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Liebelei (1933, Germany)
In director Max Ophul's fifth feature film - a superb
poetic, poignant and dramatic masterpiece of tearjerking, romantic
(and tragic) love set in Vienna in the early 1900s, with beautiful
visual compositions:
- the courtship and growing love affair of Austro-Hungarian
army lieutenant Fritz Lobheimer (Wolfgang Liebeneiner) with Christine
Weyring (Magda Schneider, the mother of actress Romy Schneider),
the innocent, shy 19 year-old working-class daughter of an opera
musician
- the scenes of Fritz and Christine silently strolling
down a winding backstreet at night, and their lively, heavenly waltzing
through an empty coffee bar to the music of a coin-operated Victrola
- the long-shot (and then close-ups) of an idyllic horse-drawn
sleigh ride through a wintry wonderland, when Christine admitted
her love and pledged herself to eternal romance with Fritz: "I
know nothing about you - you must tell me some time about your life...Eternally,
I'll love you"
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Fritz' Horse-Drawn Sleigh Ride With Christine
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- Fritz' concurrent indiscretions - his philandering
and extra-marital affair with the adulterous Baroness von Eggersdorff
(Olga Tschechowa), the wife of monocle-wearing, angry cigarette-smoking
Baron von Eggersdorff (Gustaf Gründgens) - his love affair
with Christine was contrasted with a scene of a waltz in the mansion
(with full orchestration) with the Baroness - with less enthusiasm
than with Christine
- the fateful duel of honor at dawn with pistols (off-screen
only with the sound of a gunshot) - demanded by the scorned, offended,
outraged and jealous Baron against Fritz
- the heartbreaking concluding scene of the heroine
learning of the fateful news of Fritz' death in the duel:
"...he has fought a duel...well, he has, he has...he's dead";
she was then told he fought the duel because of a woman in his past;
her facial expressions ranged from doubt, desperation, shock, confusion,
disbelief, fear and grief as she responded: "I can never see him
again but he always told me that he loves me, and so he has, because
of another woman, but that's impossible. No, no, I don't believe it.
This is not true. What had I been to him then?"
- the scene of Christine's immediate response - her
tragic suicidal jump from her second floor window (off-screen) -
followed by a view of the open window and the sight of her body in
the street below, soon surrounded by concerned neighbors
- and a replay of the wintry, snow-covered backdrop
from their sleigh ride (with a pan from left to right, without the
sleigh) accompanied by the off-screen words of Christine about eternal
love as the film faded to black
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Fritz's Love Affair with Christine
Extra-Marital Affair with the Baroness
Christine's Suicide After News of Fritz' Death in Duel
Replay of Sleigh Ride Backdrop
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