A light in the museum… Waxworks (1924), with Stephen Horne, Barbican

This was the last screening in the Barbican’s season of Weimar expressionist films (as opposed to films that are just very expressive…) with Stephen Horne, introducing as well as playing, quoting Lotte Eisner’s later-life conviction  that there were only two fully-fledged expressionist films - Von morgens bis mitternachts, and Caligari – along with the third segment of this film which, as Stephen promised, was well worth the wait!

As the Sun cracked the flags in the Barbican’s concrete courtyards, a substantial audience clearly preferred silence to shining as we gathered at the Centre’s lowest point: The Pit cinema.

Olga charmed by Emil

Waxworks was directed by Paul Leni who subsequently made The Cat and Canary, The Man Who Laughs and others in Hollywood. It is one of the first portmanteau horror/fantasy films with three stories all contained in a framing sequence set in a house of wax.

Leni recruited three of the Weimar’s leading men: Jannings, Veidt and Krauss who were respectively, corpulent, terrible and cutting!

Luna Park

A fairground – Luna Park – a whirl of double-exposed rides and lights, a young poet (William Dieterle) paper in hand, looking to respond for an advert for “an imaginative writer for publicity work in a waxworks exhibition”. He arrives at The Panopticum, a booth run by an elderly showman (John Gottowt) and his young daughter Olga Belajeff.

Haroun

“Can you write startling tales about these wax figures?” asks the Showman before introducing his milky-faced cast of characters: Spring Heeled Jack (Werner Krauss), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt) and Haroun-al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad (Emil Jannings). Seeing the Caliph’s detached arm, the poet decides to write a story of how he came to lose his limb… the camera flicks out of focus and we’re in a wonderful, cartoonish Arabia looking on a paper-mache palace and plastic palm trees.

Assad canoodles with Zarah

The poet casts himself as Assad the Baker with the showman’s daughter as his wife – Zarah – one of the most beautiful women in the city not already married to the Caliph (he has a wife for every day…). The baker bakes and makes eyes at Zarah whilst the Caliph is pampered on the roof of his palace losing, badly, at chess. Distracted by the smoke from the baker’s oven the Caliph, perfectly reasonably, sends his Grand Vizier and his men to kill the baker but when they arrive they are distracted by Zarah’s beauty…

The Caliph's Palace is almost like a living thing...

The Caliph decides to investigate this woman for himself whilst Assad, forced to prove his manhood after Zarah realises that if she can catch the Grand Vizier’s eye she could do better, heads off to the palace to steal the Caliph’s magical Wishing Ring…

Cue a masterclass in kingly carousing from the protean Jannings, fleshy-grotesque in heavy padding, over-weighted turban and wicked moustache… he smiles, he gurns he licks his lips but he has charm enough to stop Zarah – and the audience – from running. Can Assad complete his task and keep his head and his wife? Have you read the Arabian Nights?

Ivan

Next up the Poet turns his gaze towards Ivan the Terrible and a far more sinister tale ensues as Conrad Viedt’s Czar exhibits a sinuous delight in watching the grains of sand count down his tortured victims’ last seconds of life as they pass from chamber to chamber in his hourglass. It’s a horrible concept that perfectly encapsulates his silicon psychopathy.

Time waits for no man

But Ivan trusts no one, not even his poisoner-in-chief, who he has hunted down and killed but not before the man can write his master’s name on the terrible timer. Ivan is unaware as he continues his abuse of his subjects – terrible and not at all awesome in this context. When he does find out his solution reflects the tortured hyper-paranoia you hope haunts every psychotic despot – those to come and those passed.

Jack

The long day closes with that Eisner-authenticated expressionist sequence in which Spring-Heeled Jack comes to life and pursues the young couple in shadows and light as Leni let’s rip with every trick from the expressionist cookbook! Conrad Veidt’s sunken-cheeked ferocity aside, it is the film’s most genuinely haunting moment and right till the close you eye the Jack waxwork a little nervously.

Waxworks is a sight for sore eyes (hayfever and long drives…). Leni’s sets are superb throughout and Helmar Lerski’s cinematography brings them to life from the oppressive low-beamed ceilings of the Kremlin to the nightmarish exposures for jumping Jack flash.

