Emil and the Detectives
Encyclopedia
Erich Kästner
Emil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known for his humorous, socially astute poetry and children's literature.-Dresden 1899–1919:...
. It was Kästner's first major success, the only one of his pre-1945 works to escape Nazi censorship, and remains his best-known work, and has been translated into at least 59 languages. The most unusual aspect of the novel, compared to existing children's literature at the time, was that it was realistically set in a contemporary Berlin peopled with some fairly rough characters, not in a sanitized fantasy world; also that it refrained from obvious moralizing, letting the characters' deeds speak for themselves.
Plot summary
The story begins in Neustadt, a (fictional) provincial German town which is the home of a grade school child named Emil Tischbein (Tischbein translates as "table leg"). His father is deceased and his mother raises him alone working as a hairdresser. She sends Emil to BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
with 120 marks to give to his grandmother and 20 marks for himself, sums that have taken some months to save from her modest earnings. On the way he is very careful not to lose the money and uses a needle to pin it to the lining of his jacket.
But on the train to Berlin, Emil meets a mysterious man named Max Grundeis (Grundeis translates as "ground ice"). This man gives him mysterious chocolate which makes him fall asleep. When he wakes up, the money and Herr (Mr) Grundeis are gone. Emil gets off the train in a different part of Berlin from where he intended to go. When he finds Herr Grundeis, he follows him. Emil dares not call the police since the local policeman in Neustadt had seen him paint the nose of a local monument red, so he feels that he is "a kind of criminal" himself, not entitled to police protection. However, while he is concealing himself, he is found by a local boy named Gustav who offers to help. Gustav assembles 24 local children who call themselves "the detectives".
After following Grundeis to a hotel and spying on him all night, Emil and the gang follow the thief to the bank. Emil gets his money back when Herr Grundeis tries to exchange the money for smaller bills. One of the boy detectives follows him into the bank and tells the bank teller that the money is stolen. Emil comes in and tries to tell the bank teller his story. He proves that the money was his by describing the holes left by the needle he used to pin the bills in the lining of his jacket.
Herr Grundeis tries to run away, but Emil's new friends cling onto him until a police officer alerted by Emil's cousin Poni arrives. Once he is arrested, Herr Grundeis is found out to be a bank robber. Emil receives a reward of 1000 marks for capturing Herr Grundeis. After everything is straightened out, Emil's grandmother says that the moral of the story is: "Never send cash — always use postal service
Money order
A money order is a payment order for a pre-specified amount of money. Because it is required that the funds be prepaid for the amount shown on it, it is a more trusted method of payment than a cheque.-History of money orders:...
."
The 1933 sequel
In the 1933 sequel Emil and the Three Twins, Emil and the other characters have various amusing adventures on the BalticBaltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
shore, two years after the Berlin events of the original book.
The second book did not become as well known as the first, in large measure due to its writing being shortly followed by the rise of the Nazis to power, when publication of Kästner's books in Germany was forbidden and existing books ceremoniously burned (the first Emil book was considered too popular and too harmless, thus escaping the ban).
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The story has been filmed several times. An early German version from 1931Emil and the Detectives (1931 film)
Emil and the Detectives is a 1931 adventure film directed by Gerhard Lamprecht and starring Rolf Wenkhaus...
featured a screenplay by Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
, with uncredited writing work by Emeric Pressburger
Emeric Pressburger
Emeric Pressburger was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a multiple-award-winning partnership known as The Archers and produced a series of classic British films, notably 49th Parallel , The...
, and was a commercial success. There were subsequent versions filmed in 1935 (UK, a remake of the 1931 film), 1954 (Germany, again a remake of the 1931 film), 1964 (US, produced by Walt Disney Productions), and 2001 (Germany). There was also a 1952 British television series which condensed the story in three 35-minute episodes.
The filmed versions made various changes to the time and/or place of the plot. In some cases Emil and the other boys are made into Americans, and the theft takes place on a Greyhound
Greyhound Lines
Greyhound Lines, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas, is an intercity common carrier of passengers by bus serving over 3,700 destinations in the United States, Canada and Mexico, operating under the well-known logo of a leaping greyhound. It was founded in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA, in 1914 and...
bus rather than on a train. The 2001 German version
Emil and the Detectives (2001 film)
Emil and the Detectives is a 2001 German family film directed by Franziska Buch and starring Tobias Retzlaff, Anja Sommavilla and Jürgen Vogel. It is based on a novel by Erich Kästner.-Cast:* Tobias Retzlaff ... Emil Tischbein...
updated the plot to account for the march of time; in 1929 Berlin, a private telephone was still a rare thing, and in the book only one boy (a doctor's son) has a phone at home — with the result that this boy is ordered to stay at home to coordinate operations, and is very frustrated at missing all the fun. In the 2001 film all the boys have mobile phones, and make much use of them in hunting the thief. Also, the 2001 version switched the characters of Pony Hütchen and Gustav (and gives the new Gustav a more expanded role than the original Pony)