We have only the crème de la crème…(at the Wintergarden)
As a child during our regular family trips up the
Lancashire coast I would be terrified as we watched the daring young men and
women on the flying trapeze in the Blackpool Tower Circus as they swung high
above our heads with no safety net, only flesh, bone and sinew away from a fall
to their death. I knew they probably wouldn’t fall but my heart was always in
my mouth as I watched them take their chances and it was always a relief once
they had finished.
Now none of these acrobats enlivened the jeopardy by
fixing long swords to the floor and then to a hoop through which they would fly
at the end of their routine but in Their Son aka Sensation im
Wintergarten, this is exactly what the great “Frattani” does and it is not
just his sweetheart who hopes he will keep on swinging rather than being sliced
and diced in his shiny silk costume… it’s also exactly the kind of device an
ill-wisher might use to finish the man off. It’s the most gruesome variant of Chekhov's
gun principle, if you see it in Act IV it will, probably, “go off” by Act VII… Chekhov's
water torture more like.
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| Looks easy doesn't it? |
After the trapeze artists my relief was always short-lived
for then we had the always sinister clowns, led by the legendary but scary Charlie
Cairoli. Laugh? I could have cried. It’s safe to say that there was no danger
of my running off to join the circus but this is exactly what young Count Paul
Mensdorf does in this picture, escaping from his disciplinarian stepfather Baron
von Mallock (Gaston Jacquet looking just as shifty as he would with Louise
Brooks in Prix de beauté (1930), weasel eyes and untrusting moustache…).
Mallock has somehow worked his way into the affections of Paul’s mother Gräfin
(Erna Morena) and, having secured his meal-ticket treats her son with cruel
disdain.
Paul (Alphons Schünemann at this point), runs away and
comes across a circus and, watching through a break in the tarpaulin is
captivated by what he sees. He’s spotted by a friendly clown Barry (a very good
Vladimir Sokoloff, a Russian emigree who would soon depart for Hollywood) and
pulled into the new family of acrobats and jugglers. He meets one of the young
stars, the horse-rider Madeleine (Alexandra Nalder) and the two form an instant
friendship.
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| Vladimir Sokoloff and Claire Rommer "enjoy" the show... |
The film actually starts with Paul (Paul Richter) now a world-famous trapeze artist under the name of Frattani as he travels across to Europe on an ocean liner from New York. He’s spotted by a group of young women as he trains and we see a newspaper revealing that this “King of the Air” is coming to perform in Europe for the first time. There’s some good business with cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum’s camera following Paul as he swings back and forth finally puling the curtains on his admirers before focusing on the muscular form (had Herr Richter not fought dragons in Die Nibelungen?) and a thoughtful fade back to his childhood and the split from his mother who now believes him long dead.
In Berlin there are wonderful street scenes as the camera
follows traffic through the Brandenburg Gates and along Friedrichstraße to the
Wintergarden wherein are promised “Internationales Varieté”. The stage sequences
were filmed in the Wintergarden and its huge auditorium allows director Gennaro
Righelli to pull the camera too and from the performance area and across the
audience adding so much atmosphere to the proceedings especially when using a
multitude of local talent, dancers, high-wire artists, acrobats and chorus
girls. The venue was destroyed during the war but rose again in Potsdamer
Straße*.
I wish I knew who the Dodge Twins were?
Back in 1929, Paul is reunited with Madeleine (now grown
up as Claire Rommer) who is queuing with dozens of other hopefuls at an
audition for a chorus girl. She has fallen on hard times and yet not even Paul's
status is enough to persuade the hard-nosed Varietédirektor (Adolphe Engers) to
give her a chance. But the King of the Air is nothing if not determined and he
manages to wangle her a shot as “Mademoiselle Madeleine, the famous dancer from
the Folies Bergère” and, after instructing the orchestra to play the Eccentric
Charleston knowing she can and does ace it, whetting the whistle not only of
the salacious director but also of Baron von Mallock who has already made his
entrance and sexually harassed half the usherettes before even making it to his
seat.
The Baron has only gotten worse over the intervening years and is fleecing Paul’s mother as he spends his time gambling and cavorting with other women and he immediately sets his sights on Madeleine and her long legs. The sequence is so well handled with the camera pulling away over the audience as Madeleine dances across the stage giving a real impression of the space and also the atmosphere as the sub-plots line up with cuts to the Baron, the manager, Paul and Barry cheering on the jazz.
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| Gaston Jacquet and Erna Morena |
Then we get the build up to Paul’s turn as Clown Barry
sets up the deadly basis for his act, only a clown could show how sharp the
swords are and only a laughable figure could reinforce the morbid possibilities
of this shiny steel… the slightest slip and the acrobat is guaranteed a bloody
end. Richter appears to be doing some of the work himself including balancing
on his head on his trapeze but the trickier work must have been a stunt man? It’s
edited well though and you can almost feel the audience as uneasy as I was as a
child in Blackpool.
Paul is on top of his game but having found his love with
Madeleine he starts to worry about his ability to perform, he now has something
to live for and danger loses it’s thrill. Meanwhile the Baron won’t play fair
with anyone and once he realises who Frattani is, there can only be one or two
outcomes, especially when Paul’s mother also finds out. I can guarantee a
stressful denouement.
Talking of magnificent men performing the seemingly
impossible, I give you Günter Buchwald and Frank Bockius whose accompaniment
was recorded live at the Bonn screening and reproduced for this streaming. The
two are so familiar with each other they always play in sympathy with the
action on film and the circus atmosphere would not be the same without Herr
Bockius triplets and paradiddles whilst I still do not know how Herr Buchwald
manages to seemingly play both violin and piano at the same time. Epic work
gentlemen and next year, I promise, I will be in Bonn to see how this all works
in person!
This was the premier of a new digital restoration from
2024-25 which built on earlier filmic materials combining a vintage positive
print from the Swedish Film Institute with the DFF’s nitrate materials to
create a version missing only a few sections which are covered by new title
cards. It’s pretty complete, minus the third act, and whilst not exceptional is
a very entertaining snapshot of German theatrical culture as well as film
culture at this time.
This is as close as we’ll ever get to a night out at the
Wintergardens!
Man on a wire... the documentary element gives the film more grounding
* The Wintergardens were – probably – the first theatre
to screen films using the Bioscop projector in 1895 when its inventors the Skladanowsky
brothers put on a show. This was, of course, a year after the Blackpool Tower
Circus began its uninterrupted 130 years run. It all connects!
There is more about the venue and it’s destruction by
Allied bombs in the Second World War here: https://www.berlinluftterror.com/blog/wintergarten-kabarett
Last word to Lotte Eisner writing at the time and quoted on
the Bonn website…
Claire Rommer is allowed to show two sides of her talent, to be a charmingly quiet creature and suddenly transform into a spirited, eccentric dancer. This truly gives her the element of surprise that the film's narrative envisions. Her beautiful body wrapped in a glittering leotard, she dances a baker's dance, lithe and full of verve.
Lotte H. Eisner, Film-Kurier, No. 212, September 6, 1929
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