MovieChat Forums > Comedian Harmonists (1997) Discussion > Why they wouldn't sing the song...*SPOIL...

Why they wouldn't sing the song...SPOILERS

posted 19 years ago by BluePlateSpecialA13
17 replies | jump to latest

When Streicher invited them over after the concert and asked them to sing "a German folk-song", Frommerman was unable to keep his composure. At first, I thought this was because the group was being demanded to sing an old German song for the Nazi officer, perhaps to drive home a point to the entertainers, but it wasn't until Bob's request that I realized it was more to do with the content of the song, and how it related to Harry, Bob, and Erna. At least, I think that was it.

It certainly must have seemed like a political move (not to sing) by Streicher, who was unaware of the forces pulling the members of the group.

Don't ask me to kill your dragon...

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] ahsieh37 18 years ago

yep, similar hunch from me too...

excellent story, great costumes, wonderful music...

it's playing on IFC right now & we're v.glad we caught it!

[–] AnaKlavier 18 years ago

I agree, it was definately because of the Bob/Erna/Harry relationship. The lyrics spoke to Erna leaving Harry, and he just couldn't take it, he was just so very much in love with her still.

[–] defriedman 17 years ago

The whole love triangle thing was an inexcusable invention by the director, Vilsmaier. It never happened. Why he felt the need to do that is beyond me.

[–] AnaKlavier 17 years ago

:Shrugs:
You can't expect the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this world.

[–] kaufmeisterin 17 years ago

Isn't that quite obvious? Sometimes directors need (or at least think they need) to "spice it up" a bit. without this triangle the story would have one angle less.
Now, I wouldn't mind, to me it did not matter at all in the film whether Erna had left Frommerman or not, since I am not famliar with the real events nor was the detail really important. But maybe the director believed he would catch more viewers by adding a romance and its difficulties into it. Who knows? And why does it matter? It's a movie after all.

I was much more disturbed by the kiss between the real-life-siblings Ben and Meret Becker. In the film they played lovers (Erna and Biberti), and I wondered seriously why the characters were casted this way. When it is obvious that this scene will come up, why would you then (as a caster or director) put the real-life-sister of the actor into that roll???? Wasn't there another young actress available?

That bothered me much more than wondering wether Erna and Biberti had an affair or not. Those 2 at least were not siblings...

[–] groggo 17 years ago

Thanks for the information. I wasn't aware that Ben and Meret Becker were brother and sister. It's a good point you make. There's a big difference between a sweet kiss on the cheek and the heavy tonguing going on between the two at the prizefight. I guess you're supposed to suspend disbelief in these matters, but sometimes it's impossible.

[–] Charlie104 17 years ago

Yes, there is no truth to it. Just the same the appearance of Roman Cycowskis father at the wedding, which in the movie takes place in Prague. In reality, his father was still in Poland and I believe Roman and Mary got married in London or Berlin.

[–] madmermaid 16 years ago

So the love triangle didn't really happen? I should have known; it seemed too movie-ish. Since this movie was based on real people, it's sleazy to make up stories about them that cast them in a negative light. Erna and Bob are rolling in their graves right now... unless it was an exaggeration instead of a complete fabrication.

Either way, I wonder how Roman Cycowski felt about the movie, its accuracy, whether he was consulted or not. He was 96 years old when this movie was released and he died only a year later.

[–] [email protected] 15 years ago

Who among the people engaged in this thread actually knew anything about The Comedian Harmonists as a group, let along the biographies of its six individual members? I certainly didn't. The mingling of fact and fiction in "real life" stories is commonplace, and it doesn't bother me in this instance anymore than it does when "Law and Order" rips a plot from the headlines as it so frequently does. The essential story remains true: The Comedian Harmonists rose during the late twenties and were forced apart when the Nazis came to power. If the screenwriter and the director found it useful to enhance reality with a love triangle and if a real brother and sister played on-screen lovers, my reaction is "so what." Does anyone really care about the liberties Orson Wells may have taken with the life story of William Randolph Hearst when making his all-time-classic? And Hearst was, of course, a prominent personality with a biography that many viewers might well have known. It's one thing to trifle with the life of a well-known and historically important figure -- though that's also done often enough. It's another to rearrange the lives of people that few of us had ever heard of prior to this movie.

[–] rl11 13 years ago

I agree. It's like the Rose/Jack story in "Titanic". I was happy to have found "The Harmonists", despite any poetic license taken.

[–] abutzen-1 16 years ago

That bothered me too. At that point Harry was already married (to a woman named Marion) and Biberti had a steady girlfriend named Hilde, though he didn't marry her until several years later.

It was just silly and annoying. The real story is fascinating enough without these inventions.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] madmermaid 16 years ago

Yes, Streicher seemed personally offended, or at least highly disappointed, that they could not continue the song.

But the group's reasons not to sing it were personal--wasn't the song about an affair or leaving someone for someone else?

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] chrissso 7 years ago

The moment in the film would have been much more meaningful if the issue was the rise of the Nazis in Germany ... perhaps something anti-Semitic ... as opposed to a love triangle. Not a big fan of the obligatory love triangles!

Why they wouldn't sing the song...*SPOILERS*

Why they wouldn't sing the song...SPOILERS