Gottlieb Duttweiler makes a box-office hit

After Migros became involved with Praesens-Film, the Brückenbauer started advertising the production company’s films. When their post-war refugee drama Marie-Louise was struggling at the box offices, the newspaper started a promotion offering free tickets, which helped the film take off.

The year that the Federation of Migros Cooperatives acquires shares in the film production company Praesens-Film AG, the company shoots the film Marie-Louise. It tells the tragic story of a French refugee girl who stays with an affluent Swiss family for three months in order to recover from the horrors of the war. Despite a star cast, including Heinrich Gretler and Anne-Marie Blanc, it gets off to a slow start in the cinemas in autumn 1943. Like a knight in shining armour, Gottlieb Duttweiler launches an advertising campaign in the Brückenbauer: all housewives who shop in Migros during poorly frequented, off-peak times receive free cinema tickets. The word-of-mouth propaganda of these cinema-goers functions perfectly: just five days later, the film showings are regularly sold out.
In Switzerland alone, Marie-Louise is seen by a total of one million people. It is the start of an international success story that brings Praesens-Film full houses in London and New York, and even an Oscar for the best original script. Marie-Louise and Gottlieb Duttweiler are therefore major contributors to the revival of the Swiss film industry after the Second World War.