Der Untertan / The Kaiser’s Lackey (1951) DVD5, DVD9, download for free

Dec15

Der Untertan / The Kaiser’s Lackey (1951) DVD5, DVD9

by movieworld on December 15th, 2020 at 15:30

The Kaiser's Lackey (Der Untertan) is the 1951 film of East German filmmaker Wolfgang Staudte (The Muderers are Among Us). It is a broad social satire based on a novel by Heinrich Mann, who also wrote the source material that became The Blue Angel.

From a young age Diedrich was afraid of all those around him, he was taught and beaten (figuratively and literally) to respect and obey those superior to him. As Diedrich grows to adulthood he becomes more cunning and learns if you want to get ahead in life there are two ways, one is to grovel before others, or step on top of others. As he advances from his beer drinking military cadet days to a factory owner and finally the Kaiser's lackey, Diedrich show how a small fearful man can rise to power with little effort by having the 'right' connections.

This historical satire is ranked by film critics among the 100 Most Significant German Films of all time.

Director: Wolfgang Staudte
Cast: Werner Peters, Paul Esser, Renate Fischer
Country: East Germany
Genre: Comedy, Drama

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:43:54 | 3.63 Gb + 3% rec
Language: German
Subtitles: English hardcoded

Extras:
The Kaiser's Lackey has several text-based extras, including a Historical Timeline to enhance one's understanding of the movie and biographies of Wolfgang Staudte and Werner Peters. In addition to these two that can be found in the Special Features menu, if you select the DEFA logo from the main menu, it will take you to a screen explaining the purpose and history of the organization, as well as the film archive that has produced this DVD.

The 19-minute 2007 featurette "Interpreting The Kaiser's Lackey" is an amateurish production (the main commentator can be seen taking a deep breath at the start of his talk) that looks like it was made for a classroom setting. Essentially, one man lectures the viewer on the movie's battles with censors on either side of the Berlin Wall and the larger social issues that contributed to the creation of the film, pausing only for clips from the film.