The Final Chord

"Schlußakkord" was the movie preceding "La Habanera" when Douglas Sirk was still Detlef Sierck and it is par excellence the movie which predates his great melodramas of the fifties.Not that the subject was very new:A young, impoverished German woman named Hanna (Maria Von Tasnady) gives her infant up for adoption ;when she comes back to her native land ,her son is now living in a rich family ,the man is a conductor and his wife ,a frustrated woman ,plays around until she gets this child she longed for;the biological mother takes a job as the brat's governess but of course the posh woman abetted by her former nanny ,a sinister-looking matron Rebecca's Mrs Danvers style , comes to hate her and dismiss her.Those who like stuff such as "the old maid" or "to each his own" or " a stolen life" should have a wonderful time watching this work.

There are sequences which predate Sierck's future works: a drunken guy wearing a carnival mask entering the heroine 's room at a dramatic moment makes one think of this skeleton bursting into an apartment in "tanished angels" (1957);the trial predates that of "written on the wind"(1956) with its new developments;and the final is almost as pompous as the ending of "imitation of life" (1959).

The shows are omnipresent:concerts (Beethoven's 9th symphony which cheers up the heroin far away from her land;pretty soon Sierck would have to leave it too) ,stage dramas ,heavenly choirs -the camera shows a statue of the Virgin babe in arms before filming the mother and child reunion;even more remarkable is the brat's little "show" : telling the story of "SnowWhite and the six dwarfs" -because a dwarf is missing- becomes a "tale in the tale", for as the young princess bites into the poisoned apple,his true mom is about to have a bad time.

This film begins in New York City, where a young woman named "Hanna Muller" (Maria von Tasnady) is informed by the police that her husband has committed suicide in Central Park. Despondent over the news, she soon becomes quite ill, and the doctor is unsure whether she will fully recover. Then one day, she hears a wonderful symphony on the radio that reminds her of her home in Germany, which she left when her husband had to flee because of an embezzlement scheme gone wrong. Meanwhile, at the same time as the radio broadcast, another woman named "Charlotte Garvenberg" (Lil Dagover) is late for a concert being conducted by her husband, "Erich Garvenberg" (Willy Birgel), because of an affair she is having with a man named "Gregor Carl-Otto" (Albert Lippert). She then lies to her husband, telling him she attended the concert, but is exposed by the attendant at the door. This eventually leads to an argument between them, which is resolved when Erich suggests they adopt a child, even though Charlotte agrees only to pacify her husband. As it turns out, the child they eventually adopt is the same one Hanna had to leave behind in Germany, and, because of Erich's radio concert, she has suddenly been brought back to her senses and now wants to reunite with her baby by any means necessary. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I found this to be an entertaining film, further enhanced by the date and location of its production. Admittedly, it is pretty dated, and some people may not care for it because of that reason. Even so, the acting was solid, the plot was tense, and I have rated it accordingly.