Wednesday Night Cinema: W. Thiele – Hurray! I’m Alive! (1928)

Wilhelm Thiele’s whirlwind comedy about love, joie de vivre and the Roaring Twenties, accompanied live on the Mighty Wurlitzer by Bernd Wurzenrainer.

Gustav Fröhlich und Georg Heinrich Schnell – Gustav Fröhlich und Georg Heinrich Schnell

“Hurrah! I’m Alive!” was produced in 1928 as an adaptation of Georg Kaiser’s comedy “Der mutige Seefahrer”. Pieter Kruis, a grocer, receives a large sum of money from an old school friend – who has become a millionaire in America – to cover his travel expenses so that he can visit him there. Pieter doesn’t hesitate for long and buys a ship’s ticket. On the way, however, he is overcome by doubts and suspects a trap set by his devious brother. Pieter therefore leaves the ocean liner in Rotterdam, promptly falls into bad company and becomes embroiled in all sorts of adventures.

Director Wilhelm Thiele is regarded as the inventor of the sound film operetta and is best known today for “Die Drei von der Tankstelle” (1930). After the Nazis came to power, Thiele emigrated and, from 1934, worked under the name William Thiele for 20th Century Fox in Hollywood.

Directed by Wilhelm Thiele, Germany 1928, 102 minutes, starring Natalja Lissenko, Nikolaj Kolin, Betty Astor, Gustav Fröhlich, Max Gülstorff, Georg Heinrich Schnell.
A film from the collection of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, Wiesbaden.
At the Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ: Bernd Wurzenrainer

The MightyWurlitzer theatre organ at the Musical Instrument Museum is one of the largest surviving instruments of its kind in Europe. It was acquired in 1929 by Werner Ferdinand von Siemens, the grandson of the company’s founder, from the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company in North Tonawanda, NY. It has four manuals, 1,228 pipes and more than 200 stops. In addition, there is a large number of percussion and effect instruments. Thunder rumbling and birdsong, sirens wailing and bells ringing – the Mighty Wurlitzer’s range of sounds is truly impressive.

Find out more about the MIM’s Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ here.

Price info: Book tickets on 030 254 811 78 or at

Price: €10.00

Next date:

• Date Wednesday, 10/February/2027 18:00 bis 20:00
• Venue Musikinstrumentenmuseum - Ben-Gurion-Straße
• Address Ben-Gurion-Straße, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten