Au revoir Franziska

Romantic drama with Ruth Leuwerik and Carlos Thompson

This film, also known as "Franziska", is a remake of the 1941 Helmut Käutner film starring Marianne Hoppe and Hans Söhnker. This version from 1957 was directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner and produced by Artur Brauner with his CCC film, released in cinemas by Ilse Kubaschewski's Gloria-Filmverleih.

This film lives from its excellent main actors and the beautiful images of the three-river city of Passau. It's wonderful to see Passau in the 1950s in bright colors!

It tells the passionate, unhappy love and marriage story of an unlikely couple that goes through a number of trials and tribulations until it comes to an implausible end. The way it is filmed and acted is simply phenomenal.

Ruth Leuwerik was one of the super stars of German film at the time. Here she plays a good and independent woman who risks everything for true love, experiences disappointments and yet never gives up. This is an image of women that is very notable for its independence at the time and served as a role model. Similar to Doris Day in the American film, Ruth Leuwerik shows a woman who goes her own way and doesn't actually have to be dependent on a man. "La Leuwerik" always plays into this, regardless of whether the director and producer appreciate it or not for marketing strategy reasons or assumed audience expectations.

If it weren't for Carlos Thompson as a frenzied newsreel reporter who is just so attractive and seductive that even an independent woman like Ruth Leuwerik's Franziska has to become weak. The "Goodbye, Franziska!", which was gleefully piped by her busy husband, "Goodbye, Franziska!" becomes a common expression of permanent disappointment. The dazzling-looking Argentine actor of German-Swiss origin plays it with engaging charm and great seductive power. His appearance as the hot-blooded robber captain alongside GOLDEN GLOBE nominee Liselotte Pulver in "The Wirtshaus im Spessart" (1958) is also unforgettable. But Carlos Thompson (1923-1990) was not only the beau who was admired by women, but also a convincing writer and historian. He got GOLDEN GLOBE and BAFTA nominee Lilli Palmer (1914-1986), who was his second wife, to write, after which her autobiography "Dicke Lilli, gutes Kind / Big Lilli, Good Child" became a bestseller.

Josef Meinrad (1913-1996), who is known from the Sissi trilogy with GOLDEN GLOBE nominee Romy Schneider, is there as a spurned lover and yet a loyal friend. From 1959, Meinrad was the recipient of the Iffland Ring, which should always be passed on to the best German-speaking actor. He got it from Werner Krauss and passed it on to EUROPEAN FILM AWARD (h.c.) winner Bruno Ganz (Downfall). The ring has now been transferred to Jens Harzer (Babylon Berlin).

Despite the unsuccessful ending, a film worth seeing with a wonderful Ruth Leuwerik!

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. That, at the very last, is the warning that the ads should have given to customers as they made their way to this 40-carat weepie. Generous supplies of paper handkerchiefs should also have been freely available.

Carlos Thompson starred as a hard-boiled ace reporter, Ruth Leuwerik was his attractive wife. Their workaday trials and tribulations formed the undemanding content of the sentimental screenplay. En route to the altogether deserved happy-ending, the narrative involved a colourful collection of miscellaneous characters and often touching situations. Fortunately the two star's innate skill combined with a restrained tasteful direction to prevent what could so easily been a mawkish and maudlin wallow.

Ruth Leuwerik brought something to the strait-laced 50's that was unique: a touch of class and independence. Usually cast in soap-operas, often disguised as historical romances, she never played helpless heroines (like Maria Schell, whose tearducts must have near her bladder) or girls, who just wanted a husband, no matter what the cost (Sonja Ziemann was a prime example and fared well at the box-office).

Here's she is seen a prim and proper artist, whose marriage with rugged Carlos Thompson is already on the rocks. After some tame misunderstandings she was in his strong arms. Carlos Thompson added some extra box-office to the already costly show. Mister Thompson was brought to the country a few years earlier in the wake of Lilli Palmer's triumphant return as Germany's Notorious Lady With a Dubious Past. His ruggedly handsome good looks threw lady customers for a loop and he went on to give so-so performances as romantic foil and Ersatz-O.W. Fischer.