Emil and the Detectives

Original title: Emil und die Detektive

19311931
1h 15m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

676

YOUR RATING

Billy Wilder, Fritz Rasp, Allan Gray, Käthe Haack, Erich Kästner, Gerhard Lamprecht, Inge Landgut, Hans Joachim Schaufuß, Günther Stapenhorst, and Rolf Wenkhaus in Emil and the Detectives (1931)

Adventure Family Drama

Emil goes to Berlin to see his grandmother with a large amount of money and is offered sweets by a strange man that make him sleep. He wakes up at his stop with no money. It is up to him and... Read allEmil goes to Berlin to see his grandmother with a large amount of money and is offered sweets by a strange man that make him sleep. He wakes up at his stop with no money. It is up to him and a group of children to save the day.Emil goes to Berlin to see his grandmother with a large amount of money and is offered sweets by a strange man that make him sleep. He wakes up at his stop with no money. It is up to him and a group of children to save the day.

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

676

YOUR RATING

Director
- Gerhard Lamprecht
Writers
- Erich Kästner(from the novel by)
- Billy Wilder(screenplay)
- Emeric Pressburger(uncredited)
Stars

See production, box office & company info

See more at IMDbPro

Photos18

Fritz Rasp and Rolf Wenkhaus in Emil and the Detectives (1931)

Rudolf Biebrach and Rolf Wenkhaus in Emil and the Detectives (1931)

Inge Landgut and Hans Joachim Schaufuß in Emil and the Detectives (1931)

Fritz Rasp in Emil and the Detectives (1931)

Hans Joachim Schaufuß and Rolf Wenkhaus in Emil and the Detectives (1931)

Rolf Wenkhaus in Emil and the Detectives (1931)

Trivia
Many of the boy actors from this movie died as soldiers in World War II.

Goofs
When the train carrying Emil from the fictional "Neustadt" to Berlin stops at the intermediate station where all the passengers except Emil and Grundeis, the man with the bowler hat, leave the compartment, its engine is a 2-6-0 Deutsche Reichsbahn Class 38, formerly a Prussian P 8 passenger engine. When the train leaves that station, it is suddenly a DR Class 17, formerly a Prussian 4-6-0 S 10 express train locomotive. When the train enters Berlin's Zoo Station, it has reverted back to a 38/P 8.

Connections
Featured in A Story of Children and Film (2013)

User reviews10

Review

Featured review

8/10

The man with the stiff hat

After the children's book "Emil und die Detektive" was published in 1928 this first screen version was made in 1931 under the supervision of the author Erich Kästner himself.

The story seems simple: young Emil gets to visit his granny in Berlin and is given 140 marks by his mother for his grandma. On the train to Berlin the 140 marks are stolen by a man with a stiff hat while Emil sleeps. Arriving in Berlin he tries to follow the thief and receives help from a well organized and nice "gang" of Berlin street "detectives" in his age. A happy end seems possible.

While the movie contains a very entertaining story itself, an even more interesting detail of this movie is in its backdrop: an authentic Berlin of 1931 with open cabs, cars driving next to coaches, wide streets with lots of space for cyclists and so on. I always wondered when viewing older city maps what street life was like in the twenties of the last century when the streets were not as crowded as today, when the speed difference between pedestrians, cyclists, cars and coaches was still comparable in human measures.

The camera work, special effects (Emils dream on the train) and movie music are distinctly thirty-ish which made this movie even more interesting to me. All in all a very enjoyable movie for kids and adults alike.

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