Morituri (1948 film)

Morituri
Morituri
	Original German poster
Directed by	Eugen York
Written by	Artur Brauner (idea); Gustav Kampendonk
Produced by	Artur Brauner
Starring	Walter Richter ; Winnie Markus ; Lotte Koch
Cinematography	Werner Krien
Edited by	Walter Wischniewsky
Music by	Wolfgang Zeller
Production; company	CCC Film
Distributed by	Schorcht Filmgesellschaft mbH
Release date	24 September 1948;
Running time	88 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

Morituri is a 1948 German black-and-white drama film produced by Artur Brauner's CCC Film. The film was directed by Eugen York and starred Walter Richter, Winnie Markus and Lotte Koch. It features the onscreen debut of German actor Klaus Kinski^[1] as a Dutch concentration camp prisoner.^[2]

Plot

As the end of the Second World War approaches and the Soviet Red Army is advancing, a group of concentration camp inmates is helped to escape by a Polish doctor. They hide in a wood where they meet other fugitives, who have been there for months, constantly in fear of being discovered. Out of fear of the German army patrols, they do not dare to leave the forest, even as the food supplies run low. The Polish doctor blows up a bridge, attracting the German troops' attention to the forest. The soldiers come perilously close to the hidden fugitives, but in the last moment have to retreat before the advance of Red Army units.

Cast

Walter Richter as Dr. Leon Bronek
Winnie Markus as Maria Bronek
Lotte Koch as Lydia
Hilde Körber as Insane Woman
Catja Görna as Stascha Sokol
Josef Sieber as Eddy
Carl-Heinz Schroth as Armand
Siegmar Schneider as Gerhard Tenborg
Peter Marx as Pjotr, Russian
Alfred Cogho as Roy, Canadian
Joseph Almas as Dr. Simon (as Josef Almas)
Ellinor Saul-Gerlach as Lucie, his daughter (as Ellinor Saul)
Ursula Bergmann as Ruth, his daughter
Willy Prager as Father Simon
Annemarie Hase as Mother Simon
Karl Vibach as Georg, German Soldier
Bob Kleinmann as Janek, 12 years
Michael Günther as Wladek, 16 years
Erich Dunskus as Sokol, Polish Farmer
David Minster as The Invalid
Franja Kamienietzka as Mrs Steppan
Klaus Kinski as Dutch Prisoner

Production

The title comes from the Latin expression Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant. Making this film was a very personal project for Artur Brauner. The script is based on an idea of his and this was only the second film made by his company CCC Film.^[3] Exteriors were shot near Berlin in Brandenburg, interiors at the Tempelhof Studios. Principal cinematography was from September 1947 to January 1948.^[2]

Reception

The film was first shown on 28 August 1948 at the Venice Film Festival on the Lido di Venezia, Italy.

It premiered in the Waterloo-Theater, Hamburg, Germany on 24 September 1948.^[3] It was released at the Neues Scala Kino in Berlin on 16 November 1948.^[2] The film was a commercial disaster, with audiences hissing and booing. A theater in Hamburg was vandalized, after which other theater owners, fearful of reprisal by Nazi sympathizers, refused to show the film.^[4] It was called Freiwild in Austria.^[2]

Morituri was aired on German television station ZDF on 7 April 1991.^[2]

In 2009 Artur Brauner donated the film to Yad Vashem along with 20 other Holocaust-related films he had produced.^[5]^[6]

References

^ Lyman, Rick (2011). "Morituri". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 20 May 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2008.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Morituri Archived 7 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine Fritz Bauer Institut / Cinematography of the Holocaust. Retrieved 2 March 2012
^ ^a ^b "Filmportal: Morituri (German)". Retrieved 10 January 2014.
^ William Boston, "Burying the Past" Time (1 October 2003). Accessible only to subscribers. Retrieved 29 February 2012
^ "German film producer to receive Yad Vashem honour" Archived 10 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine Deutsche Presse-Agentur (2010). Retrieved 1 March 2012
^ Liat Benhabib and Mimi Ash, "Visual Center Receives Artur Brauner Film Collection" (PDF) Yad Vashem Jerusalem Quarterly Magazine Vol. 57, (April 2010), p. 20. Retrieved 1 March 2012