Elephant Fury

Elephant Fury (German: Gesprengte Gitter) is a 1953 West German drama war film directed by and starring Harry Piel. It also features Herbert A.E. Bohme, Hans Zesch-Ballot and Dorothea Wieck. The film had a troubled production history. Originally made between 1940 and 1943 under the title of Panic, it faced censorship problems. Following the end of the Second World War, Piel recovered the negative which had fallen into the hands of the occupying Soviet forces. He re-shot some scenes, and the film was eventually released more than a decade after it had first begun shooting.

Elephant Fury
Directed by	Harry Piel
Written by	Erwin Biswanger Erwin Kreker Alexander Lix Harry Piel
Starring	Harry Piel Hans Zesch-Ballot Dorothea Wieck
Cinematography	Willi Peter Block E.W. Fiedler Karl Puth Erich Schmidtke Klaus von Rautenfeld
Edited by	Hilde Grebner
Music by	Werner Bochmann Fritz Wenneis
Production companies	Ariel Film Fabrikation Deutscher Filme
Distributed by	UFA
Release date	13 October 1953 (1953-10-13)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	West Germany
Language	German

Synopsis

During the Second World War, an air raid on a zoo leads to the animals escaping across the city.

Cast

• Harry Piel as Großtierfänger Peter Volker
• Herbert A.E. Böhme as Mitarbeiter Fritz Kröger
• Hans Zesch-Ballot as Zoodirektor Thiele
• Dorothea Wieck as Hella Thiele
• Wilhelm P. Krüger as Farmer A. R. Brinkmann
• Ruth Eweler as Christa Brinkmann
• Fritz Hoopts as Farmer H. Sander
• Maria Krahn as Farmerin Küppers
• Julius Riedmueller as Affenwärter Alois Leitner
• Julius Frey as Elefantenwärter F. Müller
• L. Krüger-Roger as Raubtierwärter J. Huber
• Beppo Brem as Tiergartenbesucher während eines Fliegerangriffs
• Peter Strunk as Tierwärter Becker
• Karl Hellmer
• Maria Hofen
• Eva Klein-Donath
• Joe Münch-Harris
• Albert Parsen
• Karl-Heinz Peters
• Rudolf Vogel

Bibliography

• Rentschler, Eric. The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife. Harvard University Press, 1996.

External links

• Elephant Fury at IMDb