Knives Out… Sensation im Wintergarten (1929), Bonn Silent Film Festival 2025 streaming, with Günter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

We have only the crème de la crème…(at the Wintergarden)

 

As a child during our regular family trips up the Lancashire coast I would be terrified as we watched the daring young men and women on the flying trapeze in the Blackpool Tower Circus as they swung high above our heads with no safety net, only flesh, bone and sinew away from a fall to their death. I knew they probably wouldn’t fall but my heart was always in my mouth as I watched them take their chances and it was always a relief once they had finished.

 

Now none of these acrobats enlivened the jeopardy by fixing long swords to the floor and then to a hoop through which they would fly at the end of their routine but in Their Son aka Sensation im Wintergarten, this is exactly what the great “Frattani” does and it is not just his sweetheart who hopes he will keep on swinging rather than being sliced and diced in his shiny silk costume… it’s also exactly the kind of device an ill-wisher might use to finish the man off. It’s the most gruesome variant of Chekhov's gun principle, if you see it in Act IV it will, probably, “go off” by Act VII… Chekhov's water torture more like.

 

Looks easy doesn't it?

After the trapeze artists my relief was always short-lived for then we had the always sinister clowns, led by the legendary but scary Charlie Cairoli. Laugh? I could have cried. It’s safe to say that there was no danger of my running off to join the circus but this is exactly what young Count Paul Mensdorf does in this picture, escaping from his disciplinarian stepfather Baron von Mallock (Gaston Jacquet looking just as shifty as he would with Louise Brooks in Prix de beauté (1930), weasel eyes and untrusting moustache…). Mallock has somehow worked his way into the affections of Paul’s mother Gräfin (Erna Morena) and, having secured his meal-ticket treats her son with cruel disdain.

 

Paul (Alphons Schünemann at this point), runs away and comes across a circus and, watching through a break in the tarpaulin is captivated by what he sees. He’s spotted by a friendly clown Barry (a very good Vladimir Sokoloff, a Russian emigree who would soon depart for Hollywood) and pulled into the new family of acrobats and jugglers. He meets one of the young stars, the horse-rider Madeleine (Alexandra Nalder) and the two form an instant friendship.

 

Vladimir Sokoloff and Claire Rommer "enjoy" the show...

The film actually starts with Paul (Paul Richter) now a world-famous trapeze artist under the name of Frattani as he travels across to Europe on an ocean liner from New York. He’s spotted by a group of young women as he trains and we see a newspaper revealing that this “King of the Air” is coming to perform in Europe for the first time. There’s some good business with cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum’s camera following Paul as he swings back and forth finally puling the curtains on his admirers before focusing on the muscular form (had Herr Richter not fought dragons in Die Nibelungen?) and a thoughtful fade back to his childhood and the split from his mother who now believes him long dead.

 

In Berlin there are wonderful street scenes as the camera follows traffic through the Brandenburg Gates and along Friedrichstraße to the Wintergarden wherein are promised “Internationales Varieté”. The stage sequences were filmed in the Wintergarden and its huge auditorium allows director Gennaro Righelli to pull the camera too and from the performance area and across the audience adding so much atmosphere to the proceedings especially when using a multitude of local talent, dancers, high-wire artists, acrobats and chorus girls. The venue was destroyed during the war but rose again in Potsdamer Straße*.

I wish I knew who the Dodge Twins were?

Back in 1929, Paul is reunited with Madeleine (now grown up as Claire Rommer) who is queuing with dozens of other hopefuls at an audition for a chorus girl. She has fallen on hard times and yet not even Paul's status is enough to persuade the hard-nosed Varietédirektor (Adolphe Engers) to give her a chance. But the King of the Air is nothing if not determined and he manages to wangle her a shot as “Mademoiselle Madeleine, the famous dancer from the Folies Bergère” and, after instructing the orchestra to play the Eccentric Charleston knowing she can and does ace it, whetting the whistle not only of the salacious director but also of Baron von Mallock who has already made his entrance and sexually harassed half the usherettes before even making it to his seat.

 

The Baron has only gotten worse over the intervening years and is fleecing Paul’s mother as he spends his time gambling and cavorting with other women and he immediately sets his sights on Madeleine and her long legs. The sequence is so well handled with the camera pulling away over the audience as Madeleine dances across the stage giving a real impression of the space and also the atmosphere as the sub-plots line up with cuts to the Baron, the manager, Paul and Barry cheering on the jazz.

