''Lucky Kids'' (german: Glückskinder) is a 1936 German

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film directed by

Paul Martin Paul Edgar Philippe Martin (born August 28, 1938), also known as Paul Martin Jr., is a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 21st prime minister of Canada and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2003 to 2006. The son o ...

and starring

Lilian Harvey Lilian Harvey (born Helene Lilian Muriel Pape; 19 January 1906 – 27 July 1968) was an Anglo-German actress and singer, long based in Germany, where she is best known for her role as Christel Weinzinger in Erik Charell's 1931 film ''Der Kongr ...

Willy Fritsch Willy Fritsch (27 January 1901 – 13 July 1973) was a German theater and film actor, a popular leading man and character actor from the silent-film era to the early 1960s. Biography Early life He was born Wilhelm Egon Fritz Fritsch, the only s ...

, and Paul Kemp. It was shot at the

Babelsberg Studios Babelsberg Film Studio (german: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the second oldest large-scale film studio in the world only preceded by the Danish Nordisk Film (est. 1906), producing films since ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. The film's sets were designed by the

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

Erich Kettelhut Erich Karl Heinrich Kettelhut (1 November 1893 – 13 March 1979) was a German production designer, art director and set decorator. Kettelhut is considered one of the most important artists in the history of early German cinema, mainly for his s ...

Plot

New York City in the 1930s: When the court reporter of the ''Morning Post'' gets drunk, his colleagues persuade the naive and unsuccessful newspaper poet Gil Taylor to write the court report instead. A poor girl is accused in the court, because she walked homeless through the city, and could be sentenced to a prison sentence. The romantic Gil has pity with the attractive girl and states that he is her fiancée, but the judge remains skeptical and arranges that the complete strangers get married right now in order to prove that they are really a couple. Gil and the girl agree. The next day, every newspaper reports about the sensational marriage - except the ''Morning Post'' (because Gil forgot to write the report in his excitement). He is fired by the editor Manning and now married with a girl who rejects to reveal her true identity. The girl named Ann pretends that she is the abducted niece of the oil tycoon Jackson. After a series of humorous events, Gil finally gets his job back, also he and Ann finally fall in love.

Cast

Background

The film was supposed to be a German take on the American genre of

Screwball comedy film Screwball comedy is a subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary characteristi ...

. The film was written by

Curt Goetz Curt Goetz (; 17 November 1888 – 12 September 1960), born Kurt Walter Götz, was a Swiss German writer, actor and film director. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant German comedy writers of his time. With his wife Valérie von Marten ...

, one of Germany's leading playwrights, and starred Lilian Harvey and Willy Fritsch (they made twelve films together and were considered the leading German film couple of the 1930s). The film proved to be very popular with critics and audiences. It is considered to be "one of the few comedies of German film, which do not only copy their role model, the American screwball comedy, but are also able to compete with their best representatives". The song "Ich wollt‘ ich wär‘ ein Huhn" ("I wish I was a chicken") by

Peter Kreuder Peter Paul Kreuder (18 August 1905 – 28 June 1981) was a German- Austrian pianist, composer and conductor. Life Kreuder was born in Aachen, the son of a ''Kammersänger''. He enrolled as a piano student at the Cologne Conservatory in 1910, whe ...

, sung in the film, is still well known in Germany, also in the version sung by the

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 group consisted of Harry Fromm ...

In popular culture

Quentin Tarantino Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, Black comedy, dark humor, Nonlinear narrative, non-lin ...

's 2009 film ''

Inglourious Basterds ''Inglourious Basterds'' is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alter ...

'', Lilian Harvey's duet with Willy Fritsch from ''Lucky Kids'', "Ich wollt' ich wär ein Huhn" can be heard playing on a phonograph in the basement scene "La Louisiane" as well as in the extended scene "Lunch With Goebbels", as

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...

( Sylvester Groth) happily sings a portion of the song after deciding to hold a private screening of the film. After the screening, cinema owner Shosanna Dreyfus (

Mélanie Laurent Mélanie Laurent (; born 21 February 1983) is a French actress, filmmaker, and singer. The recipient of two César Awards and a Lumières Award, she is an accomplished actress in the French film industry. Globally, she is best known for her rol ...

), under the alias "Emmanuelle Mimieux", comments on liking Lilian Harvey in the film—to which an irritated Goebbels angrily insists her name never be mentioned again in his presence (Harvey hated the Nazis and left Germany in 1939).Scene at YouTube
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References

Bibliography

External links

* {{Paul Martin 1936 films 1936 romantic comedy films Films of Nazi Germany German romantic comedy films 1930s German-language films Films directed by Paul Martin Films set in the United States UFA GmbH films Films shot at Babelsberg Studios German black-and-white films 1930s German films