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Familie Benthin
Familie Benthin
Directed by	Slatan Dudow; Richard Groschopp; Kurt Maetzig;
Written by	Johannes R. Becher ; Kurt Barthel ; Ehm Welk
Produced by	Adolf Fischer
Starring	Werner Pledath
Cinematography	Robert Baberske ; Karl Plintzner ; Walter Roßkopf
Edited by	Ilse Voigt
Music by	Ernst Roters
Production; company	DEFA
Distributed by	Progress Film
Release date	15 September 1950;
Running time	98 minutes
Country	East Germany
Language	German

Familie Benthin is an East German film. It was released in 1950.

Plot

Theo and Gustav Benthin are two brothers who operate a smuggling network: Theo, a factory director in East Germany, illegally transfers goods to his brother on the other side of the border, and the latter sells them in West Germany. The two also employ another pair of brothers, Peter and Klaus Naumann. When Theo is caught by the East German police, Gustav can no longer compete in the tough capitalist market without the cheap merchandise from the East and his business collapses. Peter Naumann moves to the Federal Republic, but there he finds only unemployment and eventually joins the French Foreign Legion. Klaus remains in the East and finds a promising job as a steel worker.

Cast

Maly Delschaft - Annemarie Naumann
Charlotte Ander - Olga Benthin
Hans-Georg Rudolph - Theo Benthin
Werner Pledath - Gustav Benthin
Brigitte Conrad - Ursel Benthin
Harry Hindemith - Seidel
Karl-Heinz Deickert - Klaus Neumann
Ottokar Runze - Peter Naumann

Production

The Benthin Family was DEFA's first major "mission film", with a clear, state-directed political message. While a number of pictures presenting narratives hostile to West Germany and to the West had already been made, their budgets had been smaller and state involvement had been on a lower scale.^[1]^[2]

Three directors - Slatan Dudow, Richard Groschopp and Kurt Maetzig - were instructed by Socialist Unity Party of Germany to work on the film. Later, none of them was willing to accept responsibility for the outcome.^[3]

Reception

East German cinema expert Joshua Feinstein wrote that The Benthin Family "...seems to have been an unmitigated disaster."^[4] The SED newspaper Neues Deutschland praised the film, noting that "its greatness lies in its realization of the greatness of our life today..." while contrasting them with "the other side... where the West German youth... are processed for service as mercenaries for the imperialists."^[5] At 1952, the censure demanded that a scene in which a drunk worker appeared be removed before the film was allowed to be re-screened, since it did not comply with "depicting independent, intelligent members of the proletariat".^[2]

The German Film Lexicon defined The Benthin Family as a "SED-commissioned agitation thriller with simplistic good-versus-evil plot... but interesting as a Cold War relic."^[6]

References

^ Joachim-Felix Leonhard (editor). Medienwissenschaft: Ein Handbuch Zur Entwicklung Der Medien Und Kommunikationsform. Volume 15.2. Mouton De Gruyter (2002). ISBN 978-3-11-016326-1. Page 1238.
^ ^a ^b Dagmar Schittly. Zwischen Regie und Regime. Die Filmpolitik der SED im Spiegel der DEFA-Produktionen. ISBN 978-3-86153-262-0. Page 59.
^ Ralf Schenk. Das zweite Leben der Filmstadt Babelsberg. DEFA- Spielfilme 1946–1992. ISBN 978-3-89487-175-8. Page 57.
^ Joshua Feinstein. The Triumph of the Ordinary: Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema, 1949–1989. ISBN 978-0-8078-5385-6. Page 31.
^ Miera Liehm, Antonin J. Liehm . The Most Important Art: Soviet and Eastern European Film After 1945. ISBN 978-0-520-04128-8. Page 89.
^ Familie Benthin on 2001.de.