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Die Feuerzangenbowle
1944 Comedy
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Credits
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Director: Helmut Weiss
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Script: Heinrich Spoerl
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Photo: Ewald Daub
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Music: Werner Bochmann
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Cast: Heinz Rühmann (Johannes Pfeiffer),
Karin Himboldt (Eva Knauer),
Hilde Sessak (Marion),
Erich Ponto (Prof. Crey),
Paul Henckels (Professor Bömmel),
Hans Leibelt (Gymnasialdirektor Knauer),
Lutz Götz (Oberlehrer Dr. Brett),
Hans Richter (Rosen),
Clemens Hasse (Rudi Knebel)
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Country: Germany
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Language: German
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Runtime: 97 min; B&W
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Aka: The Fire Tongue Bowl
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Summary
Four old men, gathered around a steaming punch bowl, reminisce over their happy school
days. A younger, middle-aged, man joins them. His name is Johannes Pfeiffer,
a successful writer who, as a boy, was taught at home and so missed out on the dubious
advantages of a normal school education. Persuaded by the four other men, Johannes
has himself enrolled in a state school. Masquerading as a school boy some twenty
years his junior, he wastes no time accumulating the experiences which were deprived him
in childhood - most of which involve playing cruel practical jokes on his teachers…
Review
Die Feuerzangenbowle - the film for which director
Helmut Weiss is best known – is one of the all-time comedy classics of German cinema,
a cult film that has an enduring appeal. It is a film which anyone who has experienced
a conventional Western education will instantly engage with, a film that is has become
an essential part of any university education in modern Germany.
Based on a popular novel by Heinrich Spoerl, Die
Feuerzangenbowle stands as one of the best and funniest films about schooling,
thanks to some masterfully realised comic sequences. Given the time at which the
film was made (at the height of World War II), it comes across as a surprisingly subversive
film, with authority figures represented as vain fools who are an easy object of ridicule.
Some critics have argued that the film also contains elements that promote Nazi ideology,
implying the film is more morally ambiguous than it appears at first sight.
Made
at the state-managed UFA studios, its director Helmut Weiss is reputed to have dragged
out the film's production for as long as possible to reduce the likelihood of his cast
and crew being drafted into the armed services. The film was initially suppressed
by the German Education Secretary (but only briefly), through fears that it showed the
teaching profession in a bad light. When the film was released (after a favourable
viewing by Herman Göring), it was hugely successful, and has since occupied a prominent
place in German culture. The film's title refers to an alcoholic drink that is traditionally
drunk in Germany at Christmas and the New Year - often whilst watching this film!
© James Travers 2007
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