Fireworks (1954) User Reviews

For Romy

[dbdumonteil · 16 September 2007]

It's always a pleasure to see the sadly missed Romy Schneider in her early films ,before the international stardom in the wake of the Sissi trilogy. She's not at the top the bill,(the star being Lili Palmer,back from the USA,who would team up again with Schneider in Radvanyi's "Mädchen in Uniform" (1958)),but her part is more important than of that of the leading lady.She portrays a teenager from a chic family who snubs their black sheep ,the owner of a circus (one of her uncles).But the young girl is not prepared to accept it: this circus draws her and she really feels like becoming part of the troupe.It's a musical and I must admit the songs are not really my cup of tea.But Romy and the lovely colors are pleasant.

The story vanishes

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 14 August 2017]

"Feuerwerk" or "Fireworks" is a West German / Swiss collaboration from 1954, so this one is already over 60 years old and German audiences can make the parallel that this one came out when Germany won the Football World Cup under Sepp Herberger to see how old it is. The director is Kurt Hoffman and this is not one of his most or least known works. The script was created by a whole lot of writers based on a play and this is baffling as the film does not have a plot for almost the entire second half. The reason why this 1.5-hour film is still not forgotten today is the very young Romy Schneider in one of her earliest performances. She is basically sharing the female lead role with Lilli Palmer and these two are also far more interesting than all the men in here. The film is in color already (as always for Schneider) and it has a touch of drama, a touch of romance and a touch of comedy. Schneider's character is one that rebels against the rules of the grown-ups and this description fits her other works pretty nicely too, also her career-defining Sissi trilogy. But back to this one here: The consequence of an argument is that she runs away to see the circus in town and pretty much the entire second half of the film is a circus show that lacks a plot completely though. Admittedly, it is still not worse really than the first half. It is just never a good film at any point unfortunately, but it shows again that the actually decent cast cannot make such a messy script work. I give it a thumbs-down. Only the very biggest Romy Schneider fans may want to giver it a go. It's actually fairly difficult to get a hand on a copy of this one here, but don't worry: If you don't manage to do so, you really aren't missing much. Watch something else instead.

Charming Musical

[zimmer-9 · 9/10 · 29 July 2005]

If there is such a thing like a German Musical - this is it: Glamorous, colorful, star-driven, funny and with some great songs, including the famous "Oh mein Papa", here sung by extremely pleasant to watch Lili Palmer. When a circus comes to a small German town, one of the families find out that the director is the long-lost brother of the respectful head of the family, a fact they would prefer to hide. The circus director's lovely wife manages to save the day and keep the daughter from running away with the circus. Also one of the early performances of Romy Schneider, pre-"Sissi", and you can understand why the German audience fell for her.

This is as good as the American classic ",Meet me in Saint Louie

[cynthiahost · 10/10 · 10 January 2009]

Let's Get one thing straight. This movie was not shot in Eastman color as the IMDb claims. It was in a process called Geva color. The same process that was used in the 1956 Indian classic,"Mother of India. The exact title is " Feuer Werks- Oh my Pa Pa". This title song, of the movie, refers to Iduna ,played by Lillie Palmer, late father who was a clown and how he would give her advice when she was in trouble. Lillie Palmer had introduced ," Oh my Pa Pa",the song, before Eddie fisher made it a hit.It's about a family in 1890 s Germany.Anna's , played by Romy Shnieder,. Her father runs a garden shop that sells Nome statue's.Her boy friend Robert, played by Claus Biederstadt. works in there , but by observance , it looks like he's a ambitious architect. Her mother, played by Kathy Haak, and her father are celebrating their 50's anniversary. Well the relatives arrive for the celebration, her three aunts and uncles, one of them uncle August played by , Rudolph Vogel.One uncles hasn't shown up yet played by Karl Shonbock. Earlier a circus parade was going thru the small town ,which Anna and Robert were observing. none of them aware that her Uncle and Her aunt Played by Lillie Palmer , runs it. Shonbock portrays a circus director. Like his other role's he flirt's with other women. Iduna , his wife, gets jealous of this. Well, all hell breaks loose when he shows up at the anniversary late introducing his circus workers outdoor's. It seems that the cirrus is very close to their house ,that's how small the town is .It's a very Americanize version of a German circus cause it include's real American , or German?, Indians . Does that mean it suppose to take place in the U.S.A.? If it does It's sure hard to hide those German Gothic buildings. It starts to storm and all the performers are force to go in the house. They mess it up while Iduna flirts with her her brother in laws , Expressing to august how much he resemble's her father. , which gives him more interest in the circus. This anger's the family so the three uncles who want to see the circus sneaks out so does Anna's brother. But she directly let's Father and mother and aunt's know where she is going. Outraged, the father forbids her to go so she runs away to her uncle's circus to join. Robert finds this out and tries to stop her but Aunt Iduna gives the young man advise and sets up and plan to get her back plus teach Karl Shonbock a lesson for taking her for granted ,by going to Paris, to give an impression that she ran way. The songs are good . Even though Lillie Palmer's is in the beginning credits , it is Romy Schneider that up stages her. It's available in U. S. A. in German video.net and German language video center on NTCS VHS and DVD , pal region 2, at the time of this writing, at Amazon.de. It's worth the collection for your film library. 01/11/09 I made a boo boo ,Ilooked at the title credits again only to discover that it was shot in Eastman color . It was processed at Geva color laboratory's excuse me