Murder outside the cathedral… Der Bettler vom Kölner Dom (1927), Edition Filmmuseum DVD

It wasn’t just St Pauls that somehow managed to resist the bombing of World War Two, Cologne Cathedral also remained standing despite of the damage wrought by fourteen direct hits from allied bombs and the largely destroyed city beneath its distinctive twin spires. It’s hard to watch this film without thinking of the devastation to come and the changes that would be painfully made across the city; it’s a travelogue of a world about to be destroyed in the most brutal of ways.

 

Rolf Randolf’s film makes much of the locations around the cathedral although most of the action takes place inside city hotels and bars no doubt recreated on sets. The ancient building is the crux of the plot though as befits a structure that took some 600 years to complete; begun in 1248, work was halted in 1560 and not restarted until the 1840s, finally completed to original Medieval plan in 1880 with all potential litigants for project management failures long since passed.

 

Based on Emanuel Alfieri’s play, this detective adventure has more of the feel of a French serial than a Weimar film with fantastical disguises, secret codes, cold-blooded killing and underground crime organisations all with a mix of comical and dramatic detection. More Fantômas than Dr. Mabuse, Der Bettler vom Kölner Dom (The Beggar from Cologne Cathedral) is a fun adventure with many an offbeat as well as the odd jarring moment throughout a slightly uneven story.

600 years behind schedule... but enduring.

It’s a battle of wits between a gang organised by an unnamed man played by Carl de Vogt who co-ordinates his operations standing on the cathedral steps disguised as the beggar, and the great detective, Tom Wilkens played by Henry Stuart. Wilkens is called in to help stop the gang and the game of cat and mouse begins. Disguising himself as the Beggar – following the death of another officer who had done the same – he is rewarded with a message from the gang, in code, which simply welcomes him! The game is afoot… and who is clever enough to survive?

 

Meanwhile, another member of the gang, styling himself as Marquis de Puissac (Robert Scholz), welcomes a young American woman, Mabel Strong (Elza Temary) who he has written to, persuading her that she is his niece: she is either wealthy or just young…  Then, another member of the gang, the vampish Madame Madeleine Tréville (Hanni Weisse) reads of an Indian prince coming to town from Bombay with certain materials of great worth in his suitcase… no one can accuse this gang of not working hard on many fronts. But they are being matched by Wilkens who is, of course, the moneyed Maharaja!

 

Henry Stuart

Wilkens, and his sub-continental disguise, duly arrives just as the city is celebrating the eve of Lent and the streets are already full of merry making as he makes his way to the hotel across form the cathedral. Here he is greeted by two odd private detectives, Napoleon Bonaparte Schmitz (Carl Geppert) and Carolus Caesar Müller (Hermann Blaß) who we are sure, will find those names difficult to live up to.

 

All comes together in the big party in the hotel that evening as the maharaja is very taken with Mabel just as Madeleine tries to impress; they dine with the Marquis making Mabel the only person she says she is, so far as we know at this stage… Napoleon and Caesar are knocked out with drugged drink proffered by gang member and part-time chauffeur Steffens (Fritz Kampers) and, of course, the Indian riches are stolen only for Wilkens/Maharaja to reveal that there’s a trigger device which will explode if anyone tries to open the box. Panicked Madeleine makes her excuse and heads off to warn the gang… giving herself away to the eagle-eyed sleuth.

 

Elza Temary and Robert Scholz

As the gang tries to work out how to open the box and keep their heads, Madeleine and the Marquis’ evil plan for Mabel is revealed as their forged life insurance papers are to be used to reap rich reward when she is to be killed en route to Paris leaving an ‘andsome inheritance for her “uncle” … and the rest of the gang.

 

But there’s still time for plenty of twists and turns, betrayals, ill-advised notes, hopes and new alliances as the story meanders wistfully towards its rather odd ending and one of the most unusual chase scenes you’ll see as well as vehicular gadgetry that would leave Q scratching his head.

 

As Wilkens says to the baddies in a taunting and, surprisingly not anachronistic note: Ohne fleiss kein preis… (No pain, no gain…) and in truth there’s a lot of the latter and only a smidgen of the former in the pacing of the tale.

Hanni Weisse

Willy Hameister’s cinematography captures the city very well especially when he sets up on one of the cars, whilst the performers give it their best shot with Stuart excelling as the man who knows far too much and de Vogt brooding with a sadistic menace.

