Boefje

The last film Detlef Sierck made before he left for America and became Douglas Sirk .

The most remarkable thing in this forgotten movie is the lead: Annie Van Ees played the role of Jan on stage ,a male teenager,at 29 ; in Sirk 's effort ,she was 45 (you read well) and she is still thoroughly credible as a sixteen-year-old boy ; it's a performance only equaled by Julie Harris' who,at 27 , played the part of a twelve-year-old girl in Fred Zinneman ' s "the member of the wedding"(1952)

"Boefje" belongs to Sirk's melodramas, but arguably the only one which does not take place in a well-to do milieu ;we only catch a glimpse of this privileged class during the scene of the rich kid's birthday ,when he refuses to put his lips to the harmonica stolen and soiled by a hellion's lips .Jan is a Dutch urchin ,some kind of Victor Hugo's Gavroche ;In Rotterdam , he 's longing for the American dream : he would bring a box of cigars for Daddy , a hat with feathers for mom and a box of candies for his sisters ; poverty leads him to theft and without the intervention of the pastor ,he would end in jail where he would meet inmates worse than him: it would be his definitive downfall .

Religion men play a prominent part to get Jan back on the straight and narrow ,but there are no existential concerns ; they would later appear in such works as "the first legion" , "battle hymn ", and mainly in the discussion between the soldier and the professor (played by the author,Erich Maria Remarque ) in " a time to love and a time to die" but Sirk was not a believer and the Brothers' role is to act as guardian angels to their pupils, and to preserve the family unit. Grandiose ending with organ and choir , reminiscent of " das Mädchen vom Moorhof"(1935) and a forerunner of that of "imitation of life" (1959)

Humor is not absent : the stolen herrings and the flypaper on the pastor's sleeve .