Jack's menacing montage

Stephen played with his customary lyricism and control – playing the electronic keyboard always anchored with the Barbican’s splendid Steinway. Flute and accordion were also played all in sympathy with the film and as part of a remarkably well-structured improvisation. Waxwork’s range of moods presents a challenge to any musician, especially the curious mix of comedy, drama and horror (not to mention Emil!) but, once again, Mr Horne made it look like he’d spent weeks planning this all out with the ghost of Paul Leni or, possibly his animated wax figure…

Waxworks is available in its fully-restored length complete with tints, from Kino and you can order direct as well as from the long river that winds past localised tax-returns…

The spice of life… Variety (1925), Stephen Horne, BFI, London Film Festival

“The strongest and most inspiring drama that has ever been told by the evanescent shadows…”

After the red-carpeted glamour of the LFF Archive Gala back to the concrete picture palace that we still call the National Film Theatre and a matinee performance of one of the defining moments of Weimar cinema. I’ve held off watching Variety in the hope of seeing it on screen and with live accompaniment from someone as uniquely adept as Mr Horne: there were apparently some new “talkies” on show in the Festival but this was one of the must-see events of the week.

My patience was doubly rewarded by the fact that this is a film re-born following extensive restoration by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation, in co-operation with the Filmarchiv Austria, using nitrate prints and duplicate negatives to create something as crisp and fresh as one of Herr Jannings’ leotards on the first day of filming!

In her introduction Bryony Dixon suggested that you could view Variety as the German leg of a loose trilogy of Ewald Andre Dupont films dealing with the seedier end of show business, the other two being the delicious Piccadilly (1929) and Moulin Rouge (1928). He had a fine eye for the sub-cultural and was helped by the technical imagination of his cinematographer Karl W. Freund who, of course worked on so many great films of the period including The Last Laugh and Metropolis.

Fireworks above and below

Here Freund along with Carl Hoffmann, produced some impossible shots amongst the acrobats on the flying trapeze. It’s hard to imagine the technicolour circus dramas-to-come bettering these moments as you really feel the pressure, the sheer physical improbability of these daredevils connecting with each other, their apparatus or achieving a triple somersault whilst blind-folded and in a sack…  There’s no safety net… and, squirming in my seat, I had a vivid flash back to childhood anxiety watching similar acts at the Blackpool Tower Circus (and there was me thinking I was over that!?).

The family caravan

As Mordaunt Hall fizzed in his New York Times review:  “…there is a marvellous wealth of detail: the lighting effects and camera work cause one to reflect that occasionally the screen may be connected with art.”

Well I would venture that it is more than occasionally as the core of Variety’s appeal is in the performances of the three leads.  Emil Jannings’ presence is first felt at the beginning as you watch the back of a long-imprisoned man walking with a defeated gait, strong shoulders at a stoop, head bowed, to yet another parole meeting in prison. We don’t see Jannings' character’s face but we know how hard his life is… his wife and son are willing to have him back but he has to open up about his crime.

Emile's expressive back...

Finally he does and the film cuts back to the full-faced, confident circus huckster that Jannings’ character, Boss Huller, was before… He seems content living with his baby and wife (Maly Delschaft), running a side-show beauty pageant that attracts the drunks and the old men, but once he soared until a fall left him hospitalised and he longs to return to the heights.

Lya De Putti

To his door is brought a young woman who has been rescued from a ship wreck and destitution. She catches the eye of both husband and wife and the former over-rules the latter when he spots a talent he can use: a genuine attraction in all ways…

The woman (Lya De Putti) is named Bertha after the ship of bad luck from which she was rescued: as new names go it’s not the most re-assuring. She drives their barely-controllable audience wild and Boss decides enough is enough.

Meanwhile Bertha attracts Boss closer to her and as his wife foretold from first sight, he cannot resist this appeal. Too poor to buy a motorcycle and not in possession of a PA to run off with, Boss decides to go back to the trapeze and leaves wife and child to run away with Bertha.

They build up their act in fairgrounds and soon get noticed in Berlin by a British acrobat Artinelli (Warwick Ward) short of a partner following his brother’s fall from on high. Soon they are three and are wowing the audiences in Berlin’s massive Wintergarten theatre.

But success brings its own costs and soon Bertha is spending more time with the younger man leaving Boss at home to darn her tights and to wait for her return. 

No profession is based as much on trust as theirs and yet whilst they depend so much on each other to stay alive they fail to protect each other’s interests on the ground… This is a triangle of trust that can only lead to tragedy if it breaks down.

