Menschen am Sonntag

[Pummelchen]

"People on Sunday announces itself as a 'film without actors': the five principals are all amateurs, who actually worked in the jobs described in the film: taxi driver, music shop assistant, wine salesman, film extra, mannequin. Yet their performances are strikingly natural and unselfconscious. Since they all had weekday jobs, the film was shot over a number of Sundays during the summer of 1929, and the sense of unforced credibility must derive from the fact that these were exactly what the title says - ordinary Berliners on their day off, doing pretty much what they would have been doing in any case." (Philip Kemp, DVD liner notes).

"The film was a surprise hit in its day and, though it's been called a precursor to both post-war Italian Neo-realism and the French New Wave, its place in history is largely based on its production credits, which contain a veritable Who's Who of 'future' Hollywood talent beginning with Curt and Robert Siodmak and including the likes of Billy Wilder, Fred Zinneman and Eugene Shufftan (Oscar-winning cameraman for The Hustler)." (Andrew Horn, Berlin Film Festival 1998)

To me this film is a compilation of a million picture postcard images of men, women and children enjoying a summer´s day in 1929. No scripts, no acting for background images - real life as it was then in the dawn of Nationalsocialism and WW II.






Kind regards,
Beate