Kameradschaft (1931)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Writers:

Peter Martin Lampel (writer)
Karl Otten (writer)

Release Date:

17 November 1931 (Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Plea against war and for friendship between peoples, through the story of french miners rescued by german colleagues after a firedamp explosion.

Plot Keywords:

Border | Rescue | Explosion | Fire | WWI

Cast

Alexander Granach	...	Kasper
Fritz Kampers	...	Wilderer
Ernst Busch	...	Wittkopp
Elisabeth Wendt	...	Frau Wittkopp
Gustav Püttjer	...	Kaplan
Oskar Höcker	...	Obersteiger
Daniel Mendaille	...	Jean Leclerc
Georges Charlia	...	Emile
Andrée Ducret	...	Françoise
Alex Bernard	...	Grand-père, le vieux mineur
Pierre-Louis	...	Georges - le petit galibot
Héléna Manson	...	Rose, la femme du mineur blessé
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gerhard Bienert
Marguerite Debois
Adolf Fischer
Friedrich Gnaß
Georg Guertler
Willem Holsboer	...	Ingenieur des deutschen Bergwerks
Marcel Lesieur	...	Albert
Palmyre Levasseur
Marcel Merminod
Teddy Michaud
Naupel
Reinhardt
Rortais
Franz Schier
Théo Tony
Georges Tourreil	...	L'ingénieur
Richard Weichert
Fritz Wendhausen	...	Direktor des deutschen Bergwerks

Also Known As:

Comradeship
Grubentragödie (Germany) (working title)
Kameradschaft Sohle VI (Germany) (working title)
La tragédie de la mine (France)

Runtime:

93 min | USA:86 min (Janus print)

Country:

Germany | France

Language:

French | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Certification:

USA:TV-14 (TV rating)

Filming Locations:

Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany

Company:

Nero-Film AG

Trivia:

The movie was filmed in the narrow transitional sound ratio of 1.20-1, but, at least in the case of the Janus video release telecast on Turner Classic Movies, has been converted to the standard 1.37-1 ratio with the result that the players' heads are cut off either partially or completely in many of the key scenes. In the final sequence, the heads of the speakers are completely cut off.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood" (1995)

Old school story with universal appeal

Those French and those Germans sure have a long history of not liking each other. It is interesting to note that Kamerdaschaft or Comradeship in translation takes place in 1931. Only a few years later, Hitler would siege Germany and begin his plans to take over the world, France being a casualty of his ambitions. But these are times of sereneness compared to the future. A group of miners at the border try to cross over to France to get work. They are spurned back and later at a nightclub by their French neighbors. Then a disaster happens in the mines of the French and a well-crafted and written scene, a troupe of German miners decide to come to the rescue. A simple story is it not? Pabst was a poet of silent cinema and I am not sure if this is his first sound movie or not, but his poetry is there to be discovered. He isn't fussy but brings a rugged realism to the ordeal. Ther is even a flashback to a WWII event that beckons the point of this story. Supposedly based on a real event, the movie does the events proudly with directness and terseness. Smetimes, that's what a movie needs to be.