Hallo Janine (1939) User Reviews

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[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 11 May 2018]

Director: CARL BOESE. Original story and screenplay: Karl Georg Külb. Music: Peter Kreuder. Art director: Albert Frohberg. Photography: Konst Irmen-Tschet. Film editor: Milo Harbich. Production designer: Erick Kettelhut. Song lyrics for "One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven" by Hans Fritz Beckmann. Producer: Max Pfeiffer.

Copyright 1939 by UFA (Berlin). 93 minutes.

COMMENT: No less than 43 feature films directed by Carl Boese were released in New York from 1931 through 1940. One of the veterans of German cinema, Boese actually started his career way back in 1919. He was still making films in 1957. If this is a fair sample of his work, rate him as extremely polished, occasionally stylish.

The singing, dancing actress Marika Rökk also has a lengthy filmography in German cinema, commencing in 1932. She was still starring in 1962. Billed as Marika Roekk, eight of her numerous films were released in the U.S.A. from 1936 to 1964. The simple fact is that Miss Rökk outclasses many of her Hollywood rivals. Hallo, Janine is an excellent vehicle for her talents.

Though the mistaken identity and chorus-girl substitutes for star in musical revue plots are old-hat, Miss Rökk, her dark, tall and handsome, singing hero, Johannes Heesters (he had a 21-year starring career in German cinema from 1936 and played the David Niven role in Otto Preminger's German version of The Moon Is Blue) and the most agreeably comic, singing "composer", Rudi Godden (whose life and career were tragically cut short by the Nazis early in 1941), contribute performances of charismatic skill, assisted by a couple of creatively inspired production numbers and turns, brilliantly underscored by a catchy music score built around two or three most agreeable songs.

Photography, costumes and art direction are also most attractive, whilst film editing rates as admirably smooth.

Amamzon.de over rated it

[cynthiahost · 8/10 · 5 February 2009]

I had though when i got the analog transfer version of it on DVD from Archiv-DVD I though I wrote a review but guess I didn't. Well I was told by the company that it was from original print.When i played it was soft focus and medium dark contrast print. I had got dissatisfied. So I got another copy from Amazon.de.I will never feel that just because I'm a Marika Rokk fan that all her pictures are good. The only differences with this up grade was the fact that the print was a digital transfer. It was lesser dark in contrast but something was wrong. It was the story!All along that was the problem. This movie has only a 2 to 3 star script only. It was weak. The clear print revealed this more.They made the story too simple. The theater audience was acting more like they can't wait till they get paid for it as extras. The Numbers looked more like a dress rehearsal before they shoot it. Now it wasn't that bad it just wasn't a five star movie.The sound seemed to been professionally, from the time it was made ,that is the music, lowered a bit. This actually undermined the musical numbers.What went wrong? I'm guessing that every one knew they're furor was going to invade Poland and may be they were all worried he'd fail. This might of affected the performance. But i don't think every one knew what he was going to do, maybe? If i looked at the analog transfered and realized the same problem that it wasn't really the print but the story i would not gotten up grade. If you can ignore some of the imperfections of this film it shouldn't be a problem. It's still a classic.What could have been the problem with everyone at that time ,on the set?Analog print isn't that bad. It's the story, Uncut! Unexpurgated! Notorious Nazi musical. Banned by Hollywood. Available

Busby Berkely auf Deutsch!

[wlkrrch · 1 December 2004]

The most sassy of all the Marika Rokk musicals made during the Third Reich is this, premiered in the fateful summer of 1939. It wears its American influences on its sleeve, and in some respects was the last of its kind, for though Rokk danced on through the war the music never again had that big band swing sound in quite the same way - in the 1940s American films were no longer shown on German cinema screens (which they had been pretty much throughout the 1930s) and later the Nazis progressively clamped down on swing and jazz. The concluding production number in this film, 'Musik, Musik, Musik' sounds quite astonishingly American. The look of the film is glossy and international too: the set for Musik, Musik, Musik is the sort of abstract art deco more usually associated with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the theatre is a Bauhaus dream and Rokk tap dances her way onto a row of glitter-encrusted grand pianos, which rise through the stage floor to meet her. Die Frau Meiner Traume may be more lavish, but this is more consistently entertaining, its simple plot - chorus girl wants to make it to the top - one of the universal themes of movie musicals. You'd struggle to find any kind of Nazi influence in this film: this was the sort of big-budget glossy entertainment film Goebbels had made in order to reassure ordinary Germans they were still living in a 'normal' country.

A good piece of musical comedy.

[MartSander · 9/10 · 16 October 2003]

This is the film that signaled WW II. Its opening night was on July 1, 1939, and you can see how it aims to be "international": the stars are from Holland (Heesters) and Hungary (Roekk), the action takes place in Paris. Der Fuehrer himself liked the film, and commented "Well acted". A few days before the war started, a secret cablegram reached the UFA studios: to provide a copy of "Hallo Janine" with Polish subtitles at once. German film prepared to march along with German soldiers into Europe. Nevertheless, this is a slice of purest escapism, as far from the designed reality as it can get. And a pretty good one at that.