''The Angel with the Trumpet'' is a 1950 British

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by

Anthony Bushell Anthony Arnatt Bushell (19 May 1904 – 2 April 1997) was an English film actor and director who appeared in more than 50 films between 1929 and 1961. He played Colonel Breen in the BBC serial ''Quatermass and the Pit'' (1958–59), and als ...

and starring

Eileen Herlie Eileen Herlie (March 8, 1918 – October 8, 2008) was a Scottish-American actress. Personal life Eileen Herlie was born Eileen Isobel Herlihy to an Irish Catholic father, Patrick Herlihy, and a Scottish Protestant mother, Isobel Cowden, ...

Basil Sydney Basil Sydney (23 April 1894 – 10 January 1968) was an English stage and screen actor. Career Sydney made his name in 1915 in the London stage hit ''Romance'' by Edward Sheldon, with Broadway star Doris Keane, and he costarred with Keane in ...

, and

Norman Wooland Norman Wooland (16 March 19053 April 1989) was an English character actor who appeared in many major films, including several Shakespearean adaptations. Wooland was born in Düsseldorf, Germany to British parents. During the Second World War he ...

. It was based on a novel by

Ernst Lothar Ernst Lothar (; 25 October 1890 – 30 October 1974) was a Moravian-Austrian writer, theatre director/manager and producer. He was born Ernst Lothar Müller, and as Müller is a very common German surname, he dropped it. His brother, Hans M ...

. The film follows the rise and fall of an Austrian aristocrat, and her eventual death following the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

. The film was a remake of a 1948 Austrian film '' Der Engel mit der Posaune''.

Plot

Henrietta Stein, daughter of a Jewish academic, is the mistress of the Habsburg Crown Prince who cannot marry her. She chooses instead a loveless marriage with Francis Alt, the head of the Alt Viennese piano manufacturing firm. Only their mutual friend Baron Hugo Tran knows of their feelings. On the day of her marriage, the Prince kills himself in despair. Francis and Henrietta raise their three children in the family home, uninterrupted until twelve years later, the Baron visits her in Vienna and they have an affair. Henrietta plans to leave her husband. The affair is interrupted when her brother-in-law is dying and her son finds her in the arms of the Baron. Returning home, she admits her affair to her husband who has returned unexpectedly. The next morning, her husband has a duel with the Baron and kills him. Four years later, World War One breaks out. Her husband and sons enlist. Her husband is left paralyzed and can no longer speak. Her son Paul takes over as the head of the factory. Her daughter Monica leaves for America with her boyfriend Gino to escape the conditions in Vienna. Her son Herman speculated in illegal arms trading and loses $2000. Faced with jail, he asks her for the money but she doesn't have it to give. She gives him her diamonds and throws him out of the house. The only good news comes when Paul announces his engagement. She gives all of the news to her husband, who gives her a note apologizing for marrying her and they reconcile. Years later, Herman joins the Nazis as Nazi popularity rises in Austria. The Anschluss comes and the Nazis come to arrest her for not flying the Nazi flag on her house. Before they take her away, she jumps out of a third-storey window to her death. Herman arrives minutes later, to tell her he had arranged for her Jewish ancestry to be erased for her own safety, but she is already dead. World War Two comes. The Alt family home is destroyed by bombing. The Alt piano factory is in ruins but Paul, his wife, their children and one remaining worker, re-establish the factory with their first new piano.

Partial cast

Production

To reduce costs, this British film re-used much of the earlier Austrian film, especially for distance shots and for scenes with minor characters who were dubbed. In this way,

Maria Schell Maria Margarethe Anna Schell (15 January 1926 – 26 April 2005) was an Austrian-Swiss actress. She was one of the leading stars of German cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, she was awarded the Cannes Best Actress Award for her performance ...

and

Oskar Werner Oskar Werner (; born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer; 13 November 1922 23 October 1984) was an Austrian stage and cinema actor whose prominent roles include two 1965 films, '' The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'' and ''Ship of Fools''. Other notable ...

launched their international careers in this film. It was the first film Bushell directed.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Angel With the Trumpet, The 1950 films Films directed by Anthony Bushell 1950 drama films British drama films Films based on Austrian novels Films set in Vienna Films set in the 1880s Films set in the 1890s Films set in the 1900s Films set in the 1910s Films set in the 1920s Films set in the 1930s Remakes of Austrian films British black-and-white films 1950s English-language films 1950s British films