"The city had
a jewel-like sparkle… the vast cafés reminded me of ocean liners powered by the
rhythms of their orchestras. There was music everywhere." Josephine
Baker, after visiting Berlin in 1925
Think of Weimer cinema and you’re probably thinking heavy
drama; tough lives lived in shadows and expressive hyper-realism and yet, there’s
also a huge amount of fun, with, “bee-dle-dee
dee dee dee…” a fair amount of transgressive naughtiness as Germany got
well ahead of itself and everyone else for a while.
Heaven on Earth
is a very, aha, earthy farce that
confronts the question many of us don’t ponder enough: what to do if you inherit
a saucy night club? Now, imagine if you’re a politician who has, albeit
accidentally, set his stall against the vice-ridden den in question, earning a
standing ovation for taking a stand against the commodification of human desire
and weakness.
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| Nighclubbing... |
It’s a very neat set up and the multi-talented Reinhold
Schünzel is just the man to make the absolute most of it! Schünzel, who enjoyed
a long career from 1915 to the fifties, co-directs with Alfred Schirokauer,
co-produces, co-writes and plays the lead, Traugott Bellmann, the politician in
question who has seediness foisted upon him after a cousin dies and leaves him
the club plus five thousand Marks.
Traugott starts off the film getting married to the
lovely Juliette (Charlotte Ander) the daughter of wine merchant Louis Martiny (Otto
Wallburg) who couldn’t behappier with his new son-in-law until he forgets his
notes for his maiden speech and ends up improvising a prohibitionist policy
that focuses on the Heaven on Earth club to which Martiny sells so much wine!
It’s a quandry soon overtaken by Traugott’s mixed-blessing
and now he has to try and balance his two worlds without the other finding out.
Almost immediately he starts receiving odd guests at his house, all keen to
welcome the new cabaret owner and get booked…
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| A promotional booklet for the film... |
First up is an all-black jazz band called The Smile Band,
who wear cute little hats and look like they played up a riot! Jazz was very
fashionable in Berlin at the time and cooler audiences naturally preferred
authentic black performers embracing them as part of a progressive arts movement
away from Germany’s miserable recent past.
Then we see a group of dancing girls who look staid when they
arrive at Traugott’s door before revealing scanty costumes and the raciest of routines,
much to their host’s delight and then despair as his wife investigates the
commotion. Schünzel had a background in club culture and his turn as well as
these artists’ are genuine: you want to learn more.
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| Charlotte Ander looks on as Reinhold Schünzel checks Maria Kamradek's teeth... |
Traugott begins to enjoy his nightlife and soon begins a
flirtation with a handsome young woman (Maria Kamradek) who later rocks up at his
house having answered an advert to be a housemaid…
Losing the battle to separate his loves and lives he
tries to off-load the club but not before his father-in-law finds out and comes
looking for him. He escapes by cross-dressing… unconvincing to all except for
one with his broad shoulders, manly hands and increasing exasperation.
Schünzel is hilarious: naturalistic and with great timing,
he’s a relaxed and very “modern” performer… at one point, bored with the pretence
of cross-dressing, he puffs out his cigarette with all the grace of a Hamburg docker.
He’s also quite stocky for a girl and his broad shoulders and jaunty smile would
be unlikely to convince most, but, as Herr Lubitsch proved a number of years
earlier with Ossi Oswalda, some men are easily confused but not always
disappointed. As Joe E. Brown’s character says to Jack Lemmon’s in Some Like It Hot, when he finds out he’s
not the girl he thought she was: “nobody’s perfect…”
We’d got our cabaret, mein herr, and Mr Stephen Horne was
right there with us with a cheeky jazzed-up accompaniment on piano and accordion…
all those years in East Berlin dive bars (possibly) informing his typically
sympathetic playing. Also,
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