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“A Beautiful Period Piece…a coup de théâtre that is as daring as it is satisfying.”
- Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES

“A Remarkable Movie…”
Loren King, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

“Long On Atmosphere And Old World Charm…”
- Kirk Honeycutt, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“Tasteful And Elegant.”
- Jeremiah Kipp, FILMCRITIC.COM

The Story
A woman between three men, a song that casts a treacherous spell, a love set in a murderous era - the film EIN LIED VON LIEBE UND TOD (A Song Of Love and Death) - GLOOMY SUNDAY leads right into the middle of Budapest during the 1930s.

Lászlò Szabó and Ilona Várnai run a restaurant which becomes famous due to a song. “Gloomy Sunday” opens the hearts of its listeners, but the melancholy within also skirts along the darkest depths.

The young house pianist András Aradi composed the ballad for Ilona - out of love. Bit Ilona’s heart throbs for both men - for András and for Lászlò. A triangular relationship develops between them in which all of them find their happiness, more or less, until the German Hans Eberhard Wieck falls entirely under the spell of the song, and for Ilona’s beauty as well. He even proposes marriage to her, but she turns him down.

A few years later Hans returns as an SS officer to a Budapest which meanwhile has been occupied by the Germans. A man with power to decide over life and death. A man who threatens to destroy the fragile balance between Ilona and her two men…

The Novel
Gloomy Sunday by Nick Barkow
“Gloomy Sunday” is based upon a novel written in 1988. The book’s plot deals with an acerbic parable about epicureans and their natural enemies, about the story of all those good soldiers like Ha˙ek’s Schwejk and those who befriend the Schwejks of this world in the evening, only to have them placed before a firing squad the next morning. Which, by the way, is the natural course of things, Then how else could it be that these people are always the ones to be promoted toward the top?

And, although the story takes place at the time of the German occupation of Hungry, it’s still up-to-date in a very special way. Many of the figures appearing are synonymous with public personages who managed to attain high standing in the post-war FRG without regard for their pasts or political leanings.

Apart from direct allusions to the first federal chancellor and the president of the newly founded republic, to certain TV news anchormen form those days and others, the book is peppered with encrypted names: Karaben-Nemcy e.g. for Karajan, Dr. Wieck for Kurt A.E. Becher, August Schnefke for Hanns Martin Schleyer. Parallels to most recent historical developments are found here, too. To the Wiecks of the New Federal States, whose voices are no longer heard in the media and who have retired to the sumptuous quiet of lakeside areas like the Tegernsee….

It has all the makings of a short outline of German history repeating itself again and again: a little piece of Brecht, a little Tucholsky. For the film, all of this becomes the vehicle upon which the emotion-laden and electrifying love story between Ilona, Szabo, Andràs and Wieck unfolds.

NICK BARKOW, born in 1928, is a free-lance author living in Hamburg after having spent twenty years working as an overseas editor and foreign correspondent for “Stern” magazine in, among others, such places as New York, London and Tokyo.

Barkow has been incorporated into the work on the screenplay, acting as a consultant.

The Song
Gloomy Sunday
Composed by: Rezsô Seress
English Lyrics by: Sam M. Lewis
(Original Lyrics by: László Jávor)

Sunday is gloomy
My hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coach
Of sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thoughts
Of ever returning you
Would they be angry
If I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday
Gloomy is Sunday
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I
Have decided to end it all
Soon there’ll be candles
And prayers that are sad I know
Let them not weep
Let them know that I’m glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death I’m caressing you
With the last breath of my soul
I’ll be blessing you
Gloomy Sunday
Dreaming, I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you asleep
In the deep of my heart here
Darling I hope
That my dream never haunted you
My heart is telling you
How much I wanted you
Gloomy Sunday

The History of the Song
Hungary in 1935. The Hungarian composer Seress composes the song “Gloomy Sunday” in a Hungarian restaurant. He doesn’t realize that this song - in a hundred interpretations - will achieve fame around the world as the “Suicides’ Hymnsong”.

