Magda (1938) User Reviews

From play to film

[suchenwi · 8/10 · 19 May 2008]

Watching an older movie is often more fun when one tries to empathize the times it was made. With "Heimat", this is a bit demanding: the movie was made in 1938 Germany, so certainly under the control of Goebbels' propaganda ministry. It is based on the play of same name by Hermann Sudermann (1893), about a woman who left home in anger, and comes back eight years later (for a short time, incognito) as a famous opera singer.

The full text of the play is available online at the German Gutenberg project, so given enough time, one can compare both to see what was changed in the movie adaptation. Much, to put it briefly.

The play is a rather static thing: the same set for all four acts, a living-room. People enter, act, exit - a dialog-heavy piece most of all (with sometimes quite sarcastic and even laugh-out-loud dialog, to be true). The usually positive term "Heimat" (home, home-place) takes on a negative feel as it is used to subsume the traditional moral restrictions of small-town Germany in the 1880s. The strong heroine goes through many deep conflicts about her past, lifestyle, and future life, and in the end watches her father die of stroke.

For the movie, the basic structure was left intact, but much was added - mostly music, which only befits a film about a singer, starring Zarah Leander. Besides her typical chansons, two crucial segments of more classical music were added for Zarah to sing: Orpheus' air from Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice, and some parts from J.S.Bach's St. Matthew Passion. These are really thrilling to watch la Leander in, especially the latter.

As may be mandatory in a movie, the end was considerably happied up - the old man no longer dies, but gets to recognize his grand-daughter, and the film closes on a positive feeling. "Magda" (that was also the US title) stands strong and is ultimately redeemed from the moral contempt ("family honor" forbidding premarital sex or childbirth) that looms so dangerously over the story minutes before.

I watched this movie, then read the play, then watched the movie again... so you can guess I was fascinated by it. Camera-work, as well as the montage between different scenes, with different action going on at the same time, make this quite a pleasure to watch. And the older society ladies are delightful caricatures... 8/10.

Heinrich George and Zarah Leander

[marcin_kukuczka · 8/10 · 15 December 2013]

When we consider many of the novel adaptations made at Ufa in the 1930s when, actually, the Nazi propaganda saw its heyday, it is hard to capture the traces of their literary sources. Considerable exaggeration in fear of any immorality explicitly displayed resulted in altered, distorted content. And that travesty seems to be very noticeable in Carl Froehlich's movie the title of which, HEIMAT (Homeland), is one of these titles that could be labeled: misleading and meaningful alike.

From the very start, with the credits, we are led to the atmosphere of the times and Zarah Leander, the close up of the face of studio queen, a sort of "the Garbo of the Ufa Studio." Soon we hear her singing "Drei Sternen" (three stars) with her deep voice, something that carried so much charm and magic at the time that even the propaganda leaders could not resist it. Most of that charm, however, has not stood a test of time and, after all these years, we are led to capture just the glimpse of who this woman was and what she managed to evoke in her roles in a short career span.

In HEIMAT, the movie made by the director the legendary actress most collaborated with, she handles the portrayal of a woman who leads us all to a conclusion that is not so widespread these days: success and career do not necessarily go with inner peace and happiness. Maddalena becomes the sole master of herself, a personality whose life blends art and reality, blissful illusion and bitter consequences that life sets forth. Comedy blends with drama (something very realistic). This aspect of both femme fatale and a woman being emancipated is echoed in many of her later films, particularly, DER WEG INS FREIE where an artist copes with the unexpected 'surprises' that conventions and gray everyday offer. All the aura, so to say, around her evokes and intensifies these feelings quite convincingly in spite of highly dated acting style.