Clearly it might but possibly not in the way you might expect as even their manager cannot bear to watch the triple twist anymore…

It is a superbly well-balanced film that is a well-practiced as the performers it portrays: Dupont manages to balance the dramatics with deeply personal performances which are especially rich from De Putti as well as Jannings: she matches him for intensity and tells her story in reverse revealing more of her strength as the story progresses while his ebbs away to leave only murderous desperation…

None of the three protagonists are anything other than true to themselves: Artinelli is artful, Bertha wild and Boss a force of his will… the greatest pity is that they met each other.

Stephen Horne took all of this in his surefooted stride and maintained a balance of his own between the low swings of fury and the lovers’ leaps. There is an amazing level of “content” in his improvisations especially when compared to a pre-prepared score: but then he does play up to four instruments almost all at the same time…

I’ll leave the last word to Mr Hall - “Scene after scene unlocks a flood of thoughts, and although the nature of the principal characters is far from pleasing; the glimpses one obtains are so true to life that they are not repellent.” I don’t think I’ve ever read “Mordy” so enthused but he had every right to be.

The restored Variety is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Amazon.de with English subs and a modern soundtrack that is by all accounts of un-paralleled clunker – maybe Stephen could make his improvised score available for download?

Stumm kraftwerk… Algol: Tragedy of Power (1920), The Barbican with Stephen Horne

Piano, flute, accordion, synthesiser, bell, book, bowl... Theremin! The question has to be asked: just how many hands does Stephen Horne actually have? He played all – save the book (a weighty biography of David Lean) – during a suitably kitchen-sink improvisation to accompany this remarkable, sprawling, science-fiction epic. What’s more, he appeared to be playing at least three at a time during certain passages…

In his introduction, Stephen revealed that he’d recorded a score for an Edition Filmmuseum DVD which is still in the works. Tonight’s music – a “gilding of the improv lily” as he put it – was based on the original but expanded to fit this stellar reconstruction. His performance was a blur of sensitive tonality as he switched between themes as easily as instruments: modern silent cinema's most elegantly-innovative one-man band!

Magical machine

Algol: Tragedy of Power (Algol. Tragödie der Macht) proved to be far grander in scope than I’d expected, featuring a huge range of locations, a cast of hundreds and stunning sets from Walter Reimann, production designer of Caligari – the expressionist spring to Algol’s autumn in 1920.

As my learned mother-in-law explained, the film touches on so many classical themes in its tale of power corrupting absolutely… indeed, whilst it is nominally science fiction it could easily be a gothic fantasy with wizards and double-dealing devils. As Arthur C Clarke once noted, any sufficiently advanced scientific culture would be indistinguishable – to us - from magic and here the “science” isn’t ever explained it is just is, working to offer fantastical change and opportunity.

Watching any German film of this time you’re also always aware of the context… a man over-reaches by, literally, becoming power to the World; his good intentions succumbing to a disingenuous offer of help from another planet. Any contract with a devil must always come at a price… and there was more to come.

The wheels of industry turn

Directed by Hans Werckmeister, Algol was a lost film for many years and was only recently recovered, leading to the Edition Filmmuseum restoration. What is now on evidence still feels like it may be missing the odd fragment as the story sometimes makes an unexplained leap or two. There is also no English translation on the print and so tonight’s projectionist had to project one onto the title cards: live music, live visual mix… silent cinema really comes to life at the Barbican!

The story is in four parts with a prologue establishing the existence of a shadowy planet, Algol, which watches down on Earth with unknowable intent embodied in the figure of Algol (John Gottowt) a being who rules and perhaps is that world. Trivia... in reality the Algol System is in the Perseus Constellation and is known as the Winking Demon Star because of its unusual light variations.

John Gottowt

On Earth men hack at coal in the saturnine darkness of mines – hell is underground as well as out in space and, indeed, one of the characters is even called Peter Hell (although Hell is German for bright, intelligent or fair). Robert Herne (Emil Jannings) is one of the strongest of the miners toiling away with the aid of his love Maria Obal (Hanna Ralph) a woman who’s thoughts run as deep as the mines and who holds a candle not just for Robert to work by but, in her heart, for Peter Hell (A Cottage on Dartmoor’s Hans Adalbert Schlettow).

