''Covered Tracks'' (german: Verwehte Spuren) is a 1938 German
historical
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
directed by
Veit Harlan
Veit Harlan (22 September 1899 – 13 April 1964) was a German film director and actor. Harlan reached the highpoint of his career as a director in the Nazi era; most notably his antisemitic film '' Jud Süß'' (1940) makes him controversia ...
and starring
Kristina Söderbaum,
Philip Dorn, and
Charlotte Schultz. It was shot at the
EFA Studios in
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
's
Halensee
Halensee () is a ''locality'' (''Ortsteil'') of Berlin in the district (''Bezirk'') of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Halensee was established as a villa and tenement settlement in about 1880, in the suburb of Wilmersdorf, which became part of Great ...
and the
Bavaria Studios
Bavaria Studios are film production studios located in Munich, the capital of the region of Bavaria in Germany, and a subsidiary of Bavaria Film.
History
The studios were constructed in the suburb of Geiselgasteig in 1919 shortly after the Fi ...
in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
with
location shooting
Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior.
The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for e ...
taking place in both cities as well as in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
. The film's sets were designed by the
art directors
Karl Haacker and
Hermann Warm
Hermann Warm was a German art director for films. Born in 1889 (died 1976) in Berlin, Germany, Warm was an important figure in the expressionist movement of the 1920s. Warm entered the German film industry in 1912 after working on-stage for a whil ...
. It premiered at the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...
.
[Schiweck & Toonen p.144]
Plot summary
A young woman named Séraphine checks into a
Parisian hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...
with her ailing mother, having arrived to attend the
1867 International Exposition. When she comes back to the hotel with her mother's medication, she finds their room vacant and none of the staff remembers ever seeing her or her mother checking into the hotel. Séraphine then embarks on a quest to uncover the mystery of her mother's disappearance and prove her own sanity.
Cast
See also
* ''
Midnight Warning'' (1932)
* ''
The Lady Vanishes
''The Lady Vanishes'' is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel ''The Wheel Spins'' by Ethel Lina ...
'' (1938)
* ''
So Long at the Fair
''So Long at the Fair'' (US re-release title ''The Black Curse'') is a 1950 British thriller film directed by Terence Fisher and Antony Darnborough, and starring Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde. It was adapted from the 1947 novel of the same name ...
'' (1950)
* ''
Dangerous Crossing'' (1953)
* ''
Flightplan
''Flightplan'' is a 2005 mystery psychological thriller film directed by Robert Schwentke from a screenplay written by Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray. It stars Jodie Foster as Kyle Pratt, a recently-widowed American aircraft engineer livin ...
'' (2005)
* ''
Abandoned'' (2010)
References
Bibliography
*
* Noack, Frank. ''Veit Harlan: The Life and Work of a Nazi Filmmaker''. University Press of Kentucky, 2016.
* Schiweck, Ingo & Toonen, Hans. ''Maharadscha, Tschetnik, Kriegsheimkehrer: der Schauspieler Frits van Dongen oder Philip Dorn''. Der Andere Verlag, 2003.
External links
*
1938 films
Films of Nazi Germany
1930s historical drama films
German historical drama films
1930s German-language films
Films directed by Veit Harlan
Films about missing people
Films set in 1867
Films set in Paris
Films based on urban legends
Films with screenplays by Thea von Harbou
German black-and-white films
Tobis Film films
1938 drama films
1930s German films
Films shot at Bavaria Studios
Films shot at Halensee Studios
Films shot in Paris
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