Word: manuela
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...only background for the whole film. With the faithfulness of attention to detail which characterizes German cinema production. "Maedchen in Uniform" is alive with genuine emotion and a well-defined and exacting plot structure. There are many touches of the theatre from the entrance of the orphan Manuela into the school to the closing scene in which Fraulein von Beruburg is chosen spontaneously as the natural leader by the acclaim of the children for the understanding and gentleness, while the sternold principal, who has insisted on stifling Prussian discipline, realizes her mistaken methods and totters down the whitewashed stairs...
...Manuela is convinced that she cannot be happy in the barrack like institution, and although she is recognized by the girls as a leader, she cannot accustom herself to wearing the sack-like uniform and striped tie, to putting her hair into a knot, and to going through the routine of eating, praying, sleeping, and studying like a hundred other pupils...
...play, then a film. Now Playwright Winsloe's Maedchen in Uniform is to be seen in a translated version of its second phase, not nearly so satisfactory as its third. Without cinematic evidence of the many little rigors in the Prussian school for officers' daughters to which Manuela is sent, Manuela's adolescent tortures lack credibility. The best the play can do is to show a score of submissive young girls marching under the iron eye of limping Headmistress von Nordeck; to state that their food and heat are to be curtailed (although the young ladies...
...original idea behind Girls in Uniform calls for atmospheric rather than dramatic presentation. The simple story: Manuela discovers happiness in her scholastic exile until she finds that her devotion to her teacher is regarded as a far more heinous infraction of the rules than passing notes. Possibly because most of them did not understand German, U. S. filmgoers were struck by the shy fragility of this relationship. The sense of grey imprisonment, so successfully captured on the screen, is almost entirely lost on the stage. As if to atone for lack of convincing atmosphere, those responsible for Girls in Uniform...
Acting honors of Girls in Uniform go to Florence Williams (Manuela), a young woman of sparse theatrical experience, discovered in R. H. Macy's department store. Cool, clean Rose Hobart (last seen in I Loved You Wednesday) as the beloved teacher tries desperately to apply astringent to a situation which often comes uncomfortably and needlessly close to abnormality...