DEJA REVUE: THE CAPTAIN FROM KÖPENICK

GERMANY | 1956 | 93 min | STC

Based on true events and the 1931 play by Carl Zuckmayer (as well as the first film version by Richard Oswald), it’s the story of the Berlin shoemaker Wilhelm Voigt who donned an old captain’s uniform, “arrested” the mayor of Köpenick and “confiscated” the city treasury containing over four thousand marks.

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He exploited the blind obedience to state authority because, under the regulations of bureaucracy, there was no place for him. People have been laughing about the daring prank and empathizing with the “Captain from Köpenick” for nearly a century, up to Frank Beyer’s TV version in 1997.

Heinz Rühmann, perhaps the best known German actor of the 20th century, who controversially kept working under the eye of the Nazi propaganda ministry, starred in popular and (lastingly) successful comedies such as THE THREE FROM THE FILLING STATION (1930) and THE PUNCH BOWL (1944), which half of Germany still watches each New Year’s Eve. At age 54, he took the role of his life as the Captain of Köpenick, a district in the east of Berlin.

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Director: Helmut Käutner
Cast: Heinz Rühmann, Martin Held, Hannelore Schroth
Language: German with English subtitles

DETAILS

Introduced by Jutta Brendemühl, Program Curator of the Goethe-Institut Toronto and Eric Veillette, Programming Director of the Revue Cinema.

Presented by the Goethe-Institut and the Revue Cinema in 35mm.

PRICING

General admission: $12
Members, Students & Seniors: $9

Membership free event is not applicable.

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