The first aspect in that 'aura' is the place where the action is set - a small German town in 1885 where the prefabricated conventions take over all feelings of genuine self. She comes to her hometown as a very famous opera singer, as Maddalena dall'Orto and is going to sing something meaningful, something that may at least call our attention to her inner torments, Bach's PASSION ACCORDING TO ST MATTHEW. But, as it usually happens in such pretentious movies, art occurs to disguise the past. How will she deal with the bitter secret she carries in her heart and is yet to be revealed in the most unpredictable circumstances? The secret of the life in Berlin and one Bankdirektor von Keller (Franz Schaftheitlin)...

Another aspect in that aura are the visuals. Everything seems to evoke her mental and psychological states. Thanks to heavy influence of the German Expressionism's tradition and some elements of Stanislavskian method, the viewer is memorably led to the world of changeable moods that the protagonist goes through. In one of the most unforgettable scenes of the movie, Maddalena enters a Gothic church where the shadows, the organ music, the architecture that in a racket like fashion seems to take a 'mental and visual' flight, the aesthetic mannerism and extreme emotions subvert our senses. In another scene, she enters her home after 8 years and touches the objects clearly evoking the emotional ties to the things and memories. Mind you the wonderful use of ostentatious, elaborate sets with the dazzling close-ups of Ms Leander's face.

Finally, a significant aspect is her singing which contributes highly to the merits of the movie supplying it with desirable resonance of the drama. She sings like Ms Dietrich as far as magnetism is concerned and unlike Ms Dietrich when we consider dramatizing. Meanwhile, her songs provide us with a unique artistic experience. The song about three stars as well as the more 'emancipated' song 'Die Liebe' (Love) work on a creative level of communication even with the viewers of today. Note, for instance, the moment she sings at the harp or the musical and emotional crescendo of the finale.

But after seeing the film, I had such a feeling that it would be a great exaggeration to say that this is purely a Zarah Leander movie, that it is worthwhile seeing merely thanks to her. As a matter of fact, she may occur too dramatic, too pretentious in her style to many people among modern audiences. Such a portrayal of a woman, an artist and a mother seems to occur one of the reasons why the film may be considered dated. There is, however, one performance that will actually never allow us to analyze it as old fashioned and barely convincing. It is Heinrich George's portrayal of the father. The actor who was highly underrated in his time achieves something special. His role is not an easy one, he depicts a man deep in his own world-view, an authoritative but affectionate parent (he has his own premonitions - consider his memorable line he utters to his daughter "You have retained a good heart but there is something in your eyes I don't like"). He is a loyal citizen but, above all, a humorous fellow. Drama and comedy find best balance in him. This role recalls heavily his portrayal in DER POSTMEISTER where he did not play with Ms Leander but Hilde Krahl.

That is why I consider HEIMAT a great Zarah Leander and Heinrich George's achievement. Highly worth seeking out.

One more Zarah

[sb-47-608737 · 8/10 · 22 April 2018]

