Regina auf den Stufen

Enchanting television series with the young Katja Riemann

Basically, this television series, which was broadcast on the German television station ZDF from January to March 1992, was the final starting signal for the phenomenal television and then film career of the great actress Katja Riemann.

Directed by Bernd Fischerauer and based on a novel by Utta Danella (screenplay: Barbara Piazza), EUROPEAN FILM AWARD nominee Katja Riemann (she was nominated for ROSENSTRASSE in 2003) played Regina Thorbeke, a refugee from Dresden to Munich who gets into complications . Soon the ambitious and hard-working Regina finds herself between two men: Martin Scholz (Mark Kuhn), who has just been released from Soviet captivity, and the Hungarian photographer Janos Janaday (Serge Avedikian).

A very sophisticated story was told here with a keen sense of the details of the time. It wasn't just about heartbreak, but also about political developments like the uprising in Hungary. Above all, Regina, played by Katja Riemann, wanted to take not only the steps of social advancement, but also the emancipatory development as a woman. As a viewer, you were given an impressive picture of the time when your own parents' generation was young. That certainly gave an idea of later quality series from HBO and others. German-language television (the Austrian television station ORF was also on board) could have continued like this. Unfortunately things turned out differently...

Roswitha Schreiner as Regina's good friend Stups deserves special mention from the extensive cast. Shortly afterwards, the "WICHERTS VON NEBENAN" star Roswitha Schreiner started as a crime scene detective in Düsseldorf alongside Martin Lüttge and Klaus J. Behrendt.

10 episodes of 54 minutes makes 9 hours. With the 3-dvd set, you can watch it all in a row, and I did (on a bed-ridden day).

Katja Riemann sure shines (and won a price for Best New Actress) in this exuberant epic set in 1956/57 West Germany.

We get a quite complex story around Regina (fled from East Germany, to Munich). On a 1956 New Year's Day celebration, she gets involved with Martin, who was just freed from Soviet prisons. Then there's the genial (but weird) Hungarian photographer Janos.. and about a dozen other main characters, of which I liked most the old photographer Brunnhuber, and Stups, the secretary who made her own business.

The 1950s were quite nicely recreated (as far as I can tell, born 1956), mostly in period cars (let me drop some brand names: Steyr, Goliath, Lloyd, Borgward,...), and many other props. After initial doubts, the meandering story drew me in, a little bit more with each episode.

Utta Danella, after whose book this serial was made, has a reputation for popular but ultimately trivial novels for a female readership. That may well be, but even as a male I enjoyed this 9-hours show. Very much, even though I suffered through the only "action" scene where a Borgward Isabella is crashed...