Request Concert (1940)

Interesting facts

Wunschkonzert is a 1940 German drama propaganda film by Eduard von Borsody. After The Great Love, it was the most popular film of wartime Germany, reaching the second highest gross.

Production and reception

The former Reich Film Superintendent Fritz Hippler characterised the film – after 1945 – not only as a state-commissioned film, but as: "Goebbels' pet child. He had worked on the screenplay, written dialogue, and specified particular singers and music to be presented in the great set pieces. Since he prized Ilse Werner above all as the 'sympathetic model of a modern woman', he was completely besotted with that piece of casting."

The director Eduard von Borsody, who otherwise mostly specialised in adventure films, had recommended himself to the Nazi regime by his work on the films Morgenrot (1933, pre-dating the Nazi seizure of control), Refugees (1933), and Rubber (1938).

Shooting began on 16 July 1940. On 21 December, the completed film was laid before the Filmprüfstelle (original edition: 2,832 metres, 103 minutes), which classified it as fit for youth viewing. The premiere took place on 30 December 1940 in a Berlin showpiece cinema, the Ufa-Palast am Zoo. Distribution was managed by the Universum-Film Verleih GmbH.

In the original version, the film was entitled "Das Wunschkonzert" ("The Request Concert"), but this was replaced when the film was advertised by the snappier-sounding "Wunschkonzert".

Next to the Zarah Leander film The Great Love, Wunschkonzert was the most commercially successful film production during the Nazi regime: By the end of World War II, the film had been seen by almost 26 million people, and taken 7.6 million Reichsmarks (equivalent to 34 million 2021 euros).

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