Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella (Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel) was a co-production between East Germany and Czechoslovakia. DEFA made twelve films in co-production with the ČSSR’s Barrandov Film Studios. Some of these movies look like East German films, while others seem very Czechoslovakian. Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella falls squarely in the latter category thanks to the … Continue reading Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella
Category: Fantasy
How to Marry King
Right from the opening credits, How to Marry a King (Wie heiratet man einen König?) lets us know that this is not going to be like any DEFA fairytale film that came before it. It starts in the real outdoors, not a film set, with long shots of a woman being kicked out of her … Continue reading How to Marry King
When You’re Older, Dear Adam
Egon Günther’s 1965 comedy When You're Older, Dear Adam (Wenn du groß bist, lieber Adam) is a weird movie, made weirder still by the times in which it was made and the technique used to rebuild the film. The film tells the story of a boy who is given a magic flashlight by a swan. … Continue reading When You’re Older, Dear Adam
Godfather Death
[Note: I received a request to do a review of this film from a reader. If there is any East German film out there that you think I should take a look at, feel free to let me know and if I can find a copy I’ll check it out.] Godfather Death (Gevatter Tod) is … Continue reading Godfather Death
The Tinderbox
Of all the films made in East Germany, the Märchenfilme (fairytale films) fared the best when it came to western distribution. Thanks to kid film friendly companies such as K. Gordon Murray and Childhood Productions, these films were some of the very few that received U.S. distribution. East-West borders seemed to melt away with the … Continue reading The Tinderbox
The Flying Dutchman
There is no other film quite like The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Holländer). Part opera, part experimental sound collage, and part avant-garde cinema, it is a surrealistic take on Wagner’s opera that pushed the boundaries of filmmaking at the time. Although there were silent films that used Wagner’s operas and music, and a 1947 Italian film … Continue reading The Flying Dutchman
Heart of Stone
On December 8, 1950, DEFA, East Germany’s state-run movie studio, released its first color film. The film was shot in Agfacolor, which was developed for the Nazis to compete with Technicolor. After the war, there was enough color film stock at the AGFA plant in Wolfen to make a few movies, but the Soviets claimed … Continue reading Heart of Stone
Chemistry and Love
The Silent Star is sometimes cited as the first East German science fiction film, but that is not entirely correct. Before the state was officially founded, when it was still known as the Soviet Sector, DEFA put out its first science fiction film—Chemistry and Love (Chemie und Liebe). It’s a breezy comedy that takes place … Continue reading Chemistry and Love
Motoring Tales
Motoring Tales is the title translation used for this film by both the DEFA library at UMass Amherst and Progress Film-Verleih in Germany. The actual title, Automärchen, works better in German. They could have just as easily called it Car Fables, or Auto Stories. If I were a lazy film critic/studio marketing wonk, I would … Continue reading Motoring Tales
The Golden Goose
Most East German films received little if any distribution in the west. If you lived in Poland or Russia, you might see some of them pop up in theaters (particularly the Indianerfilme), but only a handful made it to the movie houses in New York and London. There were a few exceptions and the most … Continue reading The Golden Goose
East German Cinema Blog 