 

The digitally restored version on the Edition Filmmuseum two DVD set looks smashing and comes with two alternative soundtracks: a new orchestral score by Pierre Oser, produced and performed by the WDR-Rundfunkorchester, and a live improvisation by the great Günter A. Buchwald (piano and violin, played sometimes at the same time) recorded at the International Bonn Silent Film Festival 2010. There is a 16-page trilingual booklet as well as plentiful shorts, commercials, and newsreel reports about Cologne from the silent era with Stephen Horne mostly providing accompaniment.

 

You can order direct from the Filmmuseum and, whilst Brexit has made delivery slightly more expensive, it’s still well worth supporting the service and the remarkable films they make available.

Fleet streets… The Last Edition (1925) with Stephen Horne, SFSFF Streaming

“(It) has the merit, uncommon in most newspaper pictures, of being accurate in every detail. It is the best picture he has made and may be called a box-office success.” New York Morning Telegraph

 

This is the latest film to be streamed on the San Francisco Silent Film Festival website and features a suitably frantic accompaniment from Stephen Horne originally recorded at the screening of the restored film in 2013. The Last Edition is a thrill ride, from the hot metal drama on the huge printing presses of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper to break-neck car chases, fire engines and criminal doings with powerful, well-acted simple human stories, it’s a very solid late-period Hollywood silent.

 

The film was considered lost until a discovery of a 35mm nitrate print in the EYE Museum in 2012 led to a reconstruction, with Dutch intertitles translated back to American English and tints fully restored under the management of Rob Byrne’s team at the San Francisco Festival. The full story is fascinating and told here on the film’s restoration site.

 

Off-set litho printing presses... the smell of ink!!

Director Emory Johnson, an actor turned director and writer, made films that focused on the working man and this is, as the above quote indicates, a very accurate portrayal of the publishing business, especially in the scenes showing the newspaper being typeset, plated and printed – yes, I am old enough to have worked with hot metal presses! The process is important as it not only shows the working reality of our hero Tom McDonald (the excellent Ralph Lewis) It also becomes one of the key “races” in a film full of urgency and tight spots. Johnson’s due diligence and determination to anchor his film in the authentic production process of the newspaper business, makes it both believable as well as historically interesting. We forget how many hands moved so swiftly and in unison to bring news to the world and most films focus on the journalism and not the setters and printers, machine minders and delivery men who brought the ink and paper over the final stages.

 

To this extent the film reminded me of The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), if not in fantastical subject matter then just in the process of newspapers, and how it plays a part in the narrative of both films. Juts as the Day used the Daily Express offices and plant, Johnson’s film was located at the actual Chronicle building in San Francisco, shortly before they moved to new premises.

 

Louis Payne and Ralph Lewis

Tom is an experienced pressman at the Chronicle and the times they are a changing, circulation is down and Publisher Jerome T Hamilton (Louis Payne), is looking for a fresh approach as he shouts at his useless yes men in the board room, feeling his margins dilute with every issue. Thus, it is that Tom’s departing boss’ recommendation is ignored as he is just another “old hand” with twenty years’ at the paper.

 

Tom’s disappointment is amplified as he finds “Bull” Collins (Tom O’Brien) moving into his old Forman’s office; a younger man but one who has been a “complete failure” as a printer and yet who clearly mangers upwards well and has now been appointed to his position of maximum inefficiency.

 

My boy, never forget the story I told you about the three generals… Truth, Love and Duty…

 

Frances Teague telephonist

Tom takes it on the chin, he is proud of his job and providing leadership and encouragement to his team, including young apprentice, “Ink” Donovan (Billy Bakewell). He also has a happy home with wife Mary (Lila Leslie), son Ray (Ray Hallor) who has just been offered work at the District Attorney’s office, and Polly (Frances Teague) a telephonist who is romancing one of the paper’s young reporters, Clarence Walker (Rex Lease) – all three will play a major part as the drama unfolds.

 

Meanwhile, back in the print palace, Jerome takes a walk past banks of typographers, and the huge rolls of paper on the lithographic printer. He’s looking for anything that can help him improve his paper’s performance and he overhears Tom counselling young Ink with his motto about Truth, Love and Duty… Jerome summons Tom to his office, offers him a cigar and begins what will become a regular series of chats, all of which end with his calling a ditzy stenographer (Ada Mae Vaughn, giving it extra!) into the office and we see her taking his thoughts down using shorthand; the start of the journalistic process even now.

