Between Heaven and Earth (1942)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Between heaven and earth |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1942 |
| length | 101 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Harald Braun |
| script | Harald Braun Jacob Geis |
| production | Erich Holder (production group) for UFA , Berlin |
| music | Werner Eisbrenner |
| camera | Robert Baberske |
| cut | Ursula Schmidt |
| occupation | |
| |
Between Heaven and Earth is a 1941 German film by Harald Braun , who made his directorial debut here. Werner Krauss , Wolfgang Lukschy and Gisela Uhlen can be seen in the leading roles . The psychological novel Between Heaven and Earth by Otto Ludwig, set in a small town in Thuringia in the early 19th century, served as a literary model .
action
Xanten at the time of the Franco-Prussian War 1870/71. Master roofer Justus Rottwinkel has two sons, Mathias, the older, and Lonius, the younger. The old man expects the solid older son, whom Justus prefers, to take over his business one day. Lonius, on the other hand, is by nature rather quiet and withdrawn. Both young men have their eye on Christine Burger, the daughter of Schieferbruch owner Clemens Burger. When Lonius asks his father to bless his marriage with Christine, he refuses, because he wants to secure Christine for Mathias, and instead sends the junior to Cologne to his cousin. Before he leaves Xanten, Lonius asks Mathias to give Christine a letter in which he explains his hasty departure. But Mathias doesn't even think about handing the letter to Christine and instead lies to the young woman that Lonius simply ran away without a sound and left her without batting an eyelid.
On the train ride to Cologne, Lonius meets a young couple who are in the pain of parting. The man was called up, he is told, to the front in the war against France. Lonius offers the two of them to stay together. Instead, he wanted to step into the field for the reservist. While Lonius is performing heroic deeds at the front, Mathias marries the quietly submitting Christine. However, after the wedding of Aunt Fine Rottwinkel, she learns that Lonius has by no means neglected her. As a result, Christine becomes more and more estranged from Mathias, especially since Mathias is unabashedly losing himself with girlfriends. Only for the sake of old Rottwinkel is Christine willing to hold on to this failed marriage. When Justus temporarily goes blind in an unfortunate blast in Burgers' slate quarry, Mathias takes over the business. His lifestyle and business ineptitude soon brought the store to the brink of ruin. One day, Lonius returns home, highly decorated.
Lonius still loves Christine, but respects the fact that she is now the wife of his lottery brother. But he still wants to snatch the management of the company out of Mathias' hands, otherwise it would be lost. In order to somehow make ends meet, Lonius also takes on a less lucrative job: the repair of a school roof in the neighboring village. There is a heated argument between the brothers, and old Rottwinkel learns that since he went blind, Mathias has been writing blank signatures in rows. When Justus began to see Rottwinkel again in the course of time, he decided not to tell anyone at first. He now transfers the management of the company to Lonius. Mathias is so disappointed with recent developments that he even begins to sabotage the school repairs order.
When Lonius crashes the following day with the retaining rope manipulated by Mathias, Justus Rottwinkel immediately realized that Mathias was behind it. He climbs up the church tower where Mathias is currently working and as a consequence, demands of him to plunge into the depths. The injured Lonius is accompanied by Christine. Mathias now sees no chance to regulate things in his sense and jumps into the depths, into death. Christine is now free for Lonius, and together with the old man they will rebuild the roofing company.
Production notes
The shooting of Between Heaven and Earth began on July 3, 1941 with studio recordings in the UFA studio in Berlin-Tempelhof . The film crew traveled to Xanten and Kaub for the outdoor shots, which lasted from August 18 to mid-October 1941 . The premiere took place on March 26, 1942 in the Mercator-Palast in Duisburg , the Berlin premiere was on June 11, 1942. There the film was shown in three premiere theaters. In the same year Between Heaven and Earth was performed in Denmark and Finland.
In addition to the production group management, Erich Holder also took over the production management. Walter Haag designed the film structures. The costume designs come from Alfred Bücken, Werner Maas was the sound engineer. The editor Walter Wischniewsky served Braun as one of two assistant directors. A song was played: When the soldiers march into the field .
The production costs were 1,441,000 Reichsmarks . Franz Seitz senior had filmed the same subject seven years earlier, in 1934, with Rudolf Klein-Rogge in the lead role under the same title.
Reviews
"A well-built, interesting, excellently played entertainment film."
"The film drama was set in the Rhineland in the period 1870/71, which gave the film authors the opportunity to make political innuendos (...) Really, the strength of the film was its acting."
"The long-winded film adaptation by Otto Ludwig (1856), based on Prussian terms of honor, which can hardly deny the time of its creation despite all the cuts, was moved to Xanten and to the years 1870/71."
See also
Web links
- Between heaven and earth in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Between heaven and earth at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Ulrich J. Klaus: German sound films, 12th year 1942/43. P. 114 (55.42), Berlin 2001
- ↑ Between heaven and earth. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .