we make music
Movie | |
---|---|
Original title | we make music |
Country of production | Germany |
original language | German |
Publishing year | 1942 |
length | 85 minutes, originally 95 minutes |
Age rating | FSK 16 |
Rod | |
Director | Helmut Käutner |
script | Helmut Käutner |
production | Terra Film ( Hans Tost ) |
music |
Peter Igelhoff Adolf Steimel |
camera | Jan Roth |
cut | Helmuth Schönnenbeck |
occupation | |
|
We make music (subtitle Eine kleine Harmonielehre ) is a German revue film by Helmut Käutner . The comedy Karl III served as the script . and Anna von Österreich by Manfried Rössner and motifs by Erich Ebermayer . “Käutner's feather-light hit comedy from 1942 presents the audience favorites Ilse Werner and Viktor de Kowa as a controversial young musician couple with swinging hits that are still unforgotten today.” Edith Oss , Grethe Weiser , Georg Thomalla and Rolf Weih play leading roles .
plot
The well-known pop composer Karl Zimmermann has been happily married to pop singer Anni Pichler for four years. Zimmermann actually wanted to become an opera composer and only played in order to earn some money as pianist "Charly Zimm" in Café Rigoletto.
After his resignation there, he first worked as a piano teacher and then took over the teaching of harmony for beginners as a representative of a professor. He got to know Anni Pichler, who performed successfully as a singer and pianist in the Café Rigoletto with the ladies' band Die Spatzen , directed by Franz Sperling, and who also whistles exceptionally well.
Karl Zimmermann worried about the supposedly misguided talent and therefore gave Anni private tutoring at home in his bachelor apartment. Her lively demeanor brought such verve into Karl's life that he fell in love with her and wrote a marriage proposal on the dirty window pane.
In terms of music, of course, both continue to go their separate ways. Karl still sees himself as a future great opera composer and treats Anni from above, who in turn composes hit music. The time has finally come for his opera Lucrezia Borgia to be performed, but the premiere is a total failure. Reluctantly, Zimmermann lets music publisher Peter Schäfer persuade him to orchestrate Anni's new show. The revue is a great success, and Anni only now learns that Karl wrote the arrangements. The couple find their way back together, because nothing stands in the way of their mutual happiness.
The film ends when Karl closes the blinds of the apartment and turns to the audience to point out the obligation to darken at the time, because “otherwise we will get an advertisement”.
production
Production notes, background
The shooting began on June 2, 1942 in the Ufa studio in Berlin-Tempelhof. The exterior shots were taken in Prague in July 1942 because Berlin was out of the question due to the threat of bombing and Prague had been largely spared from bombing until then. Max Mellin and Gerhard Ladner were responsible for the film construction; the first distribution of the film was in the hands of Deutsche Filmvertriebs GmbH (DFV), Berlin.
De Kowa had the role of Karl in Rössner's play Karl III with great success . and Anna von Österreich , which Käutner used as a model, played at the Berlin State Theater. The 21-year-old Ilse Werner, who was considered a young star after Eduard von Borsody's music film Wunschkonzert (1940), was in no way inferior to her accomplished colleague and gave his "enchantingly unruly partner".
Like other music films of the Nazi era that revolve around the conflict between serious music and popular music (e.g. Willi Forst's film Operetta ), Wirmachen Musik later became the subject of controversial discussions. The Reichsfilmkammer , which was controlled by the National Socialist regime, discussed whether such entertainment films should be classified as conforming to the system or as critical.
Songs
Igelhoff's swinging rhythms clearly showed the composer's love for American jazz, according to De Agostini, in which the Propaganda Ministry saw no reason for objection. Packaged as 'strongly rhythmic' German music, jazz - "otherwise ostracized by the Nazi regime as 'alien nigger music'" - was tolerated. However, not even the honest German title “Notenparade” for Annis Revue can hide the fact that the choreographer Theodor Lengersdorf designed the “brilliant revue” based on the “model of glamorous Hollywood film musicals”. In a later interview Käutner explained the “unusual tolerance of the 'high gentlemen'” by stating that “the Nazi censors” “simply did not take his film seriously” because, as a “carefree hit spectacle”, it “finally met the claims made by the head of propaganda, Goebbels of the people on relaxation and recreation in times of war ”.
- Edith Oss and Georg Thomalla: I have you and you have me
- Ilse Werner: My heart has its premiere today - When will you be with me again? - I have you and you have me - We make music - Whistle duet
The lyrics were written by Helmut Käutner and Aldo von Pinelli .
publication
The film premiered on October 8, 1942 in the Berlin Marble House . Originally, the UFA wanted to release the film for Christmas 1942, but then decided differently. The presentation and the following screenings were a sensational success - not least in the areas occupied by German troops: When the film was shown in Prague in November 1942, both the premiere and the subsequent evening screenings were completely sold out. Queues formed so long in front of the Ufa-Theater Viktoria that security forces had to intervene and regroup those waiting.
The film was released in the Netherlands on December 25, 1942, in Hungary on February 5, 1943, in Sweden on February 13, 1943, in Denmark on February 19, 1943 and in Finland on February 21, 1943. It was first seen in France on February 2, 1944, and in the United States in 1952. It was also published in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece and Italy.
