Ultimatum

Ultimatum (1938)

About the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of the First World War. Focuses on the relationship between a Serbian officer and his Austrian-born wife and their involvement in espionage between the countries.

Date of release
1938-10-27
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
1h 23m
Genres
War, Drama
Director
Robert Wiene, Robert Siodmak

Casting

Interesting facts

Ultimatum is a 1938 French historical drama film directed by Robert Wiene and Robert Siodmak and starring Dita Parlo, Erich von Stroheim and Abel Jacquin. The film's plot is set in 1914 against the backdrop of the July Crisis between the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of the First World War. It focuses on the relationship between a Serbian officer and his Austrian-born wife and their involvement in espionage between the countries.

Production and reception

Wiene had been forced into exile from Germany following the Nazi rise to power. During the four years since his previous film A Night in Venice (1934) he had been struggling to raise financing in London and Paris for his projects and had not made a single film. The film was based on the novel Days Before the Storm by Ewald Bertram. The film's title refers to the Austrian ultimatum issued to Serbia shortly before the outbreak of war.

Because of the film's casting of Parlo and von Stroheim and its war-theme, it drew comparisons with Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937).

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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