Lucky Kids

Lucky Kids (German: Glückskinder) is a 1936 German romantic comedy film directed by Paul Martin and starring Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch and Paul Kemp.^[1] The film's art direction was by Erich Kettelhut.

Plot

New York City in the 1930s: When the court reporter of the Morning Post gets drunk, his colleagues persuade the naive and unsuccessful newspaper poet Gil Taylor to write the court report instead. A pool girl is accused in the court, because she walked homeless through the city. The romantic Gil has pity with the girl and states that he is her fiancée, but the judge remains skeptical and arranges that the complete strangers get married right now. The next day, every newspaper reports about the sensational marriage - except the Morning Post (because Gil forgot his report in his excitement). He is fired by the editor Manning and now married with a girl who won't reveal his true identity. The girl named Ann pretends that she is the abducted niece of the oil tycoon Jackson. After a series of humorous events, Gil finally gets his job back, also he and Ann finally fall in love.

Cast

• Lilian Harvey as Ann Garden / Jackson's Niece Molly
• Willy Fritsch as Gil Taylor
• Paul Kemp as Frank Black, reporter
• Oskar Sima as Stoddard, reporter
• Fred Goebel as Bill, reporter
• Erich Kestin as Hopkins, drunken reporter
• Otto Stoeckel as Manning, Editor of the Morning Post
• Paul Bildt as Judge
• Albert Florath as Jackson, oil tycoon
• Thomas Cziruchin as Brown, the Boxer
• Max Hiller as Justice of the Peace

Background

The film was supposed to be a German take on the American genre of Screwball comedy film. The film was written by Curt Goetz, one of Germany's leading playwrights, and starred Lilian Harvey and Willy Fritsch (they made twelve films together and were considered the leading German film couple of the 1930s). The film proved to be very popular with critics and audiences. It is considered to be "one of the few comedies of German film, which do not only copy their role model, the American screwball comedy, but are also able to compete with their best representatives".^[2]

The song "Ich wollt‘ ich wär‘ ein Huhn" ("I wish I was a chicken") by Peter Kreuder, sung in the film, is still well known in Germany, also in the version sung by the Comedian Harmonists.

In popular culture

In Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, Lilian Harvey's duet with Willy Fritsch from Lucky Kids, "Ich wollt' ich wär ein Huhn" can be heard playing on a phonograph in the basement scene "La Louisiane" as well as in the extended scene "Lunch With Goebbels", as Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) happily sings a portion of the song after deciding to hold a private screening of the film. After the screening, cinema owner Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), under the alias "Emmanuelle Mimieux", comments on liking Lilian Harvey in the film—to which an irritated Goebbels angrily insists her name never be mentioned again in his presence (Harvey hated the Nazis and left Germany in 1939).^[3]

References

Bibliography

• Ascheid, Antje. Hitler's Heroines: Stardom and Womanhood in Nazi Cinema. Temple University Press, 2003.

External links

• Lucky Kids on IMDb

Pop Culture References

• Lucky Kids is shown off screen in the 2009 film Inglorious Basterds to Joseph Goebbels who grows extremely agitated at the mentioning of Lillian Harvey.