''My Sixteen Sons'' (German: ''Meine 16 Söhne'') is a 1956 West German

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by Hans Domnick and starring

Lil Dagover Lil Dagover (; born Marie Antonia Siegelinde Martha Seubert; 30 September 1887 – 23 January 1980) was a German actress whose film career spanned between 1913 and 1979. She was one of the most popular and recognized film actresses in the Weimar ...

Karl Ludwig Diehl Karl Ludwig Diehl (14 August 1896 – 8 March 1958) was a German film actor. He appeared in 66 films between 1924 and 1957. His father was Karl Diehl, the German professor of Anarchism. Filmography * ''Die Tragödie der Entehrten'' (1924) ...

and

Else Reval Else Reval (14 June 1893 – 25 January 1978) was a German film actress.Giesen p.210 Selected filmography * ''War in Peace'' (1925) * '' The World Wants To Be Deceived'' (1926) * '' Marriage Announcement'' (1926) * '' The Eleven Schill Officers'' ...

.Bock & Bergfelder p.548 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 ...

Gabriel Pellon Gabriel Pellon (1900–1975) was a German painter and art director.Shandley p.212 Pellon was born in Metz, which was then part of the German Empire having been annexed from France at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. When Metz was later annex ...

Synopsis

Frau Giselius hosts a music competition in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

in memory of her son who was killed in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. To promote European harmony, she invites four

string quartets The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

, two from Germany and one each from France and Switzerland. She affectionately refers to the competitors as her "sixteen sons".

Cast

as Frau Senator Giselius * Margrit Kay as Renate Giselius, ihre Schwiegertochter *

as Dr. Wesendahl *

as Lina, Haushälterin bei Frau Giselius *

Herbert Hübner Herbert Hübner (6 February 1889 – 27 January 1972) was a German stage and film actor. He appeared in more than 150 films between 1921 and 1966. He was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) and died in Munich, Germany. Selected fil ...

as Direktor der Berliner Musikhochschule *

Kurt Vespermann Kurt Vespermann (1 May 1887 – 13 July 1957) was a German stage and film actor. Career Vespermann was born into an actor's family in Culmsee, West Prussia, Imperial Germany today Chełmża, Poland. Already his great-grandparents were ac ...

as Prof. Peinemann * Erich Hasberg as Kulturreferent Thormann *

Helmuth Lohner Helmuth Lohner (24 April 1933 – 23 June 2015) was an Austrian actor, theatre director, and from 1997 to 2006 director of the Theater in der Josefstadt. Early life Born in Vienna, Lohner initially trained as a commercial artist, while also taki ...

as Dieter Ranke *

Harry Meyen Harry Meyen (born Harald Haubenstock; 31 August 1924 – 15 April 1979) was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 40 films and television productions between 1948 and 1975. In the 1960s he also worked as a theatre director in West Ge ...

as Herbert Schwerdtfeger *

Lutz Moik Lutz Moik (1930–2002) was a German film and television actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as f ...

as Christian Massow *

Klaus Günter Neumann Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas. Notable persons whose family name is Klaus *Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American basebal ...

as Paul Selters * Beat Hadorn as Gottfried Baumann * Jan Corazolla as Baptiste Tessie

References

Bibliography

* Bock, Hans-Michael & Bergfelder, Tim. ''The Concise CineGraph. Encyclopedia of German Cinema''. Berghahn Books, 2009.

External links

* 1956 films 1956 drama films 1950s musical drama films German drama films West German films 1950s German-language films 1950s German films Films scored by Wolfgang Zeller {{1950s-Germany-film-stub