The artistic impact of the song has remained intact to the present day - although these days the song is no longer directly connected with suicide attempts…

The Path the Song Took
“Why?”, I asked the owner of the ‘music publishing house’ which first published ‘Gloomy Sunday’ three years ago.
“In my opinion, ‘Gloomy Sunday’ is an outstanding, new kind of composition, namely a Hungarian ‘art song’ with the character of a chanson. 500 copies have been brought out up till now, but it’s also contained in two albums, and five gramophone recordings of it have also been made. It’s also being sung on the radio. I’m really very sorry that it’s become the hymn for those committing suicide. That was not our intention, but, my God … the path a song takes is unpredictable. It’s not our fault that people have chosen that particular one as the reason to kill themselves or to take with them when they want to die.” (…)

The song’s music was composed by Rezsó Seress, the lyrics were written by László Jávor.

“What do you have to say about five people dying because of your poem?”, I asked László. He didn’t respond directly to the question. Sitting back on the cushions, he said, “Writing text is a horrible business. ‘Gloomy Sunday’ is a poem. A poem which has been reduced to text through everyday use: it developed into a pop-song, a hit.” After a sigh he added, “It’s a shame it wasn’t published in a book.” He is absolutely certain that if that had been the case, no five people would have died because of it. “But, if you’ll allow, I’d like to make it quite clear: Not everyone will become a suicide because of ‘Gloomy Sunday’.”
(Jenó Pálmai, “Az Est” newspaper, Nov. 1935)

Reviews
“A Beautiful Period Piece…a coup de théâtre that is as daring as it is satisfying.”
- Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES

“The fine cast, the elegant settings and the swoony title song somehow draw you in.”
V.A. Musetto, NEW YORK POST

“Gloomy Sunday has a mood and a magic about it that elicit emotion from the beginning and make an audience follow it down its curving and melancholy path.”
Mike LaSalle, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Gloomy Sunday is a memorable moment in a remarkable movie.”
Loren King, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

“Long on atmosphere and Old World charm.”
Kirk Honeycutt, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“It’s an old-fashioned romantic triangle, told with schmaltzy music on the sound track and a heroine with a smoky singing voice, and then the Nazis turn up and it gets very complicated and heartbreaking.”
Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

“A nicely weepy melodrama.”
Moira MacDonald, SEATTLE TIMES

“A story of love, lust, betrayal, friendship, the power of music and greed. How much better can it get?”
Jean Lowerison, SAN DIEGO METROPOLITAN

“The iconic ‘30s song “Gloomy Sunday’ gets a distinctive celluloid setting in this well-player, cleverly scripted pic in which music and character are inextricably combined.”
Derek Elley, VARIETY

“Is it possible for a historically - based Holocaust movie to be schmaltzy? This one sure comes close.”
Elizabeth Weitzman, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

“It does come pretty close to being as good a time as you could conceivably have at a movie that deals with this kind of material.”
Bob Strauss, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

“This tragic romance is elegant, picturesque, sensuous, and rather stilted.”
Gregory Weinkauf, NEW TIMES

“A handsome, romantic and altogether engrossing tale that should absolutely please fans of “the old-fashioned tearjerker.”
Scott Weinberg, EFILMCRITIC.COM

“There’s a whiff of exploitation about any movie that claims the Holocaust as a ‘backdrop’ and Rolf Schübel’s treacly tale of three men lovesick for the same blue-eyed beauty fairly reeks of it.”
Ella Taylor, L.A. WEEKLY

“Each moment is perfectly played by the attractive cast of largely unknown (in the U.S. anyway) German actors.’
Shirley Sealy, FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL

“Its strong suit is that it’s a richly woven war drama that also tells a fascinating romantic story.”
Dennis Schwartz, OZUS’ WORLD MOVIE REVIEWS

“A nicely weepy melodrama.”
Moira MacDonald, SEATTLE TIMES

“Like the legend of Gloomy Sunday itself, the film remains entertaining despite its dubious accuracy.”
Ken Fox, TV GUIDE’S MOVIE GUIDE

“It’s a stirring and provocative affirmation of the power and resilience of love.”
Philip Wuntch, DALLAS MORNING NEWS

“It has enough opulent, oversized romanticism to make it a guilty pleasure, not to mention three attractive and appealing characters and, of course, that song.”
Terry Lawson, DETROIT FREE PRESS