Senhoritas em Uniforme

One of the more harrowing themes in cinema centers around school administrators doling out physical and psychological punishment to their students. The first talkie to vividly display such abuse is the German movie, November 1931's "Madchen in Uniform." Based on Christa Winsloe's 1930 play 'Yesterday and Today,' the movie follows a fourteen-year-old daughter, Manuela, (Hertha Thiele), of a military officer whose mother had died, making it necessary for the teenager to board at an all-girls private school. The tension-packed film is also one of the first in cinema to have an exclusive all-female cast.

The play-and the movie-was a personal story of playwright Winsloe, who found herself undergoing the harsh educational private school system in Germany. The character Manuela, a sensitive girl thrusted into a new environment, experiences the rough transformation of her friendly individuality forced to live in an uniformly unfriendly, cold environment. Winsloe personally witnessed the destructive results of such harsh treatment impacting with disastrous long-lasting effects on young women. The actress Hertha Thiele recalls years later that "The whole of Mädchen in Uniform was set in the Empress Augusta boarding school, where Winsloe was educated. Actually there really was a Manuela, who remained lame all of her life after she threw herself down the stairs. She came to the premiere of the film. I saw her from a distance, and at the time Winsloe told me 'The experience is one which I had to write from my heart.'"

Winsloe portrayed one of her teachers, Fraulein von Bernburg (Dorothy Wieck) in the movie, as the only adult in the school having compassion towards the students. The teacher's warmth around the students, treating them as humans instead of objects to be trained like seals, was totally against the school's rigid philosophy, set down by the institution's strict headmistress (Emilia Unda). When she hears of von Bernburg's benevolence towards Manuela, she's instructed never to speak to the student again. Manuela is devastated by the edict, and plans to commit suicide by jumping off the top of a multi-story atrium similar to what Winsloe had witnessed.

"Madchen in Uniform" has enjoyed a cult-like following decades after its release. Because of its topical subject matter of women's affections towards each other, the movie was almost banned in the United States in 1932 before Eleanor Roosevelt, then wife to the governor of New York State, Franklin Roosevelt just before he was elected President, persuaded the state's censor board to allow the movie to be shown. The film, produced shortly before the Nazi Party took control of Germany's government, was banned by the Nazis, who ordered every copy burned. By that time there were so many prints distributed in a number of countries that it has survived intact today.

Winsloe's play, translated as "Girls in Uniform," was her only published stage work. She relocated in the United States early in World War Two before moving to France, where, in 1944, she was accused of being a Nazi spy by four Frenchmen. She was shot along with her companion on June 10, 1944.

Although it would have been nice to see a well-restored and cleaned-up print of this, which was not the case, it still seems an exceptionally well made film for its era. The camera work was fluid and the sound was decent. It is a rich, provocative study with much to think about. While famously seen as a lesbian story, and that is part of it to be sure, it also concerns the rigid authoritarianism of its particular time and place, which soon led to so much sorrow and tragedy and sends out a strong feminist and tolerant message. The story is never boring and easily holds one's interest these many years later. It is strongly atmospheric and immerses one in the hothouse environs of the strictly disciplined, all-female world, where the girls develop close and intimate relationships and passionate crushes on their favorite teacher, Dorothea Wieck. She is fine here, and so is Hertha Thiele as Manuela, the primary focus of the story, but then the entire cast performs well, including Erika Mann, daughter of Thomas Mann and wife of W.H. Auden, as a bespectacled, tattle-tale instructor always running to the head of the school. The ending sent out a strong message and worked well, though you are left on your own to wonder how things resolved themselves as per the two lead characters. Well worthwhile to see if you can find it!

Filmed in pre-National Socialist Germany when the economy was at a true low. The girls at this Catholic boarding school are slight, pale, hungry creatures -for food and comfort. Daughters of soldiers, they are taught discipline and deprivation, not luxury. The girls, however, have more personality and strength of character than those in the majority of movies produced nowadays. Manuela is a highly emotional 14 year old 'new girl' who has no mother. She, like the rest of her classmates, yearns for the attention of the fair and beautiful Fraulein von Burnberg. Ilse is the school trouble-maker, leader, and clown. Witty and outspoken, she repeatedly entertains the other girls, binding them together in secret comradery against their oppressive elders. At an after-play function Manuela is the only student who can tolerate the taste of the punch given to them as a reward. Her friends pass their cups on to her and she soon gets herself quite drunk. In a semi-conscious state she announces her feelings for the popular Fraulein von Burnberg to the entire school along with the infuriated Headmistress. These girls are not all lesbians, they are merely children starved of human contact and love. As a result they throw their hearts at the open mind and kind heart of Frau von Burnberg. I found it surprising and beautiful how loyal the girls were to each other. There is very little rivalry or conflict among the students, a vast contrast to the modern representation of teens. Even when Manuela embarrasses herself horribly in front of the school, her classmates stick by her without hesitation. That's cool.

