Gertrud de Lalsky Movies
- 1936
Set during the Napoleonic era, Der Hoehre Befehl (Higher Command) nonetheless manages to accommodate huge heaping helpings of pro-Nazi propaganda. The story concerns the breakup of the alliance between France and Prussia, galvanized by the imprisonment of an English envoy. The prisoner is set free by a young German officer who despises Napoleon and realizes that the only hope for Prussia's future lies in independence -- and if that independence is won through a betrayal of trust, so be it. Box-office favorite Lil Dagover adds a touch of glamour as a slinky French spy. Director Gerard Lamprecht, one of Germany's most conventional and least adventuresome filmmakers, does his usual perfunctory job with Der Hoehre Befehl. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karl Ludwig Diehl, Lil Dagover, (more)
- 1936
Diener Lassen Bitten (Dinner is Served) was adapted from a stage comedy by Toni Empekoven. When low-born British whiskey manufacturer James Potter (Joe Stoeckel) purchases stately Castle Bluehill, he sends his snootily aristocratic neighbors into an uproar. It is especially galling when the bluebloods are forced to treat Potter's new wife Henriette (Fita Benkhoff), formerly the Castle Bluehill's housemaid, as an equal. The subsequent romance between Potter's daughter Mary (Rose Stradner) and Lord Spiller (Josef Eichheim) seems doomed thanks to the snobbery of the bluebloods, but the Potters' faithful servants -- most of them old pals of Henriette -- come to the rescue. The "democratic" aspects of the storyline are rather surprising, considering that the film was produced during the Hitler regime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Herbert Hübner, Gertrud de Lalsky, (more)
- 1931
Inspired by Christa Winsloe's play Gestern und Heute, Maedchen in Uniform is one of the most memorable and moving of the pre-Hitler German talkies. Hertha Thiele plays a new student in an exclusive girls' boarding school. Achingly lonely because she feels deserted by her family, Hertha keeps her distance from the rest of the girls. Persecuted for her solitary stance by principal Emilia Unda, Hertha is drawn to her sympathetic teacher Dorothea Wieck. What starts as a friendship blossoms into a romance. While public revelation of this relationship proves disastrous to both student and teacher, it is ultimately the unforgiving principal Unda who suffers most. Maedchen in Uniform was antiseptically remade in 1958, with some of the frankness but little of the honest eroticism of the original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emilia Unda, Dorothea Wieck, (more)
