Carbide and Sorrel is a 1963

1963 in film

The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....

 East German film directed by Frank Beyer

Frank Beyer

Frank Beyer was German film director. In East Germany he was one of the most important film directors, working for the state film monopoly DEFA and directed films that dealt mostly with the Nazi era and contemporary East Germany. His film Traces of Stones was banned for 20 years in 1966 by the...

 and starring Erwin Geschonneck

Erwin Geschonneck

Erwin Geschonneck was a German actor. His biggest success occurred in the German Democratic Republic, where he was considered one of the most famous actors of the time.-Early life:...

.

Plot

At 1945, in the devastated city of Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Karl 'Kalle' Blücher - a former worker in the cigarettes factory - returns home, wishing to resume his job. The chief of the reconstruction team explains that the plant cannot produce cigarettes without carbide

Carbide

In chemistry, a carbide is a compound composed of carbon and a less electronegative element. Carbides can be generally classified by chemical bonding type as follows: salt-like, covalent compounds, interstitial compounds, and "intermediate" transition metal carbides...

. He assigns Kalle with the mission to obtain the material. The worker travels to Wittenberge

Wittenberge

Wittenberge is a town of twenty thousand people on the lower Elbe in the district of Prignitz , Brandenburg, Germany.-History:...

 and manages to secure nine barrels, but his return to Dresden turns into a long chain of comical incidents: at first, a war widow named Karla allows him to travel on her wagon. Afterwards, he encounters greedy American soldiers, Red Army troops who confiscate some of his barrels and other obstacles. Eventually, after many adventures, he brings two barrels back and marries Karla.

Cast

• Erwin Geschonneck
  Erwin Geschonneck
  Erwin Geschonneck was a German actor. His biggest success occurred in the German Democratic Republic, where he was considered one of the most famous actors of the time.-Early life:...
  
   as Karl 'Kalle' Blücher
• Fritz Diez
  Fritz Diez
  Not to be confused with the West German industrialist Fritz Dietz.Fritz Diez was a German actor, producer, director and theater manager.-Early life:...
  
   as reconstruction chief
• Fred Delmare
  Fred Delmare
  Fred Delmare was a German actor.He was born in Hüttensteinach. He appeared in several films and television series, last in 70 episodes of In aller Freundschaft between 1998 and 2006. He died in May, 1 2009....
  
   as coachman
• Horst Giese
  Horst Giese
  Horst Fritz Otto Giese was an East German actor.-Biography:In 1945, Giese made his debut on stage at his native Neuruppin, then in the Soviet occupation zone. Later he appeared on television. His first role in a movie was at the 1954 Alarm in the Circus...
  
   as uncredited role
• Frank Michelis as worker
• Hermann Eckhardt as worker
• Georg Helge as worker
• Marita Böhme as Karla
• Manja Behrens as Clara
• Margot Busse as Karin
• Peter Dommisch as Paul
• Werner Möhring as Peter
• Rudolf Asmus as singer
• Hans-Dieter Schlegel as American soldier
• Bruno Carstens as Police officer
• Fred Ludwig as Ganove
• Günter Rüger as man with the marmelade
• Alexei Presnetsov as Soviet commandant
• Leonid Svetloff as Red Army supply officer
• Jochen Thomas as Locomotive driver
• Albert Zahn as Locomotive driver
• Otto Saltzmann as old man
• Wolfram Handel as traveler
• Gerd Ehlers as butscher
• Hans Hardt-Hardtloff as the commissar
• Peter Kalisch as the man with the hut
• Elsa Grube-Deister as woman in the sawmill
• Gina Presgott as woman in the sawmill
• Agnes Kraus as woman in the cemetery
• Sabine Thalbach as woman in the cemetery
• Else Koren as woman in the cemetery
• Maria Besendahl as woman in the cemetery
• Gertrud Brendler as woman in the cemetery

Production

Frank Beyer recounted that the script was authorized without unusual problems. But after the filming ended, the representatives of the East German Ministry of Culture were worried that the portrayal of Red Army soldiers as comical plunderers would offend the Soviet Union. The deputy Minister then took a copy of the film to Moscow and arranged a screening for a local audience. The attendants broke into a loud laughter during the viewing, and it was approved for mass screening.

Actor Erwin Geschonneck told that "In Carbide and Sorrel we did not ignore the hardships of the time. We did not turn the people who rebuilt the country into a joke... We knew that, in spite of all the challenges back then, the people also had funny experiences and knew to laugh about them."

Reception

The film was well received. Author Joshua Feinstein noted that "the picture spared no one, including the Red Army, in its satire. The work also subtly undermined the official accounts of the GDR's history." Seán Allan and John Sandford wrote that "it took a deceptively light-hearted look at the division of Germany" and was a "milestone in DEFA's history." Catherine Fowler concluded that it was one of the "most prominent" examples of "DEFA comedies... relaxed enough to laugh at their own Germanness."

Frank Beyer's codename in the Stasi

Stasi

The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...

files, Karbid, was inspired by the film's title.

External links

• Carbide and Sorrel at Filmportal.de