Anna Susanna is an East Germany drama film directed by Richard Nicolas. It was released in 1953.
Plot
During the
Great Depression, a rich businessman named Brinkmann decides to sink his ship,
Anna Susanna, in order to collect on the insurance. He orders its captain, Kleiers, to sabotage it while at sea. When Kleiers carries out his instructions, he is spotted by several sailors and passengers. The captain is killed in the ensuing fight, but not before he manages to shipwreck
Anna Susanna. Only a handful of people survive. After they return home, they discover that Brinkmann's insurance fraud worked and he was compensated. They sue him at court and manage to have him indicted.
Cast
Production
During 1952, as the government control over
DEFA tightened, the studio produced only six films, all of them influenced by the
Cold War and dedicated to the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism.
Anna Susanna was one of those.
[Sylvia Klötzer. Satire und Macht: Film, Zeitung, Kabarett in der DDR. Böhlau Verlag (2005). . Page 28.] Although the film had a plot suiting the government's policy, the DEFA Board was very reluctant to allow Richard Nicolas, for whom the picture was his debut as a director, to make
Anna Susanna. Nicolas had threatened to resign if he would not be allowed to direct it, and was eventually granted permission.
[Ralf Schenk. Das zweite Leben der Filmstadt Babelsberg. DEFA- Spielfilme 1946–1992. . Page 67.] The film was also noted for being one of the first DEFA pictures to employ primitive special effects, such as building a miniature ship model that was wrecked in an aquarium.
[Werner Reff, István Vásárhelyi. Der Filmtrick und der Trickfilm. Fotokinoverlag VEB (1963). ASIN B0000BT6IC. Pages 21–22.]
Reception
Heinz Kersten quoted an East German official who told that "the times in which pictures like
Anna Susanna, that damaged the image of DEFA in the eyes of the people... should not return."
[Heinz Kersten. Das Filmwesen in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands. Bundesministerium für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen (1963). ASIN B0000BK48Q. page 38.] The West German Catholic Film Service described it as "rather well-developed, thrilling crime film... but filled with typical criticism of the capitalist system."
[ Anna Susanna on the German Film Lexicon.]
External links
