1943: We're Off to See the Baron

Münchhausen (1943)
Directed by Josef von Baky
100 min.; Germany; Color; Mono

And now for something completely different...

If you've been a regular here over the past few months you're aware that this blog, which generally looks at one film per year through film history, has been focused on films concerned with World War II as it moves through the 1940s. In 1943, a number of films about past events in the war helped civilian and G.I. audiences (and even help us today) get a sense of it all. For example, John Ford produced a compelling documentary for the U.S. Navy titled December 7th (1943) that affirms the war aims of the United States, and a number of war pictures like Air Force (1943), Bataan (1943), and So Proudly We Hail (1943) established a combat film genre that sought to make sense of the confusing, chaotic reality of battles and war-related events in the Pacific and North Africa. However, if we look at the top five box office pictures in that far-off year we find that they include two musicals, a wartorn romance, a western, and a religious drama with This is the Army (1943), a military musical starring Ronald Reagan, at the top of the heap. Looking at the types of best selling films, and remembering that millions of men were getting into uniform, it occurs to me that perhaps these statistics reflect the purchasing power of increasing numbers of women working for the war effort. Or perhaps it's simply the result of an overload of war news and information and a desire to see something else. Regardless of the reasons why, audiences chose films that might provide a couple hours relief from the gruesome events of the war over those motion pictures that focused in on them--of course moviegoers still couldn't escape the war completely because newsreels, cartoons with war themes, and wartime shorts regularly accompanied the features. After watching and writing about so many war-related films in previous posts I'm ready for a break from the conflict too. Ironically, a film sponsored by the government of the Third Reich at the height of the war provides my means of escape.

We come to expect the unexpected in Münchhausen.

1943 marked a watershed in the history of World War II when the tide turned against the Axis powers. Despite early victories against the Allied 1st Army in North Africa, separate forces led by George S. Patton and Bernard Montgomery drove Rommel's Afrika Korps and German-Italian forces across Libya and Algeria, finally forcing them to surrender in Tunisia in May. By July, the Allies were invading Sicily. In Italy, Mussolini was arrested and the Italian Fascist government fell out of power. Another major turning point occurred in Russia where early in the year the Red Army finally opened a gap in the blockade around Leningrad and forced the German 6th Army to surrender at Stalingrad. All the while, continuous Allied bombing devastated parts of the Reich and threatened to demoralize the population. In response, Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels called for total war--the conversion of everyone and everything to combat, war production, or some other means of aiding the war effort.

The cinema had its role to play in total war as well, but it comes as a surprise to learn that though the German film industry was completely nationalized by 1942 most of the features released during the war were entertainment not war pictures or overt propaganda films (though some scholars have argued that ideological messages are concealed in many of these movies). Goebbels imagined that the Third Reich's film industry would supplant Hollywood's dominant worldwide position after the war and therefore should make quality pictures. He also recognized that entertaining films could help stem psychological effects of the bombing and various military defeats by offering the anxious population a brief respite from the war. To these ends an Agfacolor fantasy film spectacular was produced to crown the occasion of Ufa's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration. Titled Münchhausen (1943), the film premiered in Berlin 5 March 1943. Some evidence of the popularity of the fantasy materpiece can be gauged by the fact that it played through the end of the war. The great tragedy is that since the Third Reich produced the film it wasn't distributed to the nations allied against the Axis. In fact, I've found no evidence of a widespread theatrical release of this movie in the U.S. after the war. Thanks to reconstruction efforts we can see the film in the U.S. on DVD today (TCM occassionaly broadcasts it too).

Just who's seducing whom in the risqué dialogue of Münchhausen?

Erich Kastner's screenplay, based on tall tales about the real Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhuasen compiled and published in English by Rudolf Erich Raspe and translated back into German by Gottfied August Burger in the late eighteenth century, propels Baron Münchhausen (Hans Albers), a pleasure-seeking aristocrat, through a dozen or so episodic adventures in exotic lands where he encounters a wide array of colorful characters and strange magic items. What these various episodes lack in depth of story or character they more than make up for in fun and surprise. "Blond Hans" Albers portrays Münchhausen as a supremely confident protagonist with an apparently inborn ability to handle any situation no matter how bizarre. Münchhausen travels to fanciful versions of Russia, the Near East, Venice, and even the Moon where he overcomes dangerous foes and pursues (and is sometimes pursued by) alluring women like some kind of eighteenth century James Bond. He's almost a superhero, slightly reminiscent of Abel Gance's version of Napoléon (1927) or, pusing comparisons to the extreme, Warner Bros.'s plucky animated star Bugs Bunny because he dominates his foes with cunning, wit, and impossible skill more often than with simple brute force.