The film is part of the DVD “The most beautiful German revue films” released by Koch Media GmbH on January 15, 2015. On July 15, 2005, Warner released Home Video We Make Music as part of the “German Film Classics” series as a single film on DVD, as did Koch Media GmbH on April 3, 2009. We make music was also published together with a multi-page booklet with information on and all about the film in the DeAgostini film series "The great German film classics" under number 36 on DVD.
Reissues
In 1955 there was a remake by the director and choreographer Ernst Matray with the title Music, Music and Only Music with Walter Giller as Karl and Inge Egger as Anni as well as Lonny Kellner and the English soubrette Suzi Miller. In this revue-like music film, too, classical music lost out to modern jazz. Anni re-orchestrated Karl's symphony, which had just been rejected by a music publisher, for a jazz orchestra - and it was a success.
In 1962, Kurt Wilhelm Rössner adapted the play Karl III. and Anna von Österreich under the title of the same name for television. This time Robert Graf gave the composer Karl Zimmermann, who falls in love with his music student Anna, played by Gerlinde Locker , who has a Viennese dialect. The music for this version comes from the Viennese composer Peter Wehle , who has already written hits for stars like Marika Rökk and Johannes Heesters .
In 1966 Karl Vibach staged a new edition for television under the title We make music. A little harmony lesson with the melodies by Peter Igelhoff and a script drafted by Helmut Käutner, who, like Ilse Werner, also worked as an actor. Uta Sax played the role of Anni Pichler and Hanns Lothar that of Karl Zimmermann.
"None of the later versions achieved the high artistic quality of the original."
reception
criticism
Contemporary criticism
The contemporary film critics were very impressed by the production, which was also reflected in the reviews of the time:
"You watch with a smile and touch as he opens the heart of the resolute little music student who tidies up his completely dilapidated bachelor apartment with the violin and bass clef." Werner Fiedler, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , 1942
"As a whole, this film is well done in the direction of Käutner, which is interspersed with many charming ideas, and the sparkling duo of the main actors." ( Steglitzer Anzeiger , 1942)
Postwar Criticism
Later reviewers were of the opinion that Käutner, who also wrote the screenplay, had staged his film with “astonishing ease” “in view of the dangerous situation”. The "elegant interweaving of human and musical motifs, Käutner's sensitive combination of revue and chamber play-like episodes as well as the almost cabaret-like pun of the film" was praised. [...] In addition to “Käutner's sensitive direction and his punchy script”, the music by Peter Igelhoff, who “has already made a name for himself as a composer of cool hits”, “gives the flick swing and speed”, it said.
The Abendzeitung wrote in 1983: “People in the third year of the war were only too happy to be distracted by the misery of the present - with the clever story of the serious composer, whose young wife also composes. To the chagrin of the husband, however, she is for pop music. "
Although the film received several awards from the Nazi film inspection agency at the time , it was also declared a secret protest against the Nazi regime. Karlheinz Wendtland said that the manner in which the film makes its mark and its value, as well as the exemplary actors. He further wrote: “Here Helmut Käutner succeeded in probably the best musical film comedy of those years. Based on the fragrance of American musicals, provided with ironic dialogues, he sets a counterpoint against the wooden, stupid NS music conception. The film breaks a lance for so-called light music, which is so extraordinarily difficult if it is to have lasting success. [...] This Käutner production with its many evergreens was something of a cult film back then. The young, opposition-minded generation saw it as being directed against the regime, and it was seen as exemplary by jazz fans, since it was finally tried in public to equate popular music with serious music. All the more the then young, now mature people turn against the views of a Witte ... who wants to devalue and distort such daring rebellion. "
Actors loved by the audience, a fast-paced storyline, charming and cheeky dialogues and rousing songs: 'We make music' (1942) is still considered one of the best films by director Helmut Käutner. Even today, the "strip with prominent casts right down to the supporting roles" fascinates film fans. For example, “the unforgotten Grethe Weiser gave a wonderfully talkative Mrs. Bratzberger and Georg Thomalla” to Franz, “the charming and shy boss and drummer of the Spatzenkapelle”.
Awards
We make music received from the NS-Filmprüfstelle - a sub-organ of the Reich Propaganda Ministry - the predicates artistically valuable , popularly valuable and worthy of recognition .
See also
Web links
- We make music in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- We make music ( Memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at deutscher-tonfilm.de
- We make music at filmportal.de
- We make music Fig. Film poster in the IMDb
- We make music Fig. Film program "Today's program"
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k The great German film classics No. 36: We make music , Verlag De Agostini Deutschland GmbH, Hamburg, editor: Holger Neuhaus, Joachim Seidel, 2006, pp. 3, 4, 6-8.
- ↑ The most beautiful German revue films Fig. DVD case The most beautiful German revue films
- ↑ We make music Fig. DVD case (in the picture: Viktor de Kowa, Grethe Weiser)
- ↑ We make music Ill. Cover page The great German film classics (in the picture: Ilse Werner, Viktor de Kowa)
- ↑ We make music. For a little harmony lesson see filmportal.de
- ↑ Manfred Hobsch: Love, Dance and 1000 Schlagerfilme , Berlin, 1998, p. 108
- ↑ We make music see kinotv.com
- ↑ Manfred Hobsch: Love, Dance and 1000 Schlagerfilme , Berlin, 1998, p. 109
- ^ Karlheinz Wendtland: Geliebter Kintopp , born in 1941 and 1942, Berlin, 2nd edition 1989–1996, pp. 117–118
- ^ Gerd Albrecht: National Socialist Film Policy . Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart 1969, p. 557 .