User Reviews

This was a very unusual movie. The story was done in such a abstract way. This was Paul Wegeners last film for he croaked. There was a very positive attitude feeling with the actors. The film industry was no longer controlled by the ministry of propaganda, Gobeles and his wife killed themselves and murder their children. Hitler and Eva either killed themselves or went to Argentina. The only problem was that banks had refuse to loan money to the studios so they had to get it from the private sector. Ufa was controlled by the communist now. The movie starts out as the actors and the rest of the cast comes in , The director comes in to tell them that there backer has ran out from them and they will have to cancel the production. Then Paul Wegener comes in and is inform by the cast what has happened.He suggest they continued the production through improvising. Every body wears the same cloth except for a few attach's like braid hair pieces and a few oriental robes and some props left over and then talked to the movie audience and tell them to imagine the rest, that it's china ancient times. All of a sudden its in a movie house and the director comes out of the screen telling the situation and asking them to borrow some of the coats for costumes and have audience participation. The director stays out of the screen since he isn't an actor and to direct. Back to the story now it on the screen. The story Well The Chinese district government has made it illegal for farmer to keep their pigs. They have to let them go.If they don't they will be put to death. Hubert Von Meyeric , known to play counts, is a part of a 1 party community of men and is an assistant of the master butcher for whom Kathy Haak is married too. Their daughter is engaged to Mayerick but she not in love with him. She's in love with the a younger member of the butchers organization. The party of men are very crooked and they want the master butcher to run as the head council with Meyeric as the alternate The Farmers decide to illegally go to town to sell the pigs for a price to the butcher suggested by Meyeric. The mandarin, played without make up by Mr. Wegener. Everyone goes to him for advice. He finds out the people broke the law and wants Meyeric to find out who did this. It seems that the young blond worker, with pigtails,whom the master butchers daughter is in love with, who also wear a pigtail hair piece too, participated in the slaughter. Well Meyerick and the rest of the one men party pins it on the farmers and haves them arrested. When they are at the mandarins ,blame the farmers but the younger worker admits he participated too and that Meyeric is guilty. But he denies it. The younger man tries to escape but he gets arrested too. The trial is set. The Mandarin send a letter to Kathy to get her husband out of politics and a letter to her daughter to talk some sense to the young blond man. Later both daughter and mother wants to save their men. The Mandarin suggest that the women start a party of their own to defeat the corruption of the party of men. This is when the women and men of the audience separate and take sides with both parties creating tension against each other. They organize the group and in election day the men try to stop them from voting. By delaying them at the market. But with the help of the children they don't miss a vote and win. The men in the theater audience starts to hate this and the women audience cheers . Well finally they go to trial. The daughter start to demand the perpetrator of the crime reveals themselves in court.It turns into a huge fight between the men and the women, hitting the men with chairs and books. The secretary of the mandarin scream out ,"lets Free ourselves from oppression, war and bombs!," This lead to the audience having a fight with each other. The characters start to come out of the screen and Paul has to stop them by turning on the water sprinklers on the ceiling and the sprinklers in the court house. This stops the fight. Kathy and her husband makes up and her daughter and the only young guy in the cast are together. They all meet the mandarin to decide for them what has to be done.He has an early small TV video recorder that reveals the truth. They make the master butcher record himself to reveal that he did do some bribing and out of desperation he admits the rest of the 1 man party guilty, The women beg that their husbands be punished lightly.So the farmers have to give up their farm and help a bunch of poor families with their children and the business men must give up their jobs and help some poor families too and the young one must work in one of the abandon farms by himself, and the women must be separated from their men. After 8 weeks they have all reformed back together. Mayeric is kick out of the village and leaves the scene through the screen and the theater. They create a new constitution and do away with the police.I doubt that a film like this could of been made during the Third Reich. Gobels would of had everyone in a concentration camp, Because of the anarchy in the movie. There's a short about the city where Mozart and Martin Luther were born.Meine Alte Staht, 1954 include in DVD.