I found this film to be both touching and disturbing. Innovative and bold, Madchen in Uniform exposes social taboos in its depiction of lesbianism and teacher-student relationships. Beyond the subject matter, I was impressed with the acting and camera work, which seemed to tell a story all on its own. The quality of the film was certainly poor and the subtitles leave much to question, but the overall effect of the film is poignant. It succeeds in lifting the veil which conceals adolescent female life and without exploiting the budding sexuality of young girls, a phenomenon too often seen in cinema today. It seems strange that this careful balance of exposition and preservation was better kept seventy years ago than it is today. Should this movie be re-made now, one would doubtless see nudity,stereotypical lesbian behavior and exploitation of the relationship between the student and teacher. This film reminds us that a film doesn't have to shock us to be sexually provacative.

The original play "Gestern und Morgen" had its premiere in 1930 and was an immediate success. This prompted Carl Froelich to adapt the play for film. Both leading actress of the play Hertha Thiele (her first film) and the original director of the play Leontine Sagan (also her first film) were invited to join. The direction was split into direction of the cast and mise-en-scene by Leontine Sagan and overall direction by Carl Froelich; this means that Froelich was responsible for the overall quality of the film (in German: Künstleriche Oberleitung).

The play as well as the later novel emphasizes the sexual/lesbian love theme, but the film adaptation was toned down; the original sad end was replaced by a happy end. Though the film goes as far as it can in its theme of (awakening) lesbian feelings and sexual feelings of young girls in general, shifting emphasis automatically meant concentrating on the theme of the cold and inhumane authoritarian (Prussian) way of life and upbringing, a way of thinking still present in the Weimar republic and in 1931 already considered a danger to the young republic. Then audiences were more interested in this aspect than in the sexual one. Despite this it still remains a remarkable film of the Weimar period in depicting the more loosening attitude towards sexuality in general as well as the dismissal of the old authoritarian life style, though, and this is the weak point of the premise, it never succeeds- in relating the two. A political stand this film certainly takes not, but, as the original title "Yesterday and Tomorrow" says, this film makes a plea for a more liberal and humane society. Of course the film was banned after the Nazi take-over (though for some obscure reason Goebbels liked the film "as film").

The old way of thinking is shown in some remarkable images. The opening of the film, after some shots of Potsdam, shows first the marching of soldiers than cuts to a walk of the girls; the girls do not walk, but march as the soldiers do. The Prussian authority is represented by the Frau Oberin whose presence in the film is that like an average hard boiled Prussian king (and not unlike Frederick the Great, the king who was depicted in nationalist films in the 20' and 30's a number of times)); her hairdo is not simply a way to wear one's hair, it fits like a crown on her head. When she presides a meeting with the other teachers, she presides as a queen, sitting slightly above the level of the teachers. Fear for authority is conveyed through the Von Kenten character whose physical attitude constantly is that of a writhed of fear, human being.

Note the military trumpet in the final scene (one of the examples of the excellent use of sound) as Frau Oberin walks resigned through the corridor: there may have been a small relapse in the system within the institution, the trumpet tells us that outside things are still unchanged.

The direction of Sagan/Froelich and the cinematography are outstanding, but it could never have become the classic it is if both Hertha Thiele and Dorothea Wieck had not been in the lead. Photogenic Thiele plays Manuela as a sensitive, but still proud girl; Wieck gives the Von Bernburg character all the subtleties and uncertainties it needs. But let's not forget the completely forgotten actress Ellen von Schwannecke as a wonderful Ilse. Thiele and Wieck would repeat their co-operation in an amazing film by Frank Wysbar (one of the producers of "Mädchen"): Anna und Elisabeth (1933), also a film with a lesbian theme.

A very odd aspect is also noteworthy. The 4 main people involved can be divided in 2 sub groups: Hertha Thiele and Leontine Sagan went into exile in 1933 and were not to have a career after 1945 in West-Germany, while Dorothea Wieck and Carl Froelich (he became member of the NSDAP) continued their careers in Nazi Germany and after 1945. Convinced of it that involvement in this film also meant according its basic ideas (remember that it was not an established production company that made the film, but a collective), this split-up of minds can almost be seen as symbol for the schism in Germany.

For a complete understanding of this film and the play I recommend to read the novel as well.