS film.at
- ↑ Way into the past. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
