With this movie,Detlef Sierck enters the path of glory.Combining the melodramatic side of "Das Mädchen von Moorhof" and the social comment of " Stützen def Gesellshaft" ,he brings it all back home and makes his second major work (after "La Habanera" ).Since it's his last movie in Nazi Germany,it's all the more precious .
Gloria Vane is a scandalous singer in Victorian times;even if she had not been (unfairly ) accused of forgery ,they would have had her performance censored anyway.Gloria Vane is too much and the brilliant scene on stage (yes sir,no sir) shows Zarah Leander at her best ,easily equaling Marlene Dietrich singing "falling in love again" .Later ,when Sierck worked in the US ,he would search around for another Zarah Leander and Dorothy Malone ("Written on the wind" and "tarnished angels") would be some kind of replacement.
Crazy situations abound: the show in London;the parade of the fiancées which looks more like a cattle fair;the romantic suicide;the bride all in white ,waiting for her groom;and the final scene ,which continues the refinement already sketched out in " das Mädchen von Moorhof" ,a scene Sirk would carry to perfection in the grandiose finale of his final achievement "imitation of life" : the choir of altar boys who breaks into "Gloria (sic) In Exelcis Deo" predates Mahalia Jackson and choir singing "trouble in the world" by twenty years.Christian faith (which would emerge again in the Hollywood years with such works as "the first legion" "thunder on the hill" "magnificent obsession" or "imitation of life" ) is oddly absent during the whole movie but is essential to the happy ending.
Sirk does not forget his sense of humor : while the males are looking for their spouses in Paramata ,one of them complains about heat while another one thinks young men are degenerate people for they do not appreciate fat women; the cuckold's wife's attitude when she learns Finsbury's death;and last but not least ,do not forget to buy "brooms made in Paramata" by our female convicts.
"Zu neuen Ufern" compares favorably with Max Ophuls' works of the thirties ,particularly "liebelei" (there are many similarities between the two stories) and "Sans Lendemain".
Gloria Vane is a scandalous singer in Victorian times;even if she had not been (unfairly ) accused of forgery ,they would have had her performance censored anyway.Gloria Vane is too much and the brilliant scene on stage (yes sir,no sir) shows Zarah Leander at her best ,easily equaling Marlene Dietrich singing "falling in love again" .Later ,when Sierck worked in the US ,he would search around for another Zarah Leander and Dorothy Malone ("Written on the wind" and "tarnished angels") would be some kind of replacement.
Crazy situations abound: the show in London;the parade of the fiancées which looks more like a cattle fair;the romantic suicide;the bride all in white ,waiting for her groom;and the final scene ,which continues the refinement already sketched out in " das Mädchen von Moorhof" ,a scene Sirk would carry to perfection in the grandiose finale of his final achievement "imitation of life" : the choir of altar boys who breaks into "Gloria (sic) In Exelcis Deo" predates Mahalia Jackson and choir singing "trouble in the world" by twenty years.Christian faith (which would emerge again in the Hollywood years with such works as "the first legion" "thunder on the hill" "magnificent obsession" or "imitation of life" ) is oddly absent during the whole movie but is essential to the happy ending.
Sirk does not forget his sense of humor : while the males are looking for their spouses in Paramata ,one of them complains about heat while another one thinks young men are degenerate people for they do not appreciate fat women; the cuckold's wife's attitude when she learns Finsbury's death;and last but not least ,do not forget to buy "brooms made in Paramata" by our female convicts.
"Zu neuen Ufern" compares favorably with Max Ophuls' works of the thirties ,particularly "liebelei" (there are many similarities between the two stories) and "Sans Lendemain".