Scampolo (1958)

Romy Schneider (1938-1982) was one of the most beautiful and intelligent actors of her generation. After the enormously successful Sissi trilogy, she soon became nauseated by the saccharine ‘nice girl’ image. At the end of the 1950s, Romy appeared in a bit less stereotypical films such as the sunny comedy Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1014, mailed in 1958. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1083. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Peter Carsten in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam (Dutch licency holder for Universum-Film Aktien-gesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof), no. 1086. Photo: Ufa/Film-Foto. Franca Parisi in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1096. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1097. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider, Paul Hubschmid and Georg Thomalla in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).

Scampolo

In the German production Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958), Romy starred as a young, poor orphan who lives on the Italian island Ischia. Scampolo works as a tourist guide and for a laundress (Elisabeth Flickenschildt). She falls in love with a handsome but poor architect (Paul Hubschmid) who hopes to win a design competition. Scampolo intercedes on his behalf with the minister (Viktor de Kowa) and helps him to make his dream come true.

Scampolo (translation: remnant) was loosely based on a play by Dario Niccodemi. It was not the first film adaptation. In 1917 there was already an Italian silent film directed by Giuseppe Sterni with Margot Pellegrinetti as Scampolo.

Silent film diva Carmen Boni played her also in a 1928 Italian production directed by Augusto Genina. This version has been recently rediscovered and restored by the Bologna cinematheque.

Four years later Hans Steinhoff made a sound version in Germany starring Dolly Haas, Scampolo, ein Kind der Straße/Scampolo a Child of the Streets (1932). This time Scampolo has nowhere to live in Berlin and must sleep rough. Steinhoff also directed a French-language version, Un peu d'amour/A Bit of Love (1932), starring Madeleine Ozeray.

In 1941 followed another Italian version, Scampolo (Nunzio Malasomma, 1941) with Lilia Silvi and in 1953 yet a new Italian adaptation Scampolo 53 (Girogio Bianchi, 1953) starring Maria Fiore. The 1958 version with Romy Schneider was the last film adaptation, till now.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1099. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1100. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider, Eva Maria Meinecke, Paul Hubschmid, Georg Thomalla, and Viktor de Kowa in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1103. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1107. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider and Paul Hubschmid in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1108. Photo: UFA (Universum-Film Aktien-gesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof). Romy Schneider and Viktor de Kowa in Scampolo (1958).

Talented at multiple levels

Scampolo was only the second film young idol Romy Schneider made after the hugely popular Sissi trilogy.

The cast included well-known actors as Paul Hubschmid, Georg Thomalla, Eva Maria Meineke, Franca Parisi, Elisabeth Flickenschildt, Willy Millowitsch, Walter Rilla, and Viktor de Kowa, but Schneider was the heart of the film.

Marcin Kukuczka at IMDb: "Romy Schneider is great! The fact that Scampolo was filmed just after the third part of Sissi is too significant not to be skipped. Romy was considered to fit best to 'royal roles' by a number of people. Partly, thanks to Scampolo, she proved that she was talented at multiple levels."

The comedy was shot on Ischia Island in Italy with wonderful cinematography by Bruno Mondi, who had also shot the Sissi films. Mondi had already started in the silent era as a camera assistant for Fritz Lang's Der Müde Tod (1921). During World War II, he worked with director Veit Harlan on the anti-Semitic propaganda film Jud Süß (1940).

After the war, Mondi went on working at films without any problems and shot socialist-style re-education films in the Soviet zone like Wozzeck (Georg C. Klaren, 1947) and Rotation (Wolfgang Staudte, 1949).

State of Things at IMDb: "Bruno Mondi is a luminous example for a brilliant and inventive cameraman and a frightening example for a perfect technician, not asking for the aim of his work."


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1109. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider and Paul Hubschmid in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1111. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider and Peter Carsten in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1112. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider and Peter Carsten in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1113. Photo: Ufa/Film-Foto. Elisabeth Flickenschildt and Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1114. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1116. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Wolfgang Wahl and Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1118. Photo: UFA (Universum-Film Aktien-gesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof). Romy Schneider and Paul Hubschmid in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1119. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1120. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 3651. Photo: Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Romy Schneider in Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958).

Source: James Travers (French Films), Film Reference, Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 24 October 2020.

Paul Hubschmid

In the 1930s, Paul Hubschmid (1917-2002) was the first Swiss film star. Then he became a popular leading man in the cinema of Nazi-Germany. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he worked in Hollywood as Paul Christian. Later on, he was dubbed 'the most beautiful man in post-war German cinema', and he was still playing romantic leads in the early 1960s.


German postcard by ISV, no. M 18. Photo: Gabriele / Real / Europa-Film.


Postcard by Cox, no. 4.


Belgian card by Cox, no. 4 (back).


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 94. Photo: Ringpress.

