CRISIS

Sceneggiatura / Screenplay: Herbert Kline, Hanuš Burger, Alexandr Hackenschmied. Fotografia / Photography: Alexandr Hackenschmied, Jan Lukas, Jindřich Brichta, Karel Degl, Pavel Hrdlička, Bohumil Havránek. Montaggio / Editing: Alexandr Hackenschmied, Herbert Kline. Musica / Music: H. W. Susskind, Jaroslav Harvan. Interpreti / Cast: Edvard Beneš, Leif Erickson (Narratore / Narrator), Konrad Henlein, Jiří Voskovec, Jan Werich. Produzione / Produced by: Herbert Kline.

Crisis recounts the dramatic end of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1939), as a consequence of the Sudetenland crisis. The film contrasts the tolerant and multi-ethnic character of Czechoslovakia, an asylum for political exiles and racial persecuted by the Third Reich, with the brutal aggressiveness of the latter. Hitler’s Germany fomented political violence in the German-speaking majority areas of Czechoslovakia, of which Konrad Henlein’s Sudetendeutscher Partei (SDP) was the collector, while Czech culture and society indifferently nurtured Czech, Jewish and German children, and the Dadaist comedians Voskovec & Werich satirized Nazi expansionism. But Germany, thanks to artfully mounted incidents and the dastardly acquiescence of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier at the Munich Conference (29-30/9/1938), acquired the Sudetenland area. This was the first stage in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, first with the claims of Poland and Hungary; then with the secession of Slovakia (14/3/1939) and the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (16/3/1939).

Herbert Kline
Screenwriter, journalist, documentary film creator, producer and director, Herbert Kline was born in 1909 in Chicago, USA and died in 1999 in Los Angeles.

filmografia scelta / selected filmography
1939 Crisis doc.

Hanuš Burger
Screenwriter, documentary film creator and director, Hanuš Burger was born in 1909 in Prague, present-day Czech Republic, and died in 1990 in Munich, Germany.

filmografia scelta / selected filmography
1939 Crisis doc. 1954 Východisko (Way Out) cm / sf; Nedělní dostaveníčko (Sunday Rendezvous) cm / sf 1956 Pozor jedu…! (Watch Out, I’m Coming…!) cm / sf 1957 Parta nezradí…? (Will the Gang Betray Him?) cm / sf 1958 Číslo 93 se nevrátí (The Number 93 Will Not Return) cm / sf 1959 Důvěra (Trust) cm / sf 1961 Ledové moře volá (The Call of the Arctic)

Alexandr Hackenschmied
Camera operator, editor, still photographer, architect, documentary film creator and director, Alexandr Hackenschmied was born in 1907 in Linz, present-day Austria, and died in 2004 in New York City, USA.

filmografia scelta / selected filmography
1930 Bezúčelná procházka cm / sf 1932 Na pražském hradě cm / sf 1939 Crisis doc. 1943 Meshes of the Afternoon (diretto con / directed with Maya Deren) 1945 The Private Life of a Cat