HARMONISTS,THE (COMEDIAN HARMONISTS) (director: Joseph Vilsmajer; cast: Ben Becker (Robert Biberti), Heino Ferch (Roman Cycowski), Ulrich Noethen (Harry Frommermann), Heinrich Schafmeister (Erich A.Collin), Max Tidof (Ari Leschnikoff), Kai Wiesinger (Erwin Bootz), Meret Becker (Erna Eggstein), Katja Riemann (Mary Cycowski), Dana Vavrova (Ursula Bootz), Susi Nicoletti (Mrs. Grunbaum), Noemi Fischer (Chantal), Otto Sander (Bruno Levy), 1997-German)
It is 1935, the group called The Comedian Harmonists are at the height of their popularity, they are world famous, as we see them formally dressed in tails performing on stage one of their favorite harmonies, "Veronika."
The film flashes back to Berlin in 1927, the weak Weimar Republic is in power and will remain so until 1933, when Hitler's Third Reich took over and put its anti-Semitic policies to work.This will provide the backdrop for this true story, that is most probably not told in its full accuracy, as it tells about the rise and fall of the musical group and their personal lives, and the events in Nazi Germany that made it impossible for them to exist as they once were, since half of their six members were Jewish, and Jews were no longer allowed to perform in Germany under the Nazis.
Harry Frommermann (Ulrich) is the unemployed Jewish actor (and dead-ringer for Robert Benigni) and self-taught musician and baritone, who tells his agent that he is a musician not an actor.That his ability is in arranging music, is met with cynicism by his agent, who tells him that there are 3 million unemployed Germans on the street who are arrangers.
Harry runs an ad in the paper, after hearing a record of an American Negro group called "The Revellers" singing harmony; and, he is also influenced by the music of the Duke Ellington. He now thinks that he could put together such music for a German capella group, consisting of five singers in harmony with a piano accompanist. The first one that he hires for the group is the very Aryan looking, Robert Biberti (Ben Becker), the son of an opera singer, with an untrained but beautiful voice, who then gets the rest of the group together from among his acquaintances: Roman Cycowski (Heino Ferch), born in Poland, who wants to perform at the grand opera and will become a cantor in America when the group is disbanded in the late 30s; Erich Abraham Collin (Heinrich Schafmeister), has just passed his exam at the conservatory; Ari Leschnikoff (Max Tidof), a gifted Bulgarian tenor, who is working as a singing waiter; and, Erwin Bootz (Kai Wiesinger), a barroom pianist, completes the group, as the non-singing member.Then came long hours of practice without being paid, as they worked on getting their syncopated sound together and their full routine of double-entendres, such as their "asparagus are sprouting" number. Some of the other songs they sing, all seem to be lighthearted, such as, "Beautiful Isabella From Castile" and "When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba."
Their big break comes as they audition for a revue show and get the job, as Bob, puffs on his big cigar and boldly works out the financial arrangements for the group. Then recordings follow and sold-out concert appearances and tours throughout Europe.
The love clash between Harry and Bob is over a music student and part-time employee at a music store owned by an elderly patriotic Jewish couple, the very attractive Erna Eggstein (Meret Becker), who, incidentally, is the real sister of Ben Becker. The romance between Harry and Erna starts first, as Harry shyly pursues her, encouraged by her only too willing consent. Harry must first go to the grave site of his parents and tell them that he has fallen in love with a non-Jewish woman. When Bob meets her, he also falls for her, having led a wild bachelor's life, he knows instinctively that this is the one for him.When he takes her to a boxing match, he finds that Erna is dissatisfied that Harry doesn't pay her enough attention and does not take her studies seriously, so when Bob asks her to move in with him, she does, even though, she still loves Harry.
This is a time of great change and upheaval in Berlin, and there is an international flavor in the air, as culture is moving in that direction. Therefore there are great changes in the way people relate to others. Bootz will live with a Polish Jewish girl, but dump her when the Nazis are starting to flex their muscle in the mid-thirties. Roman's Aryan fiancée will convert to Judaism. Collin, the third Jew of the group, will marry a French prostitute working the red light district of Berlin.
