Der Vogelhändler

The plot of the operetta was changed to fit into 90 minutes, but maybe also for the original being unacceptably corny; but it is all to no avail. Von Cziffra directed without imagination and spirit and he is hopelessly inadequate in using the Ultrascope format. The result is a dull film, not helped much by an average cast; Conny Froboess seems not at all to be comfortable with her part and Ruth Stephan and Rudolf Platte, both always good for comic interludes, are very disappointing; it is only Maria Sebaldt who sometimes brings some life into the film.

The Kessler Twins have a guest appearance (always fun, those legs!!), but no one (and certainly not Von Cziffra) seems to wonder about the ladies' dance act with 1960's music in an operetta that takes place round 1900.

This is a rather disappointing adaptation of Carl Zeller's charming operetta. The idea of mixing the operetta's arias with musical like intermezzi does not work at all and the result is rather dull. The cast tries to be funny without much success and only Cornelia Froboess (Christel) and Maria Seebaldt (the Countess) are a pleasure to watch. They alone could not save this production however and one has the impression that Cziffra looked upon this film as just another routine job.

Hi! The operetta itself is up to 2.5 - 3 hours long (for the stage with the break of 20 minutes) so naturally,to cut it down to cca.90 minutes is a bad idea - because the story is cut to a minimum or in some cases not existent at all.

The problem with operetta adaptation is as follows: 1.The Music 2.The Story 3.The "Time-frame" of the story (e.g. 18th century or now) 4.The Actors/Singers

To no.1 : The Music for the operetta always existed only as piano score,so the conductor always has to find the right instrumentation himself, based on the first performance of the operetta in 1900.The piano score was also the basis for the story and plots that were placed before the director(for the stage).So for the movie a whole new instrumentation was composed. To no.2 : The Story itself was a huge "hit" in Wienna in 1900 for the operetta(on stage) but there are no records of how it was staged.Now there are some traditions in theaters in Austria but no factual stage setting.There are also some textbooks from the time of 1900s, but again only commentaries and text variations on the libretto of the original operetta (see opera-guide.ch/libretto).And text varied from performance to performance, from production to production, from film to movie. To no.3:The "time-frame" of operetta is late 18th century, which is (in my opinion) easier to produce on film that on stage so nowadays everything is staged "as-modern" type kind of production. To no.4:To my great disappointment not singers who can act - but actors who can barely sing were singed up for this film so the commentary of the mr. jan onderwater is right on the spot.

Again is unthinkable and with a kind of degradation of the music original from Carl Zeller(the composer of the original 1900 operetta) that Cziffra indeed added the 60's music styles into this operetta.

Sorry, but just with the comic performances and bad singing you can not have a great operetta movie.