The Stars Shine (film)

The Stars Shine
(Original title: Es leuchten die Sterne)
Directed by Hans H. Zerlett
Produced by Helmut Schreiber
Written by Hans Hannes
Hans H. Zerlett
Starring Ernst Fritz Fürbringer
Fridtjof Mjøen
Paul Verhoeven
Karel Stepanek
Music by Paul Lincke
Ernst Kirsch
Leo Leux
Franz R. Friedl
Mathias Perl
Cinematography Georg Krause
Bruno Mondi
Edited by Ella Ensink
Production
company
Tobis Filmkunst
Distributed by Tobis-Filmverleih
(Germany)
American Tobis Company
(United States)
Release dates
  • March 17, 1938 (1938-03-17) (German theatrical)
Country Nazi Germany
Language German

The Stars Shine (original title Es leuchten die Sterne) is a 1938 German musical revue directed by Hans H. Zerlett and written by Zerlett and Hans Hannes.[1][2][3]

Synopsis

A young secretary leaves the country and travels to Berlin to seek work as an actress. In a comedy of errors, she is mistaken for a famous dancer, which results in her heading the cast of a star-studded musical. The plot acts as a backdrop for this musical revue film, which includes many German film, sports, and entertainment stars of the 1930s.

Background

Es leuchten die Sterne was a remake of the 1930 Tobis film Die Große Sehnsucht (The Great Yearning), directed by Stefan Szekely, a Hungarian Jew.[4] The remake was created as a Busby Berkeley-style musical set inside a movie studio,[5] and featured appearances by numerous stage personalities, athletes, and Tobis Films stars.[6] Joseph Goebbels was Propaganda Minister and considered entertainment films to be the best type of media with which to convey the political message of the Nazi regime.[7][8] Es leuchten die Sterne was created, as were many German films of the period,[9] to act as a propaganda piece promoting the Third Reich as a cultural entity.[8][10][11]

Release

The film was first released in Germany on March 17, 1938. This was followed by a release in the Netherlands on April 29, and then in the United States on May 20 as The Stars Shine.[12] It was released in various countries under different titles: in Belgium as Als de sterren schitteren (Flemish) and as Quand les étoiles brillent (French); in Italy as Brillano le stelle; in Denmark as Funklende stjerner; in Greece as Lampoun t' asteria; in France as Les étoiles brillent and as Vedettes follies; and in the Netherlands as Parade der sterren and Sterrenparade.[10] The film was released on DVD in its original German version on July 21, 2008 by Warner Home Video.[2]

Excerpts from the film were shown on German television in 1938, with La Jana present in the studio.[13]

Cast
  • Carla Rust as Mathilde Birk
  • Rudi Godden as Knutz the manager
  • Elisabeth Wendt as Lisa Marwen
  • Else Elster as Mrs. Knutz
  • Eva Tinschmann as Mrs. Bökelmann
  • Horst Birr as Kruse
  • Erwin Biegel as Kellner
  • Erika Steenbock as Ella the actress
  • Heinz Piper as the Lyricist
  • Kurt Mikulski as Böckelmann the makeup artist

Featured appearances

References

  1. ↑ "Es Leuchten Die Sterne (1938)". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
  2. 1 2 "Es leuchten die Sterne". OnlineFilmdatenbank (in German). Retrieved 24 December 2010.
  3. ↑ "Es Leuchten Die Sterne". Allmovie. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
  4. ↑ Waldman, Harry (2008). Nazi films in America, 1933-1942. McFarland. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-7864-3861-7.
  5. ↑ Richard W. McCormick, Alison Guenther-Pal (2004). Richard W. McCormick, Alison Guenther-Pal, ed. German essays on film. Volume 81 of German library. Richard W. McCormick, Alison Guenther-Pal. p. 309. ISBN 9780826415073.
  6. ↑ Hull, David S. (1969). Film in the Third Reich: A Study of the German Cinema, 1933-1945. University of California Press. p. 144. ISBN 9780520014893.
  7. ↑ Joseph Goebbels, Fred Taylor (1982). Fred Taylor, ed. The Goebbels diaries (illustrated ed.). H. Hamilton. ISBN 9780241108932.
  8. 1 2 Romani, Cinzia. Tainted Goddesses: Female Film Stars of the Third Reich. ISBN 0-9627613-1-1.
  9. ↑ Kreimeier, Klaus (1999). The Ufa story: a history of Germany's greatest film company, 1918-1945. Volume 23 of Weimar and now Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism (reprint, illustrated ed.). University of California Press. p. 235. ISBN 9780520220690.
  10. 1 2 Hans-Michael Bock, Tim Bergfelder (2009). Hans-Michael Bock, Tim Bergfelder, ed. The concise Cinegraph: encyclopaedia of German cinema. Film Europa: German Cinema in an International Context (illustrated ed.). Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781571816559.
  11. ↑ Leiser, Erwin (1974). Nazi cinema. Cinema two (illustrated ed.). MacMillan Publishing Company. ISBN 9780025702301.
  12. ↑ Nugent, Frank S. (May 21, 1938). "The Screen". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
  13. ↑ Winker, Klaus (1994). Fernsehen unterm Hakenkreuz: Organisation, Programm, Personal. Volume 1 of Medien in Geschichte und Gegenwart (in German). Böhlau. p. 231. ISBN 9783412035945.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/6/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.