As far as the Nazis, their hatred is very apparent and very gripping across all levels of society during this time.This film takes, in my opinion, an erroneous view of their activity, soft peddling it, and stating that it was only among the lower classes that anti-Semitism was prevalent, that the upper classes and the cultured classes were generally supportive of the Jews.This is just not true. It is a rewriting of history that is not based on the facts. Daniel Goldhagen's book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners," makes it clear, leaving no doubt, that anti-Semitism was rampant among all classes.The majority of Germans were anti-Semites, and there is no getting away from that. And just because the group continued to have sold-out concerts after it became known that there were Jews in the group and that the notorious Nazi Julius Streicher, publisher of Stürmer (a major Nazi newspaper), was able to grant them special permission to continue performing during this difficult time, because he admired them and asked for their autographs, would not indicate that things weren't so bad. That is just ignoring the truly horrible and pervasive Nazi reign of terror, that really didn't go into full blast until Kristallnacht in '38, but was certainly more wide-spread in the early 30s than what was portrayed here. It should also be noted that Streicher was executed as a Nazi war criminal as a result of the Nuremberg trials.
There is one scene that shows some of this Nazi S.A. brownshirt hatred in action, as we see how it is directed against the Jewish music store owners who can't understand what is happening to their country and why they are being singled out and why their store is being smeared with anti-Semitic messages, asserting that their son died fighting for Germany in the last war. The Holocaust came a few years later, but there is no doubt that the initial plans for the "Final Solution" was underway, even back then; and, even if, there were a few Germans who were not filled with hatred, like Erna, it cannot be denied, they were still badly outnumbered.
The scene when the group comes to perform in New York on board the USS Saratoga, gets everything it can about that scene wrong. For one thing, the Navy was not integrated then, so all those black faces on board were not on board during the 30s. And, New York never looked so unreal and artificial. The real problem the group has in New York, is whether they should return home, as a conflict develops over this matter between Bob (who doesn't want to leave his elderly mother alone) and Harry, who sees the handwriting on the wall in Germany, and feels he has nothing left there. But it is settled when the rest of the group decides to return to a changing Germany, that is, despite realizing that their country is being purged of its international and Communistic and bourgeois influences, in favor of nationalism, by the intolerant Nazis, who have taken complete control of the arts.
Their final concert is a standing-ovation triumph to their popularity, as they are forced by Nazi laws to not mingle with the Jews and therefore must disband the group.There is a crush of people surging onstage to give them warm support and encouragement. As a result, two groups are formed, the Jews leave Germany and play in exile (actually having great success in Australia) and the gentiles stay in Germany; but, they cannot make it separately, and because of the war the internationalism of their music loses favor, as both groups disband by 1941.
In an epilogue, it is mentioned how all the members survived WW11: As all the Jewish members went to America, as did Erna, who married Harry, and, later on, divorced him in the early 1950s.
There was something emotionally flat and unconvincing about this story, that not only rubbed me the wrong way, but made me think how apologetic the filmmaker was to the real events of history, as he tried to force feed the audience into believing so many untruths about what actually took place, that it is hard for me to say that this film made up for its distorted history lessons with its pleasing music and cabaret-like mood its splendid cinematography presented. Its call for the world to be less nationalistic and more global minded, had a pleasing ring to it, but that is simply not enough to counter how tame the film appears as a whole, as the story does not dig deep enough into the real events; and, also, the characters are only superficially dealt with, despite the terrific performances, so that the love story and all the different personality clashes seem to be glossed over, not making me feel involved with them as much as I should be. Leaving me with the impression that I was seeing a good looking and sounding film, but one that did not ultimately satisfy my need to feel that Germany has learned its lesson from its most pernicious period of history, as it fails to answer the question, how can such a cultured people accept the atrocities of the Nazis so willingly.
REVIEWED ON 5/27/99 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
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