Zwei Mal: Erich Kästner’s Emil und die Detektive

Sometimes, as we’ve all experienced, time will pass without hearing a word about a certain author, a neglected book, or a forgotten stage play. Then, suddenly, one of those evergreen stories will surface twice in the same year. And so it is with Erich Kästner’s Emil und die Detektive (Emil and the Detectives) ­ there’s the screen version by Franziska Buch in the Kino around the corner and the »musical for the entire family« at the Stella Musical-Theater on Marlene-Dietrich-Platz in Berlin.

       When Erich Kästner penned his popular bestseller in 1929, he depicted Emil as a 12-year-old lad from the provinces who arrives for the first time in the big city of Berlin to visit his grandmother and cousin Ponny Hütchen. As fate would have it, when he was taking a nap on a train, Herr Grundeis, a bankrobber on the run, steals the 140 marks he’s brought with him for his grandmother. Arriving in Berlin, Emil is hot on the trail of the thief ­ when he bumps into Gustav, who blows on his handy horn to assemble his gang. The »detectives« hold a general staff meeting on how to catch the thief and bring him to justice. In Franziska Buch’s film version of Kästner’s original, the story has been changed to fit the present day. Gustav is no longer the leader of the gang ­ rather the girl Ponny Hütchen ­ played like a real tomboy by Anna Sommavilla. Almost every key figure in the book ­ Emil’s unemployed father and single parent (Kai Wiesinger), or Gustav’s mother, a woman pastor and also a single parent (Maria Schrader) ­ fits neatly into the familiar routines of today. Since the children wear status outfits, and Emil in their eyes looks like a bumpkin, he’s treated at first with suspicion. Ponny Hütchen's mother is an alcoholic, her marriage is on the rocks too, and so the girl has run away from home. Cut from real life and based loosely on Erich Kästner’s book, Franziska Buch’s film doesn’t dodge social issues. And since you don’t hear the kids talking »Berlin-ish«, the events could happen just about anywhere. Without sentimentality, the story takes on the aura of working and living conditions today. All the actors, particularly the children, are convincing and believable. And Jürgen Vogel, as Grundeis, plays the thief to the hilt.

       By contrast, the charm of the musical version of Erich Kästner’s Emil und die Detektive lies in duplicating »Berlin in the Roarin’ Twenties« ­ both in setting and performance. The core of Kästner’s story hasn’t been changed at all, just fatten up a bit with a narrator (Peter Gavajda) and gilded with some sparkling lyrics and songs ­ score by Marc Schubrig, book and lyrics by Wolfgang Adenberg. With 41 children in the cast, each adds a measure of color and balance to the show. Director Michael Pinkerton deftly blends the »live« band into eye-catching sets-and-costumes (both by Christoph Weyers) of the Twenties. A fetching show, Emil und die Detektive enlivened an audience of young and old at the Stella-Musical-Theater. Catch the musical, either before or after seeing the screen adaptation. Three weeks before the Berlinale opened, Franziska Buch was awarded Best Screenplay at the Bavarian Film Prizes for Emil und die Detektive. And at the 2000 Saarbrücken Film Festival she was awarded the prestigious Max Ophüls Prize for Verschwinde von Hier (Get Outa Here), the compassionate story of a boy who grows up in a fatherless society.

Dorothea Paschen