DER KONGRESS TANZT
Scen.: Norbert Falk, Robert Liebmann e (non accred.) Hans Müller, Paul Frank; F.: Carl Hoffmann; Mo.: Viktor Gertler; Scgf.: Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig; Co.: Ernst Stern; Eff. spec.: Theodor Nischwitz; Mu.: Werner Richard Heymann; Liriche: Robert Gilbert; Su.: Fritz Thiery; Ass. regia: Paul Martin, Basil Ruminow, Kurt Hoffmann; Int.: Lilian Harvey (Christel Weinzinger), Willy Fritsch (Zar Alessandro di Russia / Uralsky, suo sosia), Otto Wallburg (Bibikoff), Conrad Veidt (Principe Metternich), Carl Heinz Schroth (Pepi, il suo segretario), Lil Dagover (Contessa), Alfred Abel (Re di Sassonia), Eugen Rex (Ambasciatore di Sassonia), Alfred Gerasch (Ambasciatore di Francia), Adele Sandrock (Contessa), Margarete Kupfer (Contessa), Julius Falkenstein (Ministro delle finanze), Max Gülstorff (Sindaco di Vienna), Paul Hörbiger (cantante), Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur (Napoleone), Sergius Sax, Hermann Blaß, Trude Brionne, Franz Nicklisch, Kurt Brunk; Prod.: Erich Pommer per Erich Pommer-Produktion/UFA; Pri. pro.: 29 settembre 1931
35mm. L.: 2673 m. D.: 98′. Bn
Film Notes
Featuring Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch and Conrad Veidt, Charell’s Der Kongress tanzt was an enormous success for UFA in 1931. Heymann’s heady song Das gibt’s nur einmal, das kommt nicht wieder (There’s only one chance, and it won’t ever come back), the opulence of the sets and costumes, the subtle and sophisticated lighting, the wide camera movements, dexterously juxtaposing the evolution of the masses with the elegantly erotic tête-à-têtes, and the intelligent musical counterpoints all made this romance story between the czar and a florist set during the Congress of Vienna a shining example of a Viennese operetta mixed with a Berlin show.
Eric Charell was born in 1894 in Breslau and died in 1974 in Munich. He was a dancer for Reinhardt and then director of the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin, where he staged White Horse Inn. Charell emigrated in 1933 and made only one other film, Caravan, and during the 1950s he started to work again as an operetta choreographer and writer in Germany.
Roland Schneider, Histoire du cinéma allemand, Les Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1990