Ray Hallor and Rex Lease

Walker, it looks like Blotz is now part of high society, give it your best shot boy and put a stop to his operation…

 

Talking of which, action picks up elsewhere as courthouse reporter Harry Owens (C Hollister Walker) get’s the word on infamous bootlegger Blotz and phones in for the file of the man who has so far evaded press and police alike. Here we see the backroom researchers as every mention of the gangster is pulled from the Chronicle’s extensive files. Clarence goes off to investigate and tracks down Blotz (Will Frank) and his right-hand man, Red Moran (David Kirby), climbing up outside their building to overhear them sending a payment in to a contact in the DA’s office…

 

The bad penny is Gerald Fuller (Cuyler Supplee) but, after Clarence follows Red in, Fuller fingers none other than young Ray to take the rap. Ray is arrested and in the face of rather flimsy circumstantial evidence, assumed as guilty even if Clarence suspects not. He must phone in his story, which sets up a breath-taking finale, as the Chronicle tries to publish, Red tries to destroy all of the paper’s evidence by setting fire to the building, and Tom is faced with having to print a story that he cannot believe as he sees the headline on the final edition announcing his son’s arrest: Young attorney in $50,000 bribe!

 

Come on boys! All hands on deck, we still have eighteen minutes until press time.

All action!

Spoilers: Journalism works hand in hand with the police as Clarence joins the dots and persuades the cops to listen for calls to Fuller’s office and Polly plays her part in not only connecting the calls but keeping the perps talking…

 

It’s a rousing finale with some great location shots captured by cinematographer Gilbert Warrenton and greatly enhanced by some power playing from Mr Horne who paces his musical sentiment as perfectly as you’d expect. Johnson’s direction is very disciplined and allows Stephen to weave dynamically between the cross-cutting action and emotion, especially as buildings burn, bootleggers are pursued and Tom’s family face their greatest challenge!

 

The Final Edition is still available to view on the SFSFF site, you just need to register as a member and enjoy!

The diva endures… Marlene Dietrich at Universal 1940-1942, BFI 4-Disc Blu-ray Box Set

In her essay in the lavish booklet that accompanies this special BFI set, filmmaker Sara Wood talks of Dietrich’s sense of time and timing – the time it takes an image to settle, the timing needed for the shift between melancholic and comedic in the slightest gesture. And of her sense of the times she lived in, and the pure timing it took to sustain a career that revealed and outwitted the fickle shifts of history.

 

This was Marlene’s third coming after her Weimar success on stage and screen then after the six films she made with Josef von Sternberg for Paramount, there came a relative fallow period in the late thirties only relieved by the lift she gained as saloon singer, Frenchy in Destry Rides Again (1939). This was a freer, physically immaculate, assertive and yet still vulnerable persona with a redoubtable moral core in search of truth in her men. It was also a performer operating on so many levels and one who, as another essayist, film historian Pamela Hutchinson, says could now send up her imperiously lascivious persona.

 

Here we find Marlene down a mine, out west, on stage and on the make… the constant being this most complex of film stars who mixed beauty with so much intelligence and what Wood describes as a “… facility to absent and simultaneously open herself…” leaving the watcher thoroughly engaged and always looking, looking for more.

 

Broderick Crawford and Marlene are judged

Seven Sinners (1940)

 

We don’t need her around, the navy already has plenty of destroyers.

 

Following Dietrich’s Destry the revived star could veto her leading man and, according to co-star Anna Lee, signed off on John Wayne – possibly - telling producer Joe Pasternak, "Mommy wants that for Christmas…” She got her present, and in more ways than one, as the two sinned almost certainly more than seven times during the making of this film, although they’d both moved on by the third of their collaborations in this set.

 

Loosely based on Madame Butterfly, Tay Garnett’s film concerns the adventures of one Bijou Blanche, a cabaret singer of no fixed affections who drives the clients of South Sea island bars to distraction resulting in her constantly being moved from one to another by the authorities that take against such wanton excitement. She has a small retinue of naval deserter-cum bodyguard 'Little Ned' Finnegan (Broderick Crawford) and magician/pickpocket Sasha Mencken (Mischa Auer) who good humouredly accompany her out of loyalty and joie de vivre.

 

Marlene and her "present"

There’s a lot of fighting in these films and whilst so much is begun in the presence of and because of the incendiary sexual provocation of Marlene, there’s also proto-typical Wayne slugfests in which no one really gets hurt and the guys just have a good old time letting off steam.

