Synopsis
A nightclub waiter and a manicurist share the same room, he sleeps there by night and she by day. They've never meet , but they can't stand each other. Then they meet by chance, not knowing who's who and fall in love.
1932 ‘Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht’ Directed by Ludwig Berger
A nightclub waiter and a manicurist share the same room, he sleeps there by night and she by day. They've never meet , but they can't stand each other. Then they meet by chance, not knowing who's who and fall in love.
Käthe von Nagy Willy Fritsch Julius Falkenstein Elisabeth Lennartz Albert Lieven Friedrich Gnaß Anton Pointner Eugen Rex Ida Wüst Rudolf Platte Lydia Potechina Amanda Lindner Ursula van Diemen Walther Ludwig Carl Merznicht Trude Lieske Gerhard Bienert Karl Hellmer Werner Hollmann Werner Pledath Leo Monosson
I by Day, You by Night is a German romantic comedy chock full of wit, song, and charm. Starring Willy Fritsch (Hans) and the unbelievably natural, adorable Käthe von Nagy (Grete) as two poor working folks — he's a waiter at a nightclub, she's a manicurist — who share the same apartment to save money (he sleeps days, she nights). As happens in films based on this trope, the two meet and fall almost instantly in love, even as they escalate the cruel, small pranks each plays on their hated, unseen roommate.
It's a familiar story, certainly, but it's wonderfully told here, with convincing chemistry between Fritsch and Nagy and regular, smart intercutting between their romance and the fictional, musical…
wonderful screwball-style weimar comedy with the always reliable willy fritsch and adorable kathe von nagy. sharing a room while working opposite hours, they've developed a hatred for each other's habits without ever actually meeting. a series of mishaps and mistaken identities is played delightfully contrasted with then-current musical romance films being shown at the cinema next door. charming tunes and hilarious hi-jinks easily on a par with anything from hollywood of the era. an absolute gem
Another marvel, the Pommer style executed in fluid perfection. Unlike the more outward-bound, expansive DER KONGRESS TANZT and DIE DREI VON DER TANKSTELLE, this is a musical of interiors and interiorities, a comedy of mistaken identity folding in on itself: the lovers sleep in the same bed from the start, so it´s just a question of getting them there at the same time; a question of synchronizing, of blending two lives, two space-times - and also two movies - onto each other. This is not about romantic conquest, but about matchmaking and filmmaking becoming one and the same: an artistic practice that gives us access to our own desires.
The first breakthrough happens during a lock-in in Sanssouci, and you realize: this is what these rooms were built for, not for representation of autority, for oppression or for splendor for its own sake, but for Willy Fritsch and Käthe von Nagy discovering each other.
Wenn ich Sonntags in mein Kino geh'
und im Film die feinen Leute seh'
Denk ich immer wieder ... könnt' ich mal
Ach könnt' ich mal genauso glücklich sein.
A great movie, maybe the greatest, about the cinema as a place to escape and more importantly to dream. Hans and Grete try to recreate these dreams from the silver screen but end up in an embarrassing situation. After their masks had fallen and exposed their true selves it's all good and they continue to dream in the cinema seats together.
♫ On Sundays when I go to my cinema, and see the fine people in the film, I think again and again: "If I could only once, just once, be as happy as them." ♫
Our two protagonists don't know they're in a musical. The songs being played by the street musicians and on the screen at the local cinema might have a few hints for them. But they don't know these songs are singing about their lives. The camera follows closely as a manicurist and a waiter pass each other on the streets, but they don't imagine the elaborate plot they're set up in. The old actress who owns their apartment building might know some things, but she's only acted in great tragedies, she doesn't know anything about those French comedy plots.
"In the cinema, surely music would start to play here."
Look, isn’t it wonderful? You always run after your luck, and finally you realize that all the time you slept with your luck in the same bed. Do you know how that feels?
Quelle agréable surprise que cette perle de screwball weimarien! Une comédie musicale dans une comédie musicale, treize quiproquos à la douzaine, une parfaite dose d’espièglerie qui n’a rien à envier à la touche Lubitsch et, pour finir, un charmant billet doux à l’intention du cinéma. Wenn ich sonntags in mein Kino geh : un mood. Ça mériterait une restauration!
Willy Fritsch's waiter and Katy Nagy's manicurist have never met but rent an apartment for (respectively) the day and the night and have grown to hate each other's clutter and abuse of each others property.
They meet cute and overcome their own lies and assumptions about class and romance.
It's a very familiar plot, it has a bit of a reverse Shop Around the corner about it and I made it a little while into a Ginger Rogers film with a similar premise but none of the charm (think there's a Matthew Broderick film with the same plot too). But this one has that missing charm in spades with a ton of chemistry between the two leads, their date at…
A delightfully executed mistaken identity musical comedy with a sharply choreographed climactic scene where main characters and secondary characters alike swirl around a nightclub and do very well to mostly not bump into things. My favourite line (translated from the German) went something like: "Too much drinking does the nonsense." Light and whimsical but with an unavoidable darkness reflecting Hitler's looming rise to power. A lovely framing device too, where plot (and themes, loosely) are echoed in a film screened by the male lead's chum, a projectionist working in a cinema.
Im Titel des Films ist bereits ein entscheidender Bezug auf eine bestimmte Form der Zeitlichkeit zu erkennen, die für die Dramaturgie des Films grundlegend wirkt. Ich bei Tag und Du bei Nacht ist ein Film über die Großstadt, in denen Menschen den selben Raum bewohnen können, ohne sich jemals begegnen zu müssen. Durch die Zeichen ihrer Existenz, die die beiden Hauptfiguren sich gegenseitig, jeweils zum Unwohlsein der anderen Person, hinterlassen, sind sie sowohl ständig gleichzeitig im selben Raum und nie im selben Raum. In der Großstadt sind alle gleichzeitig ungleichzeitig, alle laufen aneinander vorbei, Begegnungen sind durch soziale Zuordnung bedingt und erfolgen dann aber innerhalb des zugewiesenen Raums nur zufällig. In dieser Grundannahme des Films liegt dann wohl begründet, warum…
Käthe von Nagy and Willy Fritsch are great together because they don't quite fit, she's too agile emotionally, so his attacks do not quite land and when she succumbs to them anyway it just has to be true love.
Elegant, playful German musical. Light, of course, but heavy with stylish touches. Plot wise fairly routine, however Käthe von Nagy shined bright in my eyes!
All but impossible to believe that this effervescent film so utterly crackling with energy, vitality, and optimism was released not even two months before Germany, her people, and soon after the entire world were plunged into the darkness of one of history's deepest abysses. Equally, if not more, impossible to believe that the encroachment of that darkness was the backdrop for the film's entire production. How could that beget this? A breathtaking technical marvel, a riotously and kind-heartedly funny comedy, a subtle reflection of the era's regional economic strife, and an unwittingly heartbreaking ode to a time which never really was. And better, somehow, than even Le Million!