Casts & Crew
Hilde Krahl
Paul Hubschmid
Fita Benkhoff
Hans Leibelt
Wilhelm Bendow
Roma Bahn
Käte Kühl
Gunnar Möller
Else Reval
Just Scheu
Also Directed by Hans H. Zerlett
The delightful Johann Strauss comic opera Die Fledermaus was mercilessly lampooned in this truly bizarre production. For starters, a framing device has been added: After appearing in 300 consecutive appearances of Fledermaus (which translates as The Bat) the lead tenor (Georg Alexander) imagines that he's seeing bats everywhere. Driven a bit over the edge by all this, he falls asleep and has a nightmare about the opera, with a group of non-singers cast in the leading roles. The original libretto about romantic assignations, political imprisonments and mistaken identity is burlesqued to the hilt: at one point, the hero finds out that his prison cell is surrounded by rubber tubes!
A sculptor, an enemy of modern art, sets an example. He sculpts a statue of Venus in the style of the Greek antiquity and buries it in a forest. When it's dug up in 1930, it's considered to be a 2 000 year old, antique statue.
German all-star musical from 1938 that was a big commercial success.
The famous tightrope artist Truxa is drinking at the Artisan bar in New York. He meets a young man, Husen, and gives him his stage name Truxa. He is to take the real Truxa's place at a circus show in Wintergarten, Berlin. Alternate-language version, or remake, filmed in the UK and released in 1938 as STAR OF THE CIRCUS (q.v.)