Die kluge Marianne is an elegant and funny comedy of errors, a story that might seem anachronistic today, but, at the same time, a true declaration of love to women. A film that, even many years after it was made, is perfectly capable of filling viewers’ hearts with joy and optimism.
Compared to The Trapp Family, one almost gets the impression that The Trapp Family in America works almost on autopilot. What was successful in the first film is almost faithfully re-presented here. The music moves, but not as much as it should, and similarly, the numerous flashbacks that refer back to the 1956 feature film come across as excessively contrived.
The Trapp Family, while suffering from an overly famous, spectacular and almost ‘cumbersome’ remake, undoubtedly has a well-defined personality. And despite having – obviously – many similarities with The Sound of Music (especially with regard to some of the dialogue), it turns out to be a little gem to be discovered.
Spring on Ice, alongside a rather simple and linear screenplay, sees a mise-en-scène that is predominantly theatrical, but also extremely spectacular, colourful and lively, within which elegant figures move in front of the camera, in a series of carefully choreographed performances that successfully create a balanced mixture of modern dance and Viennese waltz.
It is not surprising that a feature film like 1. April 2000 (a fine fantapolitical satire directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner) was made precisely in 1952, seven years after the end of the world war and only three years before the Austrian State Treaty by which, among other things, the nation’s neutrality was officially proclaimed.
The Angel with the Trumpet, the successful feature film by Karl Hartl from 1948 and freely adapted from the novel The Vienna Melody, written by Ernst Lothar in 1946, is a family saga and faithful portrait of around sixty years of Austrian history, which successfully mixes the two different points of view – that of Hartl himself, as well as the point of view from the original novel.