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.