Alarm in Peking

Alarm in Peking is a 1937 German adventure film directed by Herbert Selpin and starring Gustav Fröhlich, Leny Marenbach, and Peter Voß. It is set against the backdrop of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China. German filmmakers had frequently used China as a setting since the 1910s, but from 1931 onwards they made a series of films with political overtones.^[1] It was shot at the Johannisthal Studios in Berlin. The film's sets were designed by the art director Alfred Bütow and Willi Herrmann.

Alarm in Peking
Directed by	Herbert Selpin
Written by	Herbert Selpin Walter Zerlett-Olfenius
Produced by	Eduard Kubat
Starring	Gustav Fröhlich Leny Marenbach Peter Voß
Cinematography	Friedl Behn-Grund
Edited by	Lena Neumann
Music by	Werner Bochmann
Production company	Minerva-Tonfilm
Distributed by	Terra Film Tobis-Sascha Film (Austria)
Release date	19 August 1937 (1937-08-19)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

Cast

• Gustav Fröhlich as Oberleutnant Brock
• Leny Marenbach as Maria
• Peter Voß as Captain Cunningham
• Herbert Hübner as Korvettenkapitän von Radain
• Bernhard Minetti as Tu-Hang
• Rosa Jung as Yung-Li
• Paul Westermeier as Sergeant Mück
• Ferdinand Classen as Tschang
• Joachim Rake as Leutnant Torelli
• Günther Lüders as Gefreiter Lüdecke
• Hugo Fischer-Köppe as Sergeant Micky
• Arthur Reinhardt as Brandes
• Adolf Fischer as Reiter
• Leopold von Ledebur as Generalkonsul
• Georg H. Schnell as Gesandter
• Karl Günther as Kommandeur

Release

Chiang Kai-shek spoke to Werner von Blomberg about his criticism of the film as it depicted the Europeans in a positive light in contrast to the Chinese. Joseph Goebbels wanted to ban the film, but Adolf Hitler declined to do so.^[2]

References

1. Baskett p. 194
2. Niven 2018, p. 33.

Works cited

• Niven, Bill (2018). Hitler and Film: The Führer's Hidden Passion. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300200362.

Bibliography

• Bock, Hans-Michael; Bergfelder, Tim, eds. (2009). The Concise Cinegraph: Encyclopaedia of German Cinema. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-57181-655-9.
• Baskett, Michael (2008). The Attractive Empire: Transnational Film Culture in Imperial Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3163-9.
• Rentschler, Eric (1996). The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-57640-7.

External links

• Alarm in Peking at IMDb