No Trouble with Cleopatra
Kein rger mit Cleopatra Englishlanguage title No Trouble with Cleopatra is an East German comedy film, directed by Helmut Schneider. It was released in 1960.
Writer Manfred Petzold submitted his script to DEFA onJuly 1958, under the title Celestial Wink. Beside of complying with the ideological demands of the time, by portraying the collectivization of farms in a positive manner Joshua Feinstein cited the picture among DEFAs mission films, that had unambiguous political aims it also took a highly critical position of the Catholic Church. The village priest, Melchior, was depicted as the main antagonist, who fiercely opposed the notion that his flock would join the communal farm, fearing that he would lose influence. The DEFA Board resisted this aspect of the plot, being concerned that it would offend Christian farmers and hinder the efforts to have them join the LPGs. The Film Production Commission recommended to make the priest less reactionary. But the figure of Melcior was only slightly more simpathetic in the scripts new version, submitted onJune 1959 and subsequently approved. Principal photography took place fromJune untilAugust of that year. A special screening was held for Hans Seidowsky, an official of the Department for Church and State Relations. He concluded that the plot must be significantly altered to avoid having the conflict between the values of Christianity and communism as the main subject of the film. OnMarch 1960, a final edition of the script was approved, leaving the priest with little impact on the events. An intensive process of editing removed all the problematic scenes. In one part of the film, where it was impossible to cut out a sequence in which old Grandma Kalhow had a vision of the Holy Virgin riding on a white cow, strong background noise was added to make her words inaudible. The title Celestial Wink was changed to No Trouble with Cleopatra, to dissasuade any connotation to religious issues.The picture was poorly received by the audience it sold only 20,142 tickets in the first week after its release merely 13.1 of those available. The management of DEFA de
Source: Wikipedia
