The Stars Shine (film)

The Stars Shine (Original title: Es leuchten die Sterne)
Directed by	Hans H. Zerlett
Produced by	Helmut Schreiber
Written by	Hans Hannes Hans H. Zerlett
Starring	Ernst Fritz Fürbringer Fridtjof Mjøen Paul Verhoeven Karel Stepanek
Music by	Paul Lincke Ernst Kirsch Leo Leux Franz R. Friedl Mathias Perl
Cinematography	Georg Krause Bruno Mondi
Edited by	Ella Ensink
Production company	Tobis Filmkunst
Distributed by	Tobis-Filmverleih (Germany) American Tobis Company (United States)
Release dates	March 17, 1938 (German theatrical)
Country	Nazi Germany
Language	German

The Stars Shine (original title Es leuchten die Sterne) is a 1938 German musical revue directed by Hans H. Zerlett and written by Zerlett and Hans Hannes.^[1][2][3]

Synopsis

A young secretary leaves the country and travels to Berlin to seek work as an actress. In a comedy of errors, she is mistaken for a famous dancer, which results in her heading the cast of a star-studded musical. The plot acts as a backdrop for this musical revue film, which includes many German film, sports, and entertainment stars of the 1930s.

Background

Es leuchten die Sterne was a remake of the 1930 Tobis film Die Große Sehnsucht (The Great Yearning), directed by Stefan Szekely, a Hungarian Jew.^[4] The remake was created as a Busby Berkeley-style musical set inside a movie studio,^[5] and featured appearances by numerous stage personalities, athletes, and Tobis Films stars.^[6] Joseph Goebbels was Propaganda Minister and considered entertainment films to be the best type of media with which to convey the political message of the Nazi regime.^[7][8] Es leuchten die Sterne was created, as were many German films of the period,^[9] to act as a propaganda piece promoting the Third Reich as a cultural entity.^[8][10][11]

Release

The film was first released in Germany on March 17, 1938. This was followed by a release in the Netherlands on April 29, and then in the United States on May 20 as The Stars Shine.^[12] It was released in various countries under different titles: in Belgium as Als de sterren schitteren (Flemish) and as Quand les étoiles brillent (French); in Italy as Brillano le stelle; in Denmark as Funklende stjerner; in Greece as Lampoun t' asteria; in France as Les étoiles brillent and as Vedettes follies; and in the Netherlands as Parade der sterren and Sterrenparade.^[10] The film was released on DVD in its original German version on July 21, 2008 by Warner Home Video.^[2]

Excerpts from the film were shown on German television in 1938, with La Jana present in the studio.^[13]

Cast

La Jana as The Dancer Ernst Fritz Fürbringer as Hans Holger Fridtjof Mjøen as Werner Baumann Paul Verhoeven as Gebauer Karel Stepanek as Brandt Arthur Schröder as the Director Rosita Serrano as the Spanish singer Hermann Pfeiffer as the Production manager Rudolf Schündler as the Insurance man Vera Bergman as Carla Walden

Carla Rust as Mathilde Birk Rudi Godden as Knutz the manager Elisabeth Wendt as Lisa Marwen Else Elster as Mrs. Knutz Eva Tinschmann as Mrs. Bökelmann Horst Birr as Kruse Erwin Biegel as Kellner Erika Steenbock as Ella the actress Heinz Piper as the Lyricist Kurt Mikulski as Böckelmann the makeup artist

Featured appearances

Rudolf Caracciola Lil Dagover Karl Ludwig Diehl Käthe Dorsch Willi Forst Charles Francois Gustav Fröhlich Heinrich George Walter Gross Paul Hartmann Hilde Hildebrand

Paul Hörbiger Paul Kemp Hermann Lang Wolfgang Liebeneiner Harry Liedtke Paul Lincke Theo Lingen Hans Moser Anny Ondra Harald Paulsen

Ralph Arthur Roberts Max Schmeling Sybille Schmitz Albrecht Schoenhals Hans Söhnker Luis Trenker Olga Tschechowa Manfred von Brauchitsch Grethe Weiser Ida Wüst

References

1. "Es Leuchten Die Sterne (1938)". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
2. "Es leuchten die Sterne". OnlineFilmdatenbank (in German). Retrieved 24 December 2010.
3. "Es Leuchten Die Sterne". Allmovie. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
4. Waldman, Harry (2008). Nazi films in America, 1933-1942. McFarland. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-7864-3861-7.
5. Richard W. McCormick, Alison Guenther-Pal (2004). Richard W. McCormick, Alison Guenther-Pal, ed. German essays on film. Volume 81 of German library. Richard W. McCormick, Alison Guenther-Pal. p. 309. ISBN 9780826415073.
6. Hull, David S. (1969). Film in the Third Reich: A Study of the German Cinema, 1933-1945. University of California Press. p. 144. ISBN 9780520014893.
7. Joseph Goebbels, Fred Taylor (1982). Fred Taylor, ed. The Goebbels diaries (illustrated ed.). H. Hamilton. ISBN 9780241108932.
8. Romani, Cinzia. Tainted Goddesses: Female Film Stars of the Third Reich. ISBN 0-9627613-1-1.
9. Kreimeier, Klaus (1999). The Ufa story: a history of Germany's greatest film company, 1918-1945. Volume 23 of Weimar and now Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism (reprint, illustrated ed.). University of California Press. p. 235. ISBN 9780520220690.
10. Hans-Michael Bock, Tim Bergfelder (2009). Hans-Michael Bock, Tim Bergfelder, ed. The concise Cinegraph: encyclopaedia of German cinema. Film Europa: German Cinema in an International Context (illustrated ed.). Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781571816559.
11. Leiser, Erwin (1974). Nazi cinema. Cinema two (illustrated ed.). MacMillan Publishing Company. ISBN 9780025702301.
12. Nugent, Frank S. (May 21, 1938). "The Screen". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
13. Winker, Klaus (1994). Fernsehen unterm Hakenkreuz: Organisation, Programm, Personal. Volume 1 of Medien in Geschichte und Gegenwart (in German). Böhlau. p. 231. ISBN 9783412035945.

External links

• The Stars Shine at the Internet Movie Database
• Es Leuchten Die Sterne at Allmovie