 

There’s plenty of steam when naval officer, Lt. Dan Brent (Wayne) spies Bijou in the club and he gets straight to the point despite local hoodlum, Antro (Oskar Homolka) thinking he has first dibs on a woman of not so easy virtue. Bijou, like other characters here, may be a girl on the make but she has her own standards of morality and, not only demonstrably makes choices that William Hays would not approve of, but which are driven by genuine respect and affection.

 

Whilst Dan can see her decency the navy takes a different view and tough choices will have to be made and, as Bijou tells him: There’s more to being a gentleman than wearing tight pants…

 

 

Roland Young and Marlene

Flame of New Orleans (1941)

 

She will teach you the most exciting needlepoint you can imagine!

 

Directed by René Clair – his first Hollywood movie – Flame is the funniest and most playful of the set with the Frenchman adding a good deal of knowing “touches” following the discovery of a wedding dress in the vastness of the Mississippi River. Again, Marlene is a woman on the make as Countess Claire Ledoux, and the whole opera house from singers to orchestra and her maidservant Claire (Theresa Harris) in the cheap seats all look on when the Countess feints a faint in order to attract the attention of rich suitors.

 

She encounters Robert Latour (Bruce Cabot taking to comedy like Donald Duck to water) walking his monkey, Jack (not a euphemism) when expecting to meet her favoured sugar daddy Charles Giraud (an excellent Roland Young, like Marlene a former silent player) on a quiet country lane… the convoluted pre-courtship rituals of the nouveau riche thwarted by a plain-speaking river man who, hidden from Lili’s view, upends her carriage after his monkey’s lead is caught up in the wheels and she assumes he’s making the story up.

 

Bruce Cabot and Marlene share a moment

Courtship is back on track as Charles arrives under the pretext of aiding her following her altercation. Things get back on course as Lili spots the monkey and her man at a park next to the posh hotel where she and Charles are having supper. Narrowly averting a one-sided Jamaican duel between Robert and Charles, Lili tries to play both men.

 

Rich man versus handsome sailor, who’s going to win her heart? And will Lili’s St Petersburg past catch up with her? Cue Claire’s long-lost “cousin”, Lili, the black sheep of the family, who is a far more typical Marlene than her phony “relation”. Things also get very racy when Charles pays Robert to kidnap Lili to keep her away from her “cousin’s” wedding… and yes, Marlene, plays both women.

 

The film didn’t fare well at the box office, partly because of a critical reaction against the director as well as reviews that accused Dietrich of being too mannered, which I can see but, like any pro she was leaving room for her second character. She didn’t especially take to Clair and he confessed to mixed feelings: I don't know now if it's as good or as bad as it's supposed to be. I think technically it's very good, but the spirit, you know, was half European and half American, so I don't know.

 

Maybe the audience only wanted the “European” Marlene they thought they saw?

Randolph Scott and Marlene, spoiling for a fight.

The Spoilers (1942)

 

That’s how it is and that’s what we are; a cheap lot of spoilers…

 

Dietrich was much more herself in her second film with John Wayne. Directed by Ray Enright, the film finds Randolph Scott and Wayne fighting over Cherry Malotte, Marlene’s worldly-wise saloon owner with heart of gold, appropriately enough in the town of Nome during the Alaskan gold rush of 1900.

 

There are a couple of notable ex-silent film stars in Harry Carey, Wayne’s great friend, who plays his partner in a gold mine, Al Dextry, and then Richard Barthelmess as Bronco Kid Farrow, one of Cherry’s men. Carey’s especially good as the ornery prospector who won’t give in to progress or claim jumping; he feels so authentic covered in the dust of sleepless working weeks and honest ambition. But Barthelmess is also a treat as the steadfast gambler who’s got more than Cherry’s back in mind.

 

Against the small claim holders is the force of the law in the form of the new gold commissioner, Alexander McNamara (Scott) as well as Judge Stillman (Samuel S. Hinds), who may or may not be using the law to steal the locals’ claims. Just to spice things up, McNamara’s fancies Cherry and aims to steal her away from Roy Glennister (Wayne), whilst the latter is taken with the Judge’s niece Helen Chester (Margaret Lindsay).

 

John Wayne and Harry Carey

Sure enough, the law’s not just an ass it’s as bent as a six dollar note. Roy and Dextry’s mine is taken from them for ninety days by the Judge, allowing the bad guys to steal hundreds of thousands worth of gold in the meantime. So far Roy’s played it by the book but desperate times call for direct action and he robs the bank with Al and the boys in blackface, “Alabama tan” as he later says to Cherry’s maid Idabelle (Marietta Canty) … In the raid, the sheriff gets shot and the finger of blame points to Roy; time to find out which side everyone’s on.

