Reinhold Schünzel grew up in St Paul, Hamburg. He was employed as a clerk, however, the vaudeville atmosphere of St Paul (Reeperbahn and Spielbudenplatz) helped him find his true vocation, theatre and film. He made his first film in 1916. He then starred in 120 silent films and also worked as a director, screenwriter and producer until the end of the 1920s. During the early 1930s he began specialising in the direction of musical comedies, the most famous of which is Victor and Victoria (1933). Due to his Jewish ancestry he was forced to emigrate in 1937. Helloh-Caesar! is a post-modern example of a German film co-written by its director. Schünzel worked on the script with the excellent comic author Szöke Szakall and the film was produced by his own company in Berlin and Karlovy Vary. He appears in the film himself as a poor artist. He directed the film as a vaudeville show, i.e. as a series of slapstick numbers which essentially anticipated the idea of the modern television entertainment show. Schünzel was a brilliant improviser which suited the tastes of his viewers who visited the cinema not only for serious diversion but also for the sake of pure entertainment.
Michael Erfurt (CineGraph Hamburg)
