STUDIOCANAL are delighted to announce the latest additions to their prestigious Vintage Classics Collection – FRIEDA and THE DIVIDED HEART – two moving melodramas that tackle the personal cost of war, particularly for women, in the aftermath of World War II.
FRIEDA, produced by Michael Balcon for Ealing Studios and directed by Basil Dearden (Victim, The Blue Lamp), stars Mai Zetterling (Torment), David Farrar (Went The Day Well), Glynis Johns (Mary Poppins), Flora Robson (Fire Over England), Albert Lieven (The Life And Death of Colonel Blimp).
Frieda, a German girl, helps English Robert to escape from a German prisoner-of-war camp and in return he marries her so she can obtain a British passport even though he does not love her. When returning to Robert’s small English hometown, Frieda is met with hostile anti-German sentiment which is only worsened when her brother, a former Nazi and now Polish soldier arrives. What follows is a terrible awakening for Frieda who, deeply in love with her husband, cannot accept when Robert turns against her.
FRIEDA is released on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from 4th July 2022.
Extras
- NEW Strength And Weakness: Matthew Sweet On Frieda
- NEW Looking Back at Frieda
- Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery
THE DIVIDED HEART is directed by Charles Crichton (The Lavender Hill Mob, The Avengers, A Fish Called Wanda) and stars Cornell Borchers (Never Say Goodbye), Yvonne Mitchell (Woman in a Dressing Gown, The Queen of Spades), Michel Ray (Lawrence of Arabia) and Armin Dahlen.
Franz and Inga Hartl have brought up Toni, who they believe to be a war orphan, as their own child; he is ten years old when two officials from the International Refugee Organization visit them with the news that his actual mother Sonja, a Yugoslavian woman, is alive and desperately wants him back. This heart-breaking drama between two women that both call Toni their son is based on a true story of a child, whose mother was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and, like 300 other babies and young children from Slovenia who were deemed “racially worthy”, was sent to Germany and adopted in a Nazi program known as Lebensborn.
Widely admired on its release THE DIVIDED HEART won three British Academy Film Awards. THE DIVIDED HEART is released on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from 4th July 2022.
Extras
- NEW Michel Ray Remembers The Divided Heart
- NEW Interview with author Quentin Falk
- Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery
FRIEDA and THE DIVIDED HEART are released as part of the Vintage Classics collection which showcases iconic British films, all fully restored and featuring brand new extra content. The collection includes KIND HEARTS & CORONETS, THE DAM BUSTERS, BILLY LIAR, WENT THE DAY WELL?, DUNKIRK, and many more.