Kastner (credited as Berthold Burger because his earlier work had been burned by the Nazis) writes dialogue that is surprisingly funny and often dripping with sexually charged repartee--"where other women have hearts you have cleavage"--especially in the scenes wherein Münchhausen finds himself a kept man serving at the pleasure of Catherine the Great of Russia (Brigitte Horney). Director Josef von Baky turns up the erotic heat as well with images of belly dancers drapped in silk, naked concubines swimming in a Turkish harem, and a beautiful italian princess (Ilse Werner) literally swept off her feet by her invisible paramour. Things turn from the sublime to the ridiculous however when Münchhausen escapes the Inquisition by riding a hot air balloon to the moon where he chats with a housewife's disembodied head.

It's easy to lose your head when you're living on the moon.

Baky's film is an example of the fantastic, a cinema tradition that stretches all the way back to the trick films of George Mèliés, a groundbreaking filmmaker famous for his fantasy films like Le voyage dans la lune (1902). In fact, Mèliés released the earliest known film version of the baron in Les Aventures de baron de Munchhausen (1911). Rather than attempt an authentic, realistic portrayal of the eighteenth century or Münchhausen's life story in the Griffith style (Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), etc.) or a metaphorically constructed vision of the past a la Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin (1925), for example), Baky uses motion picture technology to create a cinematic alternate universe that captures our attention and imagination through color, creative use of sound, illusion, surprise, impossible feats and special effects presented with a helping of humor and a nod-and-a-wink at the audience making us party to the magician's trick even as he performs it. In the tradition of the films of Mèliés, The Thief of Bagdad (1924), The Wizard of Oz (1939), animated features from Disney, and the other Thief of Bagdad (1940), Münchhausen's adventures transport us to a dream world where almost anything can happen and our everyday concerns are suspended.

I'm not going to elaborate over the story or production history, deconstruct the film, or contextualize it any more than I already have in the previous paragraphs because I feel that this magnificent fantasy is better seen than described. Furthermore, I watched it primarily to take a break from closely examining war pictures not to look for underlying messages. However, I had a great time watching Münchhausen and I'd love to discuss it in the comments section with other bloggers who've seen it. I don't generally recommend films on this blog (I think I've done it only twice before) but Münchhausen is that rare classic fantasy film that deserves to be seen and discussed. I hope the blogosphere gives it a look in 2008.

Comments

[SirNewt]

Added it to my Netflix queue. It listed just next to a 1987 movie called "Munchies".

[Thom]

Glad to hear it, SirNewt. I hope you have as good a time with this Agfacolor adventure as I did. Please share your thoughts here after you've had time to view it and think it over. btw, do you write a blog yourself?

[SirNewt]

I have a blog on blogger for films. I've been trying to write my first post on Henri-Georges Cluzout's "The Wages of Fear". I, however, keep rewriting large sections of it.

I'm also preparing a list of 10 pre-1980 films. The intent is to derive 10 classic films a modern audience would find most digestible. The "best films" are not always the easiest to enjoy. I'd like to make a list of films that the average movie goer today could enjoy. It would be nice to entertain a modern viewer and get them used to the conventions and idiosyncrasies of older films at the same time. And, perhaps simultaneously wet their appetite for more. It seems to me, sometimes the conventional wisdom fails us. For example, often the first screwball comedy shown to initiates of film is Capra's "It Happened One Night". Rightfully so, as it marked the beginning of the genre. But Capra exaggerates his characters to produce comedy. The overtly silly performances can put people off. Something like Preston Sturges's "The Lady Eve" would be more comfortable for a contemporary audience. The sexualness of Stanwick's performance and the films humor would sit better with them.

[AR]

I've heard of this version but never seen it. Your writeup makes it sound very intriguing. I love the fantastic. Will have to keep it in mind.

[Thom]

Thanks, AR. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but it will be an unusual cinema experience from the WWII-era--that's why I'm anxious to discuss it with other bloggers. Please share comments about it here or lemme know if you post about it on your blog.