ollowing on from my last post, a reader of this blog has asked me if it was Wohlbrück’s beloved Bobby who played Prinz Willibald’s Scottie in Der Stolz der 3 Kompanie (1932.) First of all, here are some frames from the film that show them together.
For those unfamiliar with the film, it’s a military comedy following musketeer Gustav Diestelbeck (Heinz Rühmann) in his attempts to outwit his bullying sergeant and impress barmaid Emma. Life at the barracks is further complicated by interlocking love triangles and overlapping cases of mistaken identity, into which enters the grand-duchy’s Prinz Willibald (Wohlbrück) who is travelling by train to celebrate the troop’s centenary with them. The carriage in which he is travelling (with Bobby), gets separated from its engine, stranding him in the middle of nowhere: then along comes a car driven by local singer Vera (Trude Berliner), a local singer who also happens to be the girlfriend of Gustav’s superior, Lieutenant Gernsbach (Viktor de Kowa)….
The film was shot between 26 October and 17 November 1931 – you can see how bare the trees are in the outdoor scenes – and released at the beginning of January 1932, proving highly popular with cinema audiences. Despite its success, Bobby does not seem to have pursued his screen career much further. Shame – the death of Rin Tin Tin that year could have provided just the opening he needed.