Sequel to the successful film with Ruth Leuwerik and Hans Holt
So now they have arrived in America! The Trapps and their many children have found shelter in the cramped Bronx. With Pastor Wasner (Josef Meinrad, 1913-1996) in tow, the singing family seeks success in performing spiritual songs by Bach and Palestrina. Of course that can't go well. Baron Trapp (Hans Holt, 1909-2001) wants to give up, although their American driver Patrick (Wolfgang Wahl, 1925-2006) encourages him. An appointment with agent Harris (Holger Hagen), who sees no future for this deadly boring family, turns into a real fiasco. Mother Trapp (Ruth Leuwerik, 1924-2016) needs to read a little more sex appeal in books. But it comes as it has to come. First, the neighbors (including Til Klokow (1900-1970) as Bronx-Lilly, who is known as the voice of Claudette Colbert (Cleopatra / It Happened One Night) and Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard)) in the notorious Bronx come across the really beautiful voices of the children (Regensburger Domspatzen). And then the family gets to know a millionaire's wife from Austria (with a lot of Viennese insults: Adrienne Gessner, 1896-1987), who has a decisive influence on the music repertoire. As soon as "Oh Susanna" and in the final scene "No beautiful country in this time" are heard, the interested viewer is done for. Splendid!
Of course, from today's perspective, it all seems all too old-fashioned when the then superstar Ruth Leuwerik goes in search of more sex appeal or the old priest clings to the extended family like a burr. The exterior shots of New York convey a great feeling of authenticity, and the children (including Michael Ande and Ursula Wolff) are sooooo cute! Almost 8 million viewers wanted to see the film in West German cinemas. Two years earlier, THE TRAPP FAMILY had attracted more than 26 million viewers to the cinemas!
The director was the veteran Wolfgang Liebeneiner (1905-1987), the script was written by Herbert Reinecker. What the man has written! The busy Ilse Kubaschewski (1907-2001), who with her Gloria film distribution company was one of the most important figures in the German-speaking film industry of the 1950s and 1960s, acted as producer.
The great Ruth Leuwerik cannot be praised enough! How lucky that there was once such a big film star in the German-speaking world! If you want to see this fantastic actress in her later years, you shouldn't miss the two DERRICK episodes "An Ambush" (1978) and "The Perpetrator Sent Flowers" (1983).
Wonderfully nostalgic!
