Comedian Harmonists is a 1997 German film by Joseph Vilsmaier

Joseph Vilsmaier

Joseph Vilsmaier is a German film director.-Work:After attending a boarding school near Augsburg, he was trained as a technician to make film cameras and then spent nine years at a music conservatory. Following this he was a member of a jazz group...

. It is a biopic about the popular German vocal group Comedian Harmonists

Comedian Harmonists

The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II...

. The film stars Ben Becker

Ben Becker

Ben Becker is a German film and theatre actor.- Life and work :Becker is the son of actress Monika Hansen and actor Rolf Becker. He is the brother of actress Meret Becker and the stepson of Otto Sander. His grandmother was the comedian Claire Schlichting...

, Heino Ferch

Heino Ferch

Heino Ferch is an award-winning German film and television actor.-Life:The son of a cargo vessel skipper, he was on stage for the first time in his life at the age of 15, while he was still attending grammar school...

, Ulrich Noethen

Ulrich Noethen

Ulrich Noethen is a German actor who has appeared in many movies and TV films.He starred in Comedian Harmonists. He also played Heinrich Himmler twice, in Der Untergang and Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler.Noethen has won various awards for his acting, including the...

, Heinrich Schafmeister, Max Tidof

Max Tidof

-Selected filmography:* Vergeßt Mozart * Ludwig 1881 * Abgeschminkt! * Bergkristall -External links:...

, Kai Wiesinger

Kai Wiesinger

Kai Wiesinger is a German actor.-Life and work:Kai Wiesinger began taking private acting lessons as a teenager. After his Zivildienst , he became an acting student in Munich...

, Meret Becker

Meret Becker

- Life and career :Becker was born in Bremen, the daughter of the actors Monika Hansen and Rolf Becker. She is the sister of Ben Becker, stepdaughter of Otto Sander and granddaughter of Claire Schlichting....

, Dana Vávrová

Dana Vávrová

Dana Vávrová was a Czech-German film actress and director.-Biography:Vávrová was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia and played her first main film role in Ať žijí duchové! in 1976, having played a minor role in Jak se točí Rozmarýny...

, and Otto Sander

Otto Sander

Otto Sander is a German film, theater, and voice actor.Sander grew up in Kassel, where he graduated in 1961 from the Friedrichgymnasium. After leaving school he spent his military service as a navy reserve officer and then studied theatre science, history of art and philosophy. In 1965 he made his...

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Plot

In 1927, unemployed German-Jewish actor Harry Frommermann is inspired by the American group The Revelers

The Revelers

The Revelers were an American quintet popular in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Revelers' recordings of "Dinah", "Old Man River", "Valencia", "Baby Face", "Blue Room", "The Birth of the Blues", "When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba", and many more, became popular in the United States and...

to create a German group of the same format. He holds auditions and signs on four additional singers and a pianist. Naming themselves the "Comedian Harmonists", they meet international fame and popularity. However, they eventually run into trouble when the Nazis come to power, as half the group is Jewish.

Censorship

Though the film succeeded in Europe, and President Bill Clinton told Roger Ebert it was among his favorite films of the year, the movie did not get wide release in the U.S. The film, as well as the fantastically successful group it portrays, remain mostly unknown to most American audiences. This lack of success is notable in light of efforts by the American distributor to censor a small but very significant moment of the film that occurs when the Harmonists arrive in New York and perform in front of the U.S. Navy.

In the European version, the Harmonists sing to a stoic audience of mostly white sailors. However, the camera singles out one African American navy man who is visibly enjoying the music-- until he gets a stinging look of rebuke from a superior officer. This segment was cut from the American release.