They are visited by the daughter of the mine owner, Leonore Nissen (Gertrude Welcker) who, having come of age, is to inherit the business. She views the workers with a mixture of compassion and tredidation with a little more than passing concern for Robert as she is almost squeezed against the rock face by his masculine bulk.

Hanna Ralph

It’s always a pleasure to watch Herr Jannings at work and, as ever, he is a master of physical expression, looming large over his pickaxe, a surly mountainous man… unimpressed by this new owner and her efforts to reach out.

It is now that Algol intervenes, travelling from his world to emerge in the mines in the guise of a worker. Robert takes him under his wing and offers him board at Maria’s house. Algol takes a shine to her to the extent that he wishes he could be human at one point but Maria’s heart is torn between Robert and Peter who soon announces that he is leaving to travel.

Algol enraged

At some point Algol decides to challenge this new world and as his thoughts turn dark he vows to become a devil: to torture these humans who he wanted to emulate.

He spots Robert’s heightened sense of social responsibility and ego, then offers him a year-long deal during which he will have access to power from Algol with which to make his mark. The bargain echoes those made in The Student from Prague, in which Gottowt played another demonic figure with a sinister trade to make, and Faust in which it was Janning’s turn to bargain.

Emile Jannings

Robert seizes his chance with both hands and establishes a mighty power plant capable of supplying the whole World indefinitely. Endless energy means there’s no need for coal and fearing for their livelihood the miners round on Leonore. Robert arrives to save her and his former colleagues: half of the plant’s profits will go to them and the country shall be a paradise for the partially employed as the rest of the World pays all it can to secure the endless energy…

The World enslaved by power

Robert marries Leonore whilst Maria is frightened away by this new enterprise and heads off with returning Peter to the pastoral peace of the neighbouring state: a place where the simplicity of life on the land seems to make the people happier.

Time moves on and new generations arrive; Robert is feted as the most important man on the planet and plans to pass the secret of the perpetual power onto his effete son Reginald (Ernst Hofmann). But Reggie is easily distracted and is targeted by Yella Ward (Erna Morena) a vamp of the highest order who entraps the young man with her huge dark eyes, imploring him to take his father’s secret before she will give of hers…

Yella has Reggie just where she wants him...

Meanwhile, old Peter has passed and his son has grown up to be the spitting image… complete with his father’s nobility and leadership qualities. They have to trade their produce for power from the Herne plant and as the demands become ever more ruinous he vows to take the fight to Robert: share the power with the World and do not use it for selfish profit...or else.

Peter makes his way to the Herne estate and climbs over the wall to encounter Robert’s daughter Magda (Käthe Haack) and there’s an instant connection of course... She leads him to her father who welcomes the son of his old friends. He won’t like what he has to say though…

Peter leads a revolt...

No spoilers…  All the pieces are in play for the final act - will Reggie be able to ward off Yella's manipulations, can Magda and Peter overcome their parent’s differences, has Algol only set out to destroy and when will there be a harvest for the World? It’s a huge story and one that has enduring relevance...

Werckmeister pulls the elements together well even though there are those narrative jumps that may be down to lost material… for a film with such an obviously-large budget you’d expect he’d have enough spare to make the few additional shots that would better explain Algol’s motivations or show Robert revealing his secret to Magda?  Minor quibbles aside,  Algol is most definitely an experience and a bare-knuckle ride through many moods from the alien mystery of Algol, the grinding mining, grand houses, poor houses, garden parties, orgies, industrial espionage, political intrigue, pastoral idyll to weird dirty dancing – after almost two hours and hundreds of shots you certainly know that you’ve been in a cinema!

Sebastian Droste: "Two ladies, And I'm the only man, ja!"

Janning’s performance matches this intensity throughout as does John Gottowt's - Algol’s fury seems to know no bounds… Counter-balancing this is the show of elegant restraint from Hanna Ralph as Maria who always knows… The expansive cinematography of Axel Graatkjaer and Hermann Kircheldorff adds to the feeling of Algol as a major event and this must have been one of the biggest releases of the post-war period. We are lucky to still have it.

Along with The Student of Prague, this film has been on the Edition Filmmuseum forthcoming releases list for some time with its projected DVD having it twinned with Karl Grune’s Schlagende Wetter (1923). There is a tantalizing two minute sample on the site from which I have appropriated some of the images above… As you can see, it’s their copyright so, please go ahead gentlemen and release the darned thing soon: you have the power.