There's a huge climactic fight between Wayne and Scott which according to film historian Ellen Cheshire in her booklet essay, took five days to shoot and was filmed using 15 cameras. A remarkable sequence that put me in mind of Hobert Bosworth in Behind the Door.

Male pride aside, Dietrich is the strongest, believably vulnerable in her love for the big fella but also implacable in the face of the need for frontier justice and the fight for her man.

 

Pittsburgh (1942) 

 

There’s no law against a miner thinking. And I’m the thinking-est miner you’ve ever met…

 

And so, we come to the subject of coal, and to partnership and the collective efforts required to win at commerce and war. This film was made not long after the US entered the Second World War and is undeniably propagandist but also rousingly well made. Directed by Lewis Seiler from a witty script by Kenneth Gamet and original author Tom Reed, the film starts with a patriotic speech from factory owner John "Cash" Evans (Randolph Scott again, this time more recognisably noble), as he undertakes to produce the war planes need for the armoury of democracy.

 

He thanks his partner, Charles "Pittsburgh" Markham (John Wayne) as well as his lead scientist J.M. "Doc" Powers (Frank Craven) as well as the union chief, Joe Malneck (Thomas Gomez), in another sign of the times. Then Doc, Pitt and Cash retire to the offices to toast their project and a portrait of the fourth member of their group, Josie "Hunky" Winters (Marlene Dietrich) and Doc launches into a flashback monologue just as we’re wondering what happened to her…

 

Marlene and Duke

We see Pitt and Cash’s journey from mineworkers to multi-millionaires and their competitive camaraderie. As Pamela Hutchinson points out in her super, high-content commentary, they’re emblems of American values with Cash the money man and strategist and Pitt the labourer with individualistic force of will, not to mention a nickname signifying the honest toil for coal. Throughout their story Cash remains constant but Pitt loses his way, drunk on success and, without his buddy’s consideration, apt to put profit over conscience, love and loyalty. It’s a meaty role for Wayne and good to see him playing a character with lots of shade and who needs the help of others.

 

Dietrich’s character is both the catalyst for the boys’ success and the cause of their eventual estrangement. They meet her in the film’s slapstick highlight after Pitt “buys” a suit from a tailor called Shorty played by one Shemp Howard, later to be a third of the Stooges, and needs to pay for it by surviving a three-minute bout with a heavyweight boxer in the theatre across the road. He tricks Cash into doing the hard work and all hell breaks out when he succeeds and the boxer’s manager tries to cheat him out of the winnings.

Triumph is immediately followed by near disaster as a tunnel collapses at the boys’ mine and they steal Josie’s car to race to the rescue without realising that she’s in it. She follows them down to help rescue Doc, revealing she’s as much coal tar in her veins as the daughter of a miner hence the nickname, Hunky – as in chunk of coal. So, the competition for her affection begins and as the boys race for success, America must learn to respect the enduring truth of its success… probably the most jarring note in the film.

 

A couple of snippets from the commentary, there’s a silent film screening when the boys go into the theatre and, of course, Pamela identifies it; Hoot Gibson and Anne Cornwall in the Flaming Frontier (1926), which I now must watch! She also points out that Marlene is representative of Europe here and indeed the fight to defeat fascism in her own country was a cause the actress was determined to address, in life as in her films she took a stand. A quite remarkable person.

 

There’s so much to say about Dietrich the actress and everyone knows about the beauty she so carefully nurtured in front of the camera – even when getting stuck in with the mine rescue the coal manages to miraculously fall on the contour lines of those impossible cheek bones. But there’s a courage and vulnerability underneath this perfect face and a supernatural sense of humour alongside the sexual provocation… surely as perfect a star as ever projected on screen.

 

Marlene Dietrich at Universal 1940-1942 showcases so much of this star power from Marlene, and the boys, and it’s a superb snapshot of a period when the nature of filmmaking changed and its stars came out fighting. There’s a lot of Marlene spirit inhabiting these four films and they’re all eminently rewatchable especially with the excellent commentaries and essays to inform your enjoyment.

 

You can order directly from the BFI online and one day soon, their shop. We were deprived of a full Dietrich season by the second lockdown and here’s hoping we get to see these films on the bigger screen soon. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to acquire this, especially as it’s a limited edition of only 4,000 – there are far more Marlene fans than that around, so get busy!