Gaston Jacquet and Erna Morena

Then we get the build up to Paul’s turn as Clown Barry sets up the deadly basis for his act, only a clown could show how sharp the swords are and only a laughable figure could reinforce the morbid possibilities of this shiny steel… the slightest slip and the acrobat is guaranteed a bloody end. Richter appears to be doing some of the work himself including balancing on his head on his trapeze but the trickier work must have been a stunt man? It’s edited well though and you can almost feel the audience as uneasy as I was as a child in Blackpool.

 

Paul is on top of his game but having found his love with Madeleine he starts to worry about his ability to perform, he now has something to live for and danger loses it’s thrill. Meanwhile the Baron won’t play fair with anyone and once he realises who Frattani is, there can only be one or two outcomes, especially when Paul’s mother also finds out. I can guarantee a stressful denouement.

 

Talking of magnificent men performing the seemingly impossible, I give you Günter Buchwald and Frank Bockius whose accompaniment was recorded live at the Bonn screening and reproduced for this streaming. The two are so familiar with each other they always play in sympathy with the action on film and the circus atmosphere would not be the same without Herr Bockius triplets and paradiddles whilst I still do not know how Herr Buchwald manages to seemingly play both violin and piano at the same time. Epic work gentlemen and next year, I promise, I will be in Bonn to see how this all works in person!

 

This was the premier of a new digital restoration from 2024-25 which built on earlier filmic materials combining a vintage positive print from the Swedish Film Institute with the DFF’s nitrate materials to create a version missing only a few sections which are covered by new title cards. It’s pretty complete, minus the third act, and whilst not exceptional is a very entertaining snapshot of German theatrical culture as well as film culture at this time.

 

This is as close as we’ll ever get to a night out at the Wintergardens!

Man on a wire... the documentary element gives the film more grounding

* The Wintergardens were – probably – the first theatre to screen films using the Bioscop projector in 1895 when its inventors the Skladanowsky brothers put on a show. This was, of course, a year after the Blackpool Tower Circus began its uninterrupted 130 years run. It all connects!

 

There is more about the venue and it’s destruction by Allied bombs in the Second World War here: https://www.berlinluftterror.com/blog/wintergarten-kabarett

 

Last word to Lotte Eisner writing at the time and quoted on the Bonn website…

 

Claire Rommer is allowed to show two sides of her talent, to be a charmingly quiet creature and suddenly transform into a spirited, eccentric dancer. This truly gives her the element of surprise that the film's narrative envisions. Her beautiful body wrapped in a glittering leotard, she dances a baker's dance, lithe and full of verve.

Lotte H. Eisner, Film-Kurier, No. 212, September 6, 1929

 

 

 

Climb every mountain*… Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 42, Day Six

We finished off day six climbing every stairway, late after dinner and relegated to the Gods for the spirited but slightly odd Poker Faces (1926) featuring Edward Everett Horton and Laura La Plante in a winning combination of cheeky chappie and Universal’s top star for much of the Twenties who didn’t manage to achieve his career longevity, retiring as a movie star at just 30 in 1935 by which point Horton was pushing 50 and with years of success ahead.

 

Horton plays Jimmy Whitmore a man whose face gives nothing away expect, he’s Edward Everett Horton so, of course, there’s a lot of comic meaning flashing across his face, he’s no Buster Keaton in this regard. If anything, La Plante as his wife Betty is better at stoneface especially frustrated by his glacial career advancement – and consequent lack of new rug – and then stone-cold furious as his big break turns into a farce – a little forced compared with say Marie Prevost’s Up in Mabel’s Room, but still funny and with the charm of these two leads.

 

Jimmy gets offered a promotion so long as he can close a big new deal with out-of-town big shot George Dixon (George Siegmann) who he has to meet at the station. By this time Betty has stormed off to get a job of her own after Jimmy nixes the new carpet and thinking he sees her about to leave town, wearing a veil with similar luggage (of course) pursues her and starts to remonstrate. This attracts the attention of Big George who chivalrously steps in to defend the woman who, veil lifted, turns out to be of Chinese origin so, of course, she couldn’t be Jimmy’s wife… and our collective cringe went up a gear as an intertitle of Chinese appeared. That was 1926 that was.

 

Edward's way with women.

Jimmy and George don’t know who the other is though, despite having unknowingly got off on bad terms Jimmy’s boss Henry Curlew (Tom Ricketts) invites them to his house for dinner to finalise the deal. He also invites Jimmy’s wife which is an issue as the latter thinks he’s been deserted by his inconveniently ambitious spouse and has to hire a woman to act as his wife (Dorothy Revier). She’s married to Pug (Tom O'Brien) a prize fighter… not someone you’d want to upset in any way. Can you guess where this is going?

 

Naturally chaos erupts at Curlew’s house as the men find out who each other is and the old man’s new secretary is unveiled… it’s Betty who is probably more surprised about his new “wife” than Jimmy is about her new job. There follows extended confusion and confrontation as Jimmy tries to protect the honour of this young woman as George takes a shine to her. It’s well played by everyone, and the direction is well timed by Harry A. Pollard.

 

It’s a farce. sometimes you’re in the mood sometimes you’re not and tonight I was.

 

The daftness was enlivened considerably by a new score composed and conducted by Juri Dal Dan performed live by Zerorchestra, Pordenone’s finest and who played for this on the tradition GCM eve screening. The band were swingling and tight, turning musical direction on the flip of a dime and with short solos highlighting and reinforcing the comic energy. No wonder the Verdi was packed out to the rafters where we sat!

 

Hannes Schneider

Before our evening exertions we were on top of the world with Arnold Fanck and his intrepid mountaineering filmmakers for Der Berg Des Schicksals (Mountain of Destiny) (1924), the film that reputedly inspired dancer Leni Riefenstahl to get in touch with its pioneering director, Arnold Fanck, who then featured her in The Holy Mountain. I love Fanck’s films, the scenery obviously, the sense of actual adventure filming at these altitudes and the bravery of the leads taking on the actual crags and scrambles.

The “destiny” is for the son to follow the father in conquering the peak which he tried but failed to climb. Inspired by the fatal attempt of climber Carlo Garbari to summit the Guglia (“spire”) di Brenta in the Dolomites, Winter Olympian Hannes Schneider plays Bergsteiger who is haunted by the peak and his son is Alpine expert Luis Trenker who would star in other Fanck films and who looks like he was hewn from the granite of these mountains (was he Married to the Mountains?!).

 

Fanck would start by shooting footage of dangerous climbs and incredible landscapes and then evolve his stories later and sometimes there’s more climbing than character but there’s good support from non-climbers like Erna Morena as the climbers’ wife and mother as well as Hertha von Walther as Hella who Trenker has to go to rescue on a stormy night. She climbs well and looked familiar to me as she’s an uncredited actor in Pabst’s Joyless Street (1925).

 

Airy accompaniment was provided by Mauro Colombis and the ubiquitous Frank Bockius who is no doubt familiar with these Germanic hills! Stunning visuals on screen and hard-hitting, syncopations on stage!

 

Harald Madsen charms Marguerite Viby and Nina Kalckar

The Slapstick programme brought us down to earth with the existential crises of  Pat and Patachon in Højt paa en kvist (High Up on a Twig) (1929) which featured the following intertitle: “One is tall, the other is short”, which I though was a very dry joke I’d made about their comedic proposition at the Kennington Bioscope in 2018… The two madcaps are engulfed a series of comedic situations during the course of this feature and attempt to romance two attractive young women, played by Marguerite Viby and Nina Kalckar, who are clearly such generous souls that they see the inner beauty in both men although they are under the misapprehension that they’re rich.

 

The film was apparently a return to form for the couple who had been working together for over 25 years at this point. Ulrich Ruedel is very good in the Giornate programme on the reasons for their success and on just why their comedy was different to the Brits and Hollywood. Clearly both men, Pat (Harald Madsen) and Patachon (Carl Schenstrøm) were good actors playing a different style to the gag-based Brits and it’s our challenge to understand why even if we just don’t laugh as much.

 

Meg Morley made her GCM42 debut and as usual accompanied with assured melodic invention and her jazz-practiced improvisations always have a distinctive quality even as she presents musical themes that are very much of the period, jazz age in spirit as much as form.

 

Mary Harald in the fields

Vendémiaire (1918), presented as one feature, was essentially a two parts plus prologue, from the master of the multi-part adventure, Louis Feuillade and showed a more considered and down-to-earth, director three years on from Les Vampires and the War. There were some lush landscapes of the canals and countryside near Lyon and a feature feel to the lengthy episodes as a plot unfolded about two escaped German POWs infiltrating a group of farm workers in the Great War.

 

René Cresté plays Pierre Bertin a soldier on leave to recover from his mental and physical wounds and he meets a family heading away from the front line to seek work and to find out what happened to their siblings. They all end up working on a vineyard in Lunel (Feullade’s hometown) run by Capitaine de Castelