We are especially proud to release two DVDs -- THE LAST CHANCE (1945) and SWISS TOUR (1949) --that GME has co-published with Praesens-Film AG, a Swiss production company founded in 1924 that is still active today. According to film scholar Yvonne Zimmerman, “The flagship Swiss movies produced by Praesens were made primarily by foreigners, immigrants and émigrés...Praesens founder Lazar Wechsler was a Jew of Polish origin who came to Switzerland from Austria in 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I… and established Praesens-Film AG in 1924… Wechsler had been able to build a stable team of highly qualified staff, which turned out to be crucial to the success of the company. Not just Praesens, but Swiss cinema as a whole, benefited from the services of émigrés and repatriates from Germany, Austria and France who from 1933 sought refuge in Switzerland from National Socialist repression. The Praesens staff included director Leopold Lindtberg, scriptwriter Richard Schweizer, cameraman Emil Berna, composer Robert Blum and film editor Hermann Haller."
THE LAST CHANCE (1945) is one of the most important contributions to Swiss film history. This film was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It carries on where Jean Renoir's LA GRANDE ILLUSION (1939) leaves off. Three escaped prisoners of war lead a caravan of refugees across the Swiss border to safety.
SWISS TOUR (1949) recounts a love story set against the backdrop of American soldiers stationed in Europe in the aftermath of WWII who are on leave in Switzerland. The main protagonist (American actor Cornel Wilde) was at the peak of his career, as wll as his two love interests; French actress Josette Day had created a sensation as Belle in LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE (1946), and Simone Signoret’s career was on the rise.
As per Yvonne Zimmermann, “Lazar Wechsler's cinema of humanism and international understanding played a significant part in the moral rehabilitation of Switzerland abroad. The fact that Swiss banks had managed German assets and accepted gold plundered by the Nazis during the war had damaged the country's image. Switzerland's reputation was particularly badly battered in the United States. In this light, SWISS TOUR can be seen as part of a cultural image campaign run by Switzerland in the United States.”
The DVD version of this edition originates from pristine nitrate film elements that GME discovered in warehouse storage in the New York metropolitan area. The Cinémathèque suisse acquired and preserved this material, and the restored film was shown at the Locarno Film Festival in 2007. GME subsequently collaborated with Praesens Film to produce this digital edition. This DVD is accompanied by an original essay by scholar Yvonne Zimmermann about SWISS TOUR, Praesens Film, and the larger cultural context in which these films were produced, together with an introduction by archivist Jon Gartenberg about rediscovering the film.
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