The Marriage Swindler

{{Short description|1938 film}}

{{For|the 1925 film|The Marriage Swindler (1925 film)}}

{{italic title}}

{{Infobox film

| name = The Marriage Swindler

| image =The Marriage Swindler.jpg

| caption =

| director = Herbert Selpin

| producer =Ludwig Behrends

| writer = {{ubl|Gertrude Von Brockdorff (novel)|Fritz Wendhausen}}

| starring = {{ubl|Eduard von Winterstein|Viktoria von Ballasko|Kurt Waitzmann}}

| music = Werner Bochmann

| cinematography = E.W. Fiedler

| editing = Lena Neumann

| studio = A.B.C.-Film

| distributor = Tobis Film

| released = {{film date|1938|2|15|df=y}}

| runtime = 90 minutes

| country = Germany

| language = German

| budget =

}}

The Marriage Swindler ({{langx|de|Heiratsschwindler}}) is a 1938 German drama film directed by Herbert Selpin and starring Eduard von Winterstein, Viktoria von Ballasko and Kurt Waitzmann. It is sometimes known by the alternative title Die rote Mütze (The Red Cap).Hull p. 122 The film's sets were designed by the art directors Max Knaake and Karl Vollbrecht.

Synopsis

A confidence trickster is released from prison and travels to a village where he blackmails and tricks women out of their savings, before eventually being caught.Hull p. 123

Cast

Production

The film was directed by Selpin for the small studio A.B.C.-Film, and distributed by the major company Tobis Film. It is based on a novel by Gertrude Von Brockdorff. Its neorealism and pessimistic tone were a sharp change from Selpin's recent work which had been dominated by musicals, comedies and society dramas and was extremely rare in the Nazi era when German cinema strove to be light and entertaining.Hull p. 122–123 The film had trouble with the censors, and its release was delayed. It has been described as "One of the finest German sound films ever made".Bergfelder & Street p. 122

References

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

  • {{cite book | editor-last1 = Bergfelder | editor-first1 = Tim | editor-last2 = Street | editor-first2 = Sarah | title = The Titanic in Myth and Memory: Representations in Visual and Literary Culture | publisher = I.B. Tauris | year = 2004 | isbn = 978-1-85043-432-0 }}
  • {{cite book | last = Hull | first = David Stewart | title = Film in the Third Reich: A Study of the German Cinema, 1933–1945 | publisher = University of California Press | year = 1969 | isbn = 978-0-520-01489-3 }}