Watching Zarah's movie (thankfully the good print and subtitled versions are available, of course with some minor errors - for example when Leo, Magda's paternal mentor, calls Poldi by the sobriquet Undine, he meant 'Angel'. But over all the subtitles at the warfilms had been good. Most of the reviewers here has called it as the Propaganda movie. That is some interesting term. It would look so from western angle but if one gets neutral, neither with Axis or Allies leaning, then probably almost all the movies in Hollywood were propaganda movies at that time - even supposed to be musical romcoms. What you call of the 'Last Time I saw Paris' in 'Lady Be Good' ? Isn't that a blatant propaganda ? If this is a propaganda movie, so was Gone With the Wind or any one on that matter. So I won't go here on Propaganda aspect, in fact I really don't find that aspect here. Asking one to come back to roots is propaganda ? Really ? Secondly the other two aspects had been quite interestingly missing, whether deliberately . Anti-semitic - easily the villain Keller could have been a Jew, after all he was a corrupt banker or the anti-allies angles. There is an interesting episode, when Zarah is asked of the American cultures and she said there are negroes, diswashers and fraudsters. But the manner she said it, it was more of taunting the presumptive man, than stating fact. I don't know what the SS would have intended, but definitely not this. It looks so sad that Zarah was virtually black-listed as Nazi sympathizer. In fact one of the reviewer even calls of the 'Morality imposed by Goebel's ministry. I would say it was exactly opposite. Heroine had a child out-of wedlock, she keeps the child hidden, has a sort of guilt complex, but not too much. His american's including her entourage of German people, know of the existence. She doesn't want the townsfolk to know, for natural reason. They have too outdated morality concept (which had been even semi-ridiculed by the movie). To compound that, she refused to marry the father of the child, even when pressed to do so, by the seducer as well as her own father. And there, I would say it is a morality preaching, but not the morality of the 'Society', but the morality of a human. How could she be asked to marry a person like that and expect to be happily ever after, like countless holly movies expect to (Love in the Afternoon style, which is one of the most common Holly themes, including in Gone With the Wind, where for similar behaviour, Clark is exonerated, but not Vivian ). In this aspect, I find Zarah's or Garbo's movies to be forerunner of the feminism. Not in a feminist way, but in humanist way. If the genders are equal, they are so, not by denigrating the other gender, but rising up and matching the shoulders. This is a simple story of a provincial girl, rebelling against the father to follow her heart, a career in music, leaving family and silent adorer behind. The down-fall, the seduction by the philandering villain, having a baby, and then further struggles, probably including Cabaret performances, till she rose up in her station, hadn't been covered in detail, just hinted. At last the leading star of NY's Metropolitan Opera, she comes back to her provincial home-town, for a performance, but really to visit her family once more, and there she is subjected to the slanderers and manipulators- through evil or emotional blackmail. The end was too much of coincidence to be of my liking, I would have rather had the factor removed through the involvement of the Prince, who was not only her great fan, but also had several times offered his help whenever she requires. The same end would have been achieved through him, removing this coincidence factor. But anyway, it is easy to think of things from my chair that director missed from his, and not appreciate what he didn't miss (and I would have). This didn't take away the enjoyment coefficient by introducing a jar, which many movies do.

one of her good flicks. but not excellent

[cynthiahost · 9/10 · 24 October 2010]

There's quick editing in it ,in which the next scene jumps quickly to another as if you had missed something.Inspite of this it's still a good movie.After so many years abroad ,in the United state,Madga Von Schwartz comes home to Nazi free , at the time it take place, Germany to perform an Opera and sing the part from St Matthews passion at church.You see actor George Alexander welcoming her out of the train ,with Leo Slezak,in perfect phonetic English, better than Anny Ondras,at the train station. It revert backs to German. Earlier you see her daddy,played by Hienrich George, talking to friend, I thought it was his sister at first, played by Lucy English, about Madga return. Later you see Hans Nielsen, without mustache, greeting Zarah to tell her he's engaged to hers sister. Nobody knows yet she's Madga Von Schwartz. At a reception with some old biddies who disapprove of her, she sings a racy song to shock them after she tells every body who she really is .She later surprises her sister and father when she visits them after words. He insists on her staying home while she's visiting. You see Zara and her sister eating apples in the kitchen as they talk about old times. Paul Horbinger , again in a second time with Zarah plays one of her interest.Everything goes well until she goes to the bank to put her check in.It turns out that the head of the bank is her old ex fiancé, Keller,played by Frank Schaheitalin, who most of the time plays bad guys. He has a secret against her . He had gotten her pregnant before they got married and never married her.She has a illegitimate daughter that she keeps a secret.HE tries to black mail her to tell her father about this and every one else.Her father finds out after he took a gun with him to try to shoot him for his harassment against her. HE almost hits her in anger ,then he has a heart attack. In the play version he dies.In this one he lives.It seems some of the plot was borrowed from UN Neune Zern when Keller mishandles a check and is about to get arrested , by Hans Nielsen.WEll a Walt Disney type ending happens in this film.The father should have died. They should of had the Keller do something else crooked not to look like the other movie.Inspite of this this film was pretty good. Available at Warfilm.com with subtitles