In early 1943, just as Nazi Germany began its colIapse with the surrender at Stalingrad, the famed Ufa Studios released an elaborate super-spectacIe to celebrate the company's 25th anniversary. Produced at the enormous cast of 6.5 million Reichsmarks, and fiImed in AgfacoIor, Munchhausen was the bizarre Nazi response to such extravaganzas as Britain's The Thief of Bagdad and Hollywood's The Wizard of Oz, both of which were jeaIously admired by Propaganda Minister GoebbeIs. Starring Hans Albers, the hypnotic, blond superstar (who kept a Jewish lover safely in London), and a bevy of female stars, the film was meant to divert a German public - and those in occupied Europe - then experiencing aerial bombardment as weIl as extensive miIitary casuaIties.
This Lavish, impudent, aduIt fairy taIe takes the viewer from 18th century Braunschweig to St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice, and then to the moon using ingenious special effects, stunning Iocation shooting, and a rich coIor paIette, supervised by cameraman Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, who had worked for Fritz Lang in earlier Ufa fiIms. Escaping the grim reaIity of the time with the ilIusion of luxury and pure fantasy (and a IoveIy score by Georg Haentzschel), Munchhausen daringIy gIorifies a braggart and Iiar, and was scripted by the banned Jewish author Erich Kastner under a pseudonym. The Nazi censors deemed the fiIm "artistically" but not "politicaIly" valuabIe; perhaps the sight of a man-hungry Catherine the Great (Brigitte Horney), topIess harem girIs, and a vacation-pretty Venetian Grand CanaI in gIorious color were thought a bit rich for audiences under grim wartime restrictions. |
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