Johann Baptiste Lingg
About Johann Baptiste Lingg
In the late eighteenth century, ensign Johann Baptiste Lingg leaves his parents and asks to marry Marie Braun in Hersfeld. Her father wants the older estate manager Wolleck instead. Lingg joins a Baden regiment. At the town ruins the lovers swear to marry when he returns, and Wolleck, who has followed them, burns the letters. Marie, pregnant and unanswered, throws herself into the millstream and is pulled out. She accepts Wolleck. He writes Lingg that they are married. Twenty years later Lingg is a lieutenant colonel under Napoleon, ordered to plunder Hersfeld and burn it at the four corners and the middle. Hedwig, Marie's daughter, begs him to spare the town. He looks at her and sees Marie. He burns a few houses, withdraws the troops so the town can put the fires out, and resigns. Napoleon hears him and lets him go. Lingg returns and blesses Hedwig's wedding to Karl on the town-hall steps.
Cast & crew
More about Johann Baptiste Lingg
Arthur Teuber directed and co-wrote it with Fred Schlick-Manz for Lullus-Film in Berlin. Willy Goldberger, Willy Großstück, and Max Terno photographed it. Julian Ballenstedt and E. A. Zirkel designed the sets. It opened on August 29, 1920. German Wikipedia gives 105 minutes. Carl Auen plays Lingg. Irmgard Bern plays Marie and also Hedwig. Georg John plays Wolleck. Ludwig Hartau plays Elector Wilhelm I. Edmund Löwe plays Napoleon.
Themes
Background
The second half is set in the French occupation of Hesse-Kassel under Napoleon.
Making
Lullus-Film staged Hersfeld under French occupation, with Lingg caught between Napoleon's order and the town.
Look
Willy Goldberger, Willy Großstück, and Max Terno shared the camera on the Hersfeld street fighting and the fires.
Preservation
A copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- An Austrian showing followed in November 1921.
- Frida Richard plays Frau Lingg. Albert Patry plays Johann's father. Fred Immler plays Lieutenant Joui.
- Napoleon's order in the film is to plunder the city and set it on fire at the four corners and in the middle.
- A copy is on the Internet Archive as silent-johann-baptiste-lingg.
Scenes
- Wolleck burns Lingg's letters and Marie goes into the millstream.
- Lingg withdraws the troops so Hersfeld can put out the fires he was ordered to start.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-johann-baptiste-lingg)