Family Day at the Prellsteins

Georg Herzberg, Film-Kurier, no. 298, Dec. 17, 1927


A Herrnfeldiade about an inheritance that throws an entire family into chaos. The whole matter is based on a little legal error that makes one heir responsible for the deceased’s debts even in excess of the inheritance.

Paul Morgan introduces the film with a lengthy sequence of titles in which he explains that the film will present nothing of love, sudden death, or sensations. He keeps his word. Ilka Grüning and Erika Glässner remain the only two female figures in the film.

For that, it feature all the more of Israel’s sons — talking, cursing, jabbing and being jabbed, and talking again, until a kindly Uncle from Bentschen shows up and fixes the damage. Hans Steinhoff has created a tidy film out of available and no doubt meager resources, a film you can have a few hearty chuckles over and whose viewers, apart from the hopeless anti-Semites, will find a diversion from Heidelberg, the Rhine, and operettas. […] As a second film, the work will be quite serviceable in the programs of cinema-owners.