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KINO ON VIDEO IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE OF TITANIC (1943) AND MÜNCHHAUSEN (1943).
M Ü N C H H A U S E N
Kino on Video, in collaboration with Transit Films/F.W. Murnau Foundation, is proud to make available for the first time on VHS and DVD two of the biggest film productions made in Germany during the Nazi era. Never commercially released in North America and only rarely screened here in the 16mm format, TITANIC (1943) and MÜNCHHAUSEN (1943)--the latter now digitally restored from a nitrate Agfacolor print--will be available on July 20th, 2004, in newly produced DVD editions. The DVD of MÜNCHHAUSEN brings as special features scenes from other restored Agfacolor films, a rare 8-minute animated film based on the tales of MÜnchhausen, a video interview with Friedemann Beyer, Director of the Murnau Foundation, the film’s original trailer, and unseen stills. The DVD of TITANIC comes with the film’s original trailer, a photo gallery and an original 1912 newsreel of the TITANIC aftermath and much more. Each title will be priced at $29.95, on DVD and VHS. Determined to create cinematic spectacles that would rival Hollywood’s biggest exports, like GONE WITH THE WIND(1939) and WIZARD OF OZ(1939), Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels were active in commissioning big-budget motion pictures. Shot with Agfacolor film, Germany’s response to the American Kodachrome / Technicolor launched in 1935, MÜNCHHAUSEN became the first color super-production to hit German theatres, quickly recouping its production cost. The film was envisioned by Goebbles as a tool to divert public attention from the increasing German casualties during the last years of WWII and coincidentally, the filming of MÜNCHHAUSEN ended months apart from the defeat of German troops in Stalingrad, Russia, in 1942.
Released as part of a national celebration of the 25th anniversary of the UFA studios, MÜNCHHAUSEN is the story of a megalomaniac 17th century aristocrat whose tall tales bring the audience to an unimaginable trip to the moon, Constantinople, and to an extravagant party--filmed in Venice and featuring over 100 gondolas. This legendary story was latter turned into an Oscar nominated film directed by filmmaker Terry Gilliam (Brazil) in 1988.
TITANIC(1943), the first feature-film treatment of the sinking of the famed British ship since the silent era, marked the cinematic debut of ground-breaking special effects which were latter used, without credit, in A Night to Remember (1958), another cinematic re-telling of the Titanic tragedy. With an anti-British slant, this TITANIC production brings brilliantly orchestrated scenes of collective panic and ends with a trial which places responsibility for the tragedy on the management of the British company which developed the ship. For members of the Nazi party, the TITANIC story was seen as a golden opportunity to further equate corporate greed with a capitalistic model put forth by the British Empire. Therefore, the filming of TITANIC was not only a chance for German filmmakers to achieve cinematic grandeur, it was also a "moral endeavor."
 M Ü N C H H A U S E N
GERMANY / 119 MINUTES
COLOR
IN GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Produced at the enormous cost of 6.5 million Reichsmarks and filmed in Agfacolor, MÜNCHHAUSEN was the Nazi response to such extravaganzas as Hollywood's WIZARD OF OZ(1939) and Britain's THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940), both of which were jealously admired by Propaganda Minister Goebbels. Starring the hypnotic blond superstar Hans Albers and a bevy of female stars, MÜNCHHAUSEN recouped its production cost and became a box-office hit in Germany, collecting over 8 million Reichsmarks upon its theatrical release in 1943.
This lavish, impudent, adult fairy tale takes the viewer from 18th-century Braunschweig to St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Venice, and then to the moon using ingenious special effects, stunning location shooting, and a rich color palette, supervised by cameraman Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, who had worked for Fritz Lang in earlier Ufa films. Escaping the grim reality of the time with the illusion of luxury and pure fantasy (and a lovely score by Georg Haentzschel), MÜNCHHAUSEN daringly glorifies a braggart and liar, and was scripted by author Erich Kästner, who was previously blacklisted by the Nazi regime and then handpicked by Goebbels to write the script for MÜNCHHAUSEN.
The Nazi censors deemed the film "artistically" but not "politically" valuable; perhaps the sight of a man-hungry Catherine the Great (Brigitte Horney), topless harem girls, and a vacation-pretty Venetian Grand Canal in glorious color were thought a bit rich for audiences under grim wartime restrictions.
Special Features:
- Scenes from other restored Agfacolor films.
- An eight-minute animated film inspired by the tales of Munchhausen.
- A video interview with Friedemann Beyer, the Director of the Murnau Foundation, on the history of the film’s production.
- The film’s original trailer.
- A gallery of previously unseen stills.
 T I T A N I C
GERMANY / 85 MINUTES
BLACK AND WHITE
N GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Before James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster TITANIC, the Hollywood TITANIC of 1953, and the 1958 British film A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, there was the German film TITANIC. After shooting started in 1942, the production of TITANIC ran into a serious of problems: infuriated with second-unit delays, director Herbert Selpin was overheard making derogatory remarks about the German army and was sent to prison after an stormy confrontation with Goebbels. Two days later, he was found hanging in his cell, victim of an arranged "suicide."
In April of 1943, the film was banned by the Berlin censors for German release because of its terrifying scenes of panic which were all too familiar to German civilians undergoing nightly Allied bombing raids. After extensive cutting, TITANIC was released in occupied Paris and in few army installations. The film was finally seen in Germany in late 1949, but banned a few months later in the Western sectors (though not in the Soviet zone, because of its unmistakable anti-British-capitalist theme).
Technically, this TITANIC is an excellent catastrophe film; its shots of the ship sinking were later used in A NIGHT TO REMEMBER without credit. Somewhat true to the facts--though peppered with fictional good Germans both on and below deck,--the film ends with a trial scene that acquits the White Star Line management.
Special Features:
- Original theatrical trailer.
- A newsreel put together in 1912, after the sinking of the Titanic.
- A filmed tour of The Olympic, an identical ship built by White Line Star.
- A press gallery with newspaper articles written in 1912.
- A stills gallery.
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