Willy Birgel

  • Carl Froelich – Das Herz der Königin AKA The Queen’s Heart (1940)

    Carl Froelich1931-1940DramaGermanyThird Reich Cinema
    Das Herz der Königin (1940)
    Das Herz der Königin (1940)

    Synopsis:
    As the title “The Queen’s Heart” suggests, this early German black and white version of Mary Queen of Scott’s eventful reign and death focuses on her emotional perception rather lyrically, with some songs, mainly by her. Starting in the Tower, awaiting and receiving her sentence to the ax from the English court, where Elisabeth I chose to remain absent in person, we flash back to Mary’s arrival after a long exile at the sophisticated, splendidly hedonistic French royal court, where she was raised as a Catholic, in her people’s eyes effeminate or even depraved, elegant pleasure-accustomed lady, at utter odds with the stern Scottish protestantism of John Knox as well as England’s Anglicanism.Read More »

  • Douglas Sirk – Schlußakkord AKA The Final Chord (1936)

    1931-1940ClassicsDouglas SirkDramaGermanyThird Reich Cinema

    Plot:
    A young, impoverished German woman named Hanna (Maria von Tasnady) gives her infant up for adoption and emigrates to American to live with her husband. When her husband commits suicide, Hanna returns to Germany and works her way into becoming the live-in maid and nurse to her child being raised by an orchestra conductor and his wife.Read More »

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