Virile good looks

Paul Hugo Hubschmid was born in Schönenwerd, Switzerland in 1917. He was the son of an accountant. In 1937 he graduated from the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna and made his stage debut at the local Deutschen Volkstheater (German People's Theatre).

The following year he played his first film role in the Swiss production Füsilier Wipf/Infanterist Wipf (Hermann Haller, Leopold Lindtberg, 1938). This film made him famous overnight, and he became very popular in both Switzerland and Germany. Another Swiss production, Die missbrauchten Liebesbriefe/The Abused Love Letters (Leopold Lindtberg, 1940) followed, but later he worked mainly in Nazi Germany.

Till the end of the war he appeared in such films as Meine Freundin Josefine/My Friend Josephine (Hans H. Zerlett, 1942), Liebesbriefe/Love Letters (Hans H. Zerlett, 1944), and Der gebieterische Ruf/The Commanding Call (Gustav Ucicky, 1944). After the war Hubschmid became a popular leading man in films like Gottes Engel sind überall/Angels of God Are Everywhere (Hans Thimig, 1948) and Geheimnisvolle Tiefe/The Mysterious Deep (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1949).

Universal brought him to Hollywood despite his film work in the Nazi period. Renamed Paul Christian, he played the dashing hero of the adventure movies Bagdad (Charles Lamont, 1949) with Maureen O'Hara and Vincent Price, and Il ladro di Venezia/The Thief of Venice (John Brahm, 1950) next to Maria Montez. His virile good looks compensated for a stiff acting style, according to American critics. He also starred in the classic monster movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (Eugène Lourié, 1953).

In his obituary about Hubschmid in The Independent, Tom Vallance wrote: "Based on Ray Bradbury's haunting short story 'The Foghorn', the film spawned so many cheap imitations that it is surprising now to realise that it was the first film to deal with a prehistoric monster unearthed by an atomic explosion and going on a rampage through a major city. Christian was effective enough as the scientist who first realises the truth but is not believed, but it was Eugène Lourié's atmospheric direction and in particular the splendid special effects of Ray Harryhausen that turned the $250,000 film into a hit that grossed $5m."


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 110, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3442/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3752/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3576/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Beautiful Man, What Now?

In 1953 Paul Hubschmid returned to Germany to play leads in Maske in Blau/Mask in Blue (Georg Jacoby, 1953) with Marika Rökk, Musik bei Nacht/Music by Night (Kurt Hoffmann, 1953) with Curd Jürgens, Salzburger Geschichten/Chronicles of Salzburg (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) with Marianne Koch, and Die Zürcher Verlobung/The Zurich Engagement (Helmut Käutner, 1957) with Liselotte Pulver.

He usually appeared as a handsome charmer or a swashbuckling action hero. Very popular was the romantic comedy Scampolo (Alfred Weidenmann, 1958) starring Romy Schneider. Successful were also the remakes of the exotic adventure epic Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) and its sequel Das Indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (1959), both directed by Fritz Lang.

Later Paul Hubschmid won praise as a fine character player in such international productions as the spy thriller Funeral in Berlin (Guy Hamilton, 1966) as a former black-market crony of spy Harry Palmer (Michael Caine), and A Taste of Excitement (Don Sharp, 1969).

He appeared more than 2000 times on the German and Austrian stages as Henry Higgins in 'My Fair Lady'. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked mainly for TV. The Swiss production Klassäzämekunft (Walter Deuber, Peter Stierlin, 1988) brought together many popular Swiss stars and was a kind of homage to former heydays. His last film was the comedy Linda (Ottokar Runze, 1992).

He used to say that he wondered if his looks had not been detrimental to his acting career, and he entitled his 1994 autobiography 'Schöner Mann, was nun?' (Beautiful Man, What Now?). From 1942 till her death in 1963, he was married to actress Ursula von Teubern. In 1967 he married film actress Eva Renzi. Their marriage was dissolved in 1980. In 1985 he married Irene Schiesser. When Paul Hubschmid died in 2001 in Berlin at the age of 84, he had made over 120 films.


Austrian postcard by Verlag Hubmann (HDH Verlag), Wien, no. 166. Photo: Afex. Publicity still for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (Eugène Lourié, 1953).


German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, no. 2616. Photo: Arthur Grimm / CCC / Gloria. Publicity still for Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eschnapur (Fritz Lang, 1959).


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, no. I 465. Photo: Czerwonski / Herzog-Film.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. P 83/504, 1957. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Real-Film / Michaelis.


German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen. Photo: CCC-Film / Gloria-Film / Arthur Grimm. Paul Hubschmid, Sabine Sinjen and Helmut Lohner in Marili (Josef von Báky, 1959).

Sources: Tom Vallance (The Independent), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), and Wikipedia and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 26 October 2024.