Pola energy... Madame Dubarry (1919)

Years ago I used to trade bootleg tapes and would listen to any old hissy C60 so long as it was an interesting part of the artist in question's back story (Sonic Youth and Iggy Pop in London '86... I was there!). In the same way, enthusiasts of vintage film are used to experiencing varying "quality" in pursuit of viewing their interests. Long out of print (and copyright) films could and would be viewed through the blurred fog of multi-generational copying.

But it doesn't have to be this way in the age of digital replication and restoration. Yet watching my copy of Madame Dubarry I felt particularly aggrieved that Grapevine Video, who's version I bought from Amazon.com, hadn't access to a better print.

Maybe that's not entirely their fault but, considering that this is the film that effectively booked both Lubitsch and Negri on their voyages to Hollywood, it's surprising that their's is just about the only copy available. Grapevine are so slapdash they even have a typo in their name on Amazon, but, at least they've released a copy in the first place.

Made just a year after the Great War ended, Madame Dubarry was a lavish costume drama that was the most expensive film yet made in Germany. It led to director Ernst Lubitsch being labelled as the german Griffith and there are certainly parts of the film that show a debt. It's also possible that Orphans of the Storm was in part a response from the master to the younger man's smooth story telling, controlled crowd scenes and subject matter. From different view points, both films questioned the right to rule in an unstable post-war world.

Not too much in common though between Lillian Gish and Pola Negri... with the latter evincing an earthy humanity that convinces you that this humble seamstress could indeed earn the affection of aristocrats and Kings.

Pola plays Jeanne Vaubernier a wild and carefree soul almost unconscious of her affect on men but with a vague, unquenchable ambition. She has a lover, Armand De Foix (an earnest Harry Liedtke) but sets her sights on any man of social standing who can offer her more. Thus does she make her way in society first through the influential Don Diego then Le Comte Jean Dubarry and finally on to King Louis XV (the magnificent Emile Jannings).

The pace of the story is so fast you wonder how things are going to develop beyond this point but life and French politics begin to overtake Jeanne. She gets the king to prevent Armand's execution and he becomes a member of the royal guard. At the same time she comes into range of the scheming Minister Choiseul (a sinister Reinhold Schünzel) who hopes to advance his sister's position with the king. Meanwhile, France is a tinderbox of festering resentment at unfair taxes, food shortages and negligent aristocracy.

Jeanne and Armand meet and he is astonished to learn that she is the hated Dubarry; symbol of royal indifference and whimsy. "It is easy to forgive, " he says, "...but not to forget." Nevertheless, he gives her one last chance as he joins a band of proto-revolutionaries led by his friend Paillet.

The situation is stirred up by both sides and Jeanne blows her chance by ordering Paillet's arrest. She is running out of friends and increasingly dependent on the King's favour. But, as his health begins to fade, the revolution looks ever more certain.

The action explodes in the last half an hour of the film and, having been focused on the individuals, the view is dramatically widened to show the revolt in the streets and the desperate battle of the citizenship against the army. As aristos hang from the lamp-posts, Jeanne is betrayed and sentenced to death: no one gets out of here alive.

Lubitsch shows much subtlety in focusing on character in telling this epic tale. There's a superb moment when Jeanne first arrives at Don Diego's house, her first taste of upper class living, as the curtain behind her pulls away to reveal the opulence of his cabinet. This shows the gap between the lives of the ordinary people and the nobles most effectively; why shouldn't Jeanne want to be part of this?

Madame Dubarry feels less melodramatic than most American film of the same period and you feel sympathy for Jeanne without necessarily condoning her actions - she's not a pure white heroine by any means but she's true to herself even though she can't resist temptation.

Negri gives great energy to the role and, whilst there's the odd moment when she over-reaches, she's mostly naturalistic with a smile of pure unfettered joy. It's her innocent surprise at the benefits her looks bring that ultimately makes her likable. In the end you want her to be given one more chance even if la revolution demands that she must be punished.

Even through the fog and blur of my copy, this was a clear indication of why both Lubitsch and Negri became the stars they were.

The Grapevine video and other similar "boots" are available from Amazon and if you like Ernst and Pola you'll probably not be held back. In the meantime I await a proper reconstruction, as well done as Mania or Sumurun, with no little impatience.