Imagine it: a prince under the skirt of a shameless woman!
It makes a mockery of the strict morals of our royal house!
The rediscovery of Ellen Richter has been one of the big
themes of this year’s Giornate live in Pordenone and I’ve been waiting all week
to meet her digitally… I was not disappointed. As the festival’s artistic director,
Jay Weissberg, said in his online introduction, Richter has been overlooked as
she didn’t make any films with the major directors of Weimar film, with her
husband Willi Wolff directing her from 1918 onwards, and this has left this once
major star somewhat in the shadows. Well, she’s not there anymore and this film
shows off her radiance to full effect.
She’s one of those performers who naturally draws the eye
and apart from having charisma to burn she has a richly centred persona with a
smile that radiates glee as powerfully as sardonic rage. You don’t mess with
Ellen but, if you do, she’ll have you back and relish her casually cool revenge
with glee not to destroy but to educate; here it’s not just piano she teaches,
it’s self-respect. Then we have the fashions… Ellen wears clothes in ways you
cannot, gold lame pantaloons that only a true diva could carry off especially
one with such a refined south German sense of humour. The fashions are
spectacular but so is she and knowing that enables even the truly improbable
garb to hang naturally and unselfconsciously.
Beyonce was on the Southbank at the London Film Festival this
week, she and Ellen would have got on like a palace on fire… the flames holding
back, unable to compete with the heat.
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| Making an entrance! |
We will not tolerate this Berlin filth here in Emilsburg!
Anyway… here Ellen plays stage performer Therese
Hochstetter known as Ninon d’Hauteville who causes a stir when her troop come
to play in the provincial town of Emilsburg. We find her on a train, standing
room only apart from the first-class section where she catches the eye of the
town’s MP Beermann (Jakob Tiedtke), who lets her sit with him, calls himself “Meier”
(“Smith”) before trying to further their intimacy before she turns the tables
on him by sending another passenger into the darkened compartment.
Therese walks past the deflated hypocrite at the station
little knowing that his daughter Effie (Hilde Jennings) is the one who designed
the poster for her show, an image her father decries at that evening’s meeting of
the male, pale and stale Moral Society. The men of the MS meet in the Blue Lion
hotel to debate all the things that are debasing local society and there’s no
end of irritations including a guide to marriage which is essentially a cookbook.
If Beermann epitomises their hypocrisy Professor Otto Wasner (Ralph Arthur
Roberts) exemplifies the priggish element, if he’s not having fun nobody else
should.
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| Men. Yesterday. |
The group believe they act in the name of the monarchy’s
strict moral code but we switch to Prince Emile XXVII (Julius Falkenstein)
looking at the advert and reminiscing about his youth in Berlin studying the
trombone and watching the dancing girls at the Metropoltheatre; what a dandy
fellow I was in my youth, and my son is such a milksop! He decides to find
a music teacher for his son (Harry Halm) amongst the ladies of the ballet…
Meanwhile, back at the Blue Lion, the MS decide to
disrupt the disgraceful show during the prince segment and the clash of
cultures is set.
The film gives great cabaret with precious original footage
of the Haller Review Where and When featuring Marcella Rahna, June and
John Roper, Thelma de Lorez and the Lawrence Tiller Girls. There’s a riot on
stage with hundreds of legs choreographed to perfection performing routines
that would make Mr Berkley drool with envy, the visceral thrills of live
entertainment produced by a cast with muscle memories drilled by thousands of
hours practice all delivering in seconds of smiling precision.
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| Tiller Girls |
Follow that Ellen/Therese and she’s about to in the sketch, The
Prince and the Courtesan, atop a large stage prop bustle through which another
dancer appears cross-dressed as a prince, before the Moral Society’s protest kicks
off, the old men blowing their own trumpets, penny whistles and making a racket
to drown out the act and force the curtains closed. It’s a comedy but this
feels uneasy… then as now there were plenty of people wanting to censor expression.
Therese is confronted by Beermann and Professor Wasner
after the show is forced to stop and spots her would be abuser from the train.
Then she gets an offer she can’t refuse from the Prince as Von Schmettau, the
royal chamberlain (Ferdinand von Alten) asks her to teach the young prince
piano… the Moral Society will not get rid of her that easily.
The prince is bowled over by his new teacher as she
slinks towards the piano in a backless dress and their hands keep clashing on
the keyboard even as his leg brushes against hers on the pedals. He’s learning
about a lot more than crotchets and semi-breves and is more than semi-quavered
in her presence as the original Piano-Cam reveals (you don’t get this at the
Kennington Bioscope!).
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| Harry Halm and Ellen Richter |
The young man is not alone in seeking instruction from
Therese and soon all of the Moral Society are signed up for lessons, all using
assumed names. She decides to secretly film her new students and their
non-musical advances and isn’t disappointed as the dirty old fellas try it on
every time. She even manages to capture the priggish Prof off guard and
trousers down… There’s a lovely cameo from the actress playing her maid who
looks with increasing alarm at every Muller, Meier and Mayer.
It’s a film in which those looks are core to the meaning
with Richter’s own expressiveness a delight throughout, her husband knowing exactly
how to catch her humour and flashing glances to side and ceiling, exasperated
by the male ego and the moral guardian’s ability to divorce libido from appearance.
Only if we all learn to play music as she does will we be free to dance… seems
to be the message and the arrival of the police starts the narrative on course
for a hilarious clearing of the air all round in the final segment.
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| Ellen Richter |
Richter had a rich theatrical background and had played in Ludwig
Thoma’s original play as far back as 1909 as an ensemble player at the
Stadttheater (Municipal Theatre) in Brno. Wolff and prolific writer Bobby E.
Lüthge’s screenplay retains only the basic plot and characters, watering down
the more explicit elements and leaving a lot to those suggestive looks from
Ellen. It’s the most enjoyable of moral tales and despite her character’s elaborate
revenge you get the feeling the actress could be endlessly forgiving if people
were more honest, considerate and just didn’t scrimp of the floral tributes!
Donald Sosin accompanied on fine form with some support from
the broader family for the protest scene. His was an upbeat and wholly
sympathetic score that recognised Richter’s zestful appeal. An old star is
reborn and whilst two thirds of her films are lost, I want to see more – there just
aren’t enough gold lame trouser pantaloons in films these days.
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| John about to catch June Roper |
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| Fab title cards too! |
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