Wilhelm Tell (1923)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | William Tell |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1923 |
| length | approx. 126 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Rudolf Walther-Fein Rudolf Dworsky |
| script |
Willy Rath based on the drama of the same name by Friedrich Schiller |
| production | Gabriel Levy for Aafa, Berlin |
| camera |
Guido Seeber Toni Mülleneisen |
| occupation | |
| |
Wilhelm Tell is a German silent film from 1923 with Conrad Veidt as Landvogt Gessler and Hans Marr in the title role.
action
Emperor Albrecht has the restless provinces in the west of the Habsburg Empire suppressed with a hard hand and sends three of his confidants, the prefects Wolfenschiessen, Landenberger and Gessler. The provincial bailiffs are given complete freedom and are supposed to exploit the land and collect high taxes for the good of the empire. But resistance is beginning to rise. The wealthy Attinghausen sends his nephew Ulrich von Rudenz to speak to the imperial chancellor, Heinrich von Melchthal opposes the tax collector and refuses to make the required extra payments. On the same day, the tax servants of Emperor Melchthal's son Arnold attacked. But he manages to escape, whereupon the ox and the plow he has pulled are confiscated. The excellent archer Wilhelm Tell and his wife Hedwig are initially unaffected by these events. Things start to change dramatically when the Prefect Wolfenschiessen stops at Frau Baumgarten and asks for something to drink. Delighted by her beauty, he presses her. Armgard's husband, Konrad Baumgarten, appears with an ax in his hand and hits the man who wanted to rape his wife as if possessed.
News of the death of a colleague reaches Gessler, a tough defender of imperial claims and rights. Meanwhile, Baumgarten, with the help of Tell, flees from the imperial captors in a heavy storm over the lake. Meanwhile Gessler stops at the beautiful Bertha von Bruneck, a widowed lady of the class who interests him very much. In Ulrich von Rudenz he has a serious competitor for the favor of the rich heiress. Meanwhile, Landvogt Landenberger wants to break the Swiss resistance with all his might. Annoyed about the stubbornness of the steadfast Heinrich von Melchthal and about the fact that his fugitive son could still not be caught, he wants to make an example of Heinrich. He blinds the old man and burns down his homestead. Then the Confederates begin to move closer together. Heinrich's neighbor Gertrud Stauffacher takes Melchthal, now blind, in with her and her husband. For this act of Christian charity, she is vexed by imperial soldiers and killed by one of them in a scuffle. When the soldiers leave shortly afterwards, her husband Werner Stauffacher returns and sees his dead wife lying in front of him.
Now the leaders of the imperial western provinces meet and they decide on a military uprising. Meanwhile, Gessler tries to force the population to respect the governors. He had a Vogts hat mounted on a pole and ordered that from now on every Swiss should bow to the hat and greet him, as if he were himself under this hat. When Wilhelm Tell refuses to accept this, he lets his son Walter go to the bar and puts an apple on his head. If the father, as Landvogt Gessler explains , would shoot the apple off his boy's head with the crossbow , he would get life and freedom from him, Gessler. In fact, the marksman succeeds in the feat. But when he explains to Gessler that he had reserved a second arrow for him in case he missed his son, Gessler immediately arrested Tell and imprisoned him.
In order to get ahead with the widow Bruneck, Gessler has his worst competitor Ulrich von Rudenz arrested and thrown into the dungeon with Tell. There, Gessler made it clear to him, he would languish until the widow Bertha decided to marry him. Nolens volens Bertha von Bruneck gets involved in order to achieve Ulrich's freedom. In fact, he is released again and flees to the property of his uncle Attinghausen. By order of Gessler, Tell is to be brought to the emperor so that he may decide what to do with this leader of the rebels. Again the boat goes across the lake, and again a heavy storm comes up that almost capsizes the ship. Tell, an experienced boat driver, is freed from the shackles so that he can protect the boat from sinking. Landed on the bank, he managed to escape from his guards. Gessler furiously rounds up his men to get hold of Tells again. But he lay in wait and shoots the bailiff with the arrow that he had once reserved for him when he shot an apple. This is the long-awaited signal for the Swiss to finally liberate their country from the rule of the Habsburgs.
Production notes
Wilhelm Tell was created in the spring of 1923 and passed film censorship on June 22, 1923. The seven-act act with a length of 2885 meters was released for young people and on November 11, 1924 it was given the title “popular education”. Wilhelm Tell then served as an educational film in schools. The celebratory premiere took place on August 23, 1923 at Berlin's Marble House .
Director Walther-Fein was also in charge of production. The buildings and costumes were designed by Ernst Stern and executed by Rudi Feld . Feld's brother Fritz Feld acted as production manager, while co-director Rudolf Dworsky was in charge of artistic direction.
Reviews
“… An extremely interesting film, well made, well staged and extremely well edited… (…)… the Tell character is compelling in his stature, and from an actor of the first set. There are a lot of good actors and actresses in this film. (...) This film cost a lot to produce and everything speaks for it ... "
Oskar Kalbus ' Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst wrote: “The film adaptation of“ Wilhelm Tell ”(1923) following the cinematic model failed ... because the pictorial highlights of the poet's work (Rütlischwur, Apfelschuß and Tellsprung) of the love story between Rudenz and Bertha von Bruneck are completely subordinate. "
In Hervé Dumont's The History of Swiss Film it says: “From April to May 1923… the Berlin Aafa… with its Wilhelm Tell caused some uproar in the… Swiss press. There is nothing to complain about: the topic has been dealt with by Max Reinhardt's employees ... with a care that demands respect. Tell and Gessler are embodied so convincingly that the actors Hans Marr and Conrad Veidt will have the same roles in the German-Swiss Wilhelm Tell of 1933. "
Web links
- William Tell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Wilhelm Tell at filmportal.de
- Wilhelm Tell in the Lexicon of International Film