Wild vacation
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Wild vacation |
| Country of production | Switzerland |
| original language | Swiss German , French , Italian |
| Publishing year | 1943 |
| length | 84 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Franz Schnyder |
| script |
Franz Schnyder , Richard Schweizer , Kurt Guggenheim |
| production | Lazar changer |
| music | Robert Blum |
| camera | Emil Berna |
| cut | Hermann Haller |
| occupation | |
| |
Wilder Urlaub (in French-speaking Switzerland : La Nuit sans Permission ) is a Swiss feature film by director Franz Schnyder from 1943, based on the novel of the same name by Kurt Guggenheim from 1941.
action
Wilder Urlaub portrays a fateful night in the life of a Swiss soldier during World War II. Mitrailleur Hermelinger rents an attic room from the Ruttishuser family in Zurich's old town. He is on the run because he killed his superior Sergeant Epper in an argument. While trying to steal civilian clothes in the next room, he is surprised by his tenant, the student Fritz Hablützel. He is an officer and as such has a pistol, which Hermelinger takes. When a shot from the gun goes off, Hermelinger gives up the resistance and makes a confession.
A flashback shows how the former school friends Hermelinger and Epper have become increasingly estranged: Epper, as a son from a good family, began to avoid the working-class son Hermelinger, and in the military service he uses his higher rank to harass Hermelinger until he is affected struck with a stone.
Back in the present, Hermelinger is asked by his landlord, Emil Ruttishuser, to fetch a doctor: his daughter Lorli is seriously ill and the father fears the worst. The situation offered Hermelinger a good opportunity to escape, but in the end he did his job. Then he sits down in an inn; When it closes, the waitress offers him to spend the night in her room. But Hermelinger has a nightmare and the waitress is frightened. Hermelinger flees through the darkened Zurich, escaping the police who are monitoring the curfew. In Ruttishuser's house, he meets Hablützel again, who is just about to join his unit. For his part, he now confesses to Hermelinger that he has deceived both his parents and the army because he is no longer studying.
The next morning, Lorli Ruttishuser survived the critical phase of her illness. Hermelinger takes the train to Marseille at Zurich main station, but gets off a little later in Dietikon, where his unit is stationed to face the military justice. When he arrived in the quarters, he was received by Sergeant Epper, who was only injured. Impressed by Hermelinger's courage, Epper overcomes the previous distance and calls on his former school friend again.
background
Wilder Urlaub brings Guggenheim's early work to a close with Hauswirth's so-called psychological- impressionist novels. Thematically, these move between breakout and homecoming, connecting elements are the emphasis on the guilt motive, the symbolic meaning of the night and the affinity to crime.
Guggenheim had the idea for Wilder Urlaub during his service at the turn of the year 1939/40, which he - like his fictional character - spent as a Mitrailleur in Dietikon . It seems that Guggenheim developed the whole novel during his military service; When I returned home, it took less than two months to write it down.
In 1941 Leopold Lindtberg, the director of films such as Wachtmeister Studer and Landammann Stauffacher , became interested in a film adaptation of Wilder Urlaub . Kurt Guggenheim put together an exposé of his novel, removed from it as a precaution all elements that could have encountered resistance from the military censorship, and submitted it to Praesens-Film . The latter approached the military department of the canton of Zurich early on, which gave its decision in February 1942. In the eyes of the military there was basically nothing wrong with the film, only the negative characterization of Wachtmeister Epper was objected to and it was recommended that the assault on him be portrayed as an act of affect.
A year later, when the project was ready, the Praesens film was informed by another military agency that an "interested military agency" had announced that the military command could not tolerate a filming of Wilder Urlaub . Lazar Wechsler, Director of Praesens-Film, replied that, due to the previous positive decision, binding contracts had been concluded from which Praesens-Film could not withdraw without enormous financial losses. This was followed by an exchange of letters between Wechsler and the “interested military body”, in the course of which Wechsler found out that it was the head of the Intelligence and Security Department, an officer who obviously made the decisions of the Film Section with ultimate responsibility. Thanks to Wechsler's negotiating skills, all arguments of Lieutenant Colonel Schafroth, the said officer, could be refuted. The film passed the censorship on September 25, 1943 without objection.
Wilder Urlaub premiered on October 2, 1943 in the Urban cinema in Zurich . Formally in the style of film noir , the work was received very positively by the critics, but fell through with the audience. Gottlieb Duttweiler , member of the Praesens-Film board of directors, brokered the film in exchange for food for Migros in Germany, thus preventing a financial disaster. For the director Franz Schnyder, this failure meant that he had to stop preparations for his next film project Der Landesverräter and was unable to make a film for ten years.
criticism
“The artistically impressive film found little recognition in Swiss eyes at the time because it questioned the importance of the Swiss Army, whose leadership believed it was a last bulwark against the Hitler army. Numerous obstacles were placed in the way of production, and only numerous compromises were able to secure the realization. A still highly explosive film, bearing in mind the discussion in Switzerland about the importance of the army. "
literature
- Hervé Dumont : History of Swiss Film: Feature Films 1896 - 1965. Lausanne 1987. P. 367–371.
Web links
- Wilder vacation in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Wilder Urlaub 1943 Film portrait on cyranos.ch
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wild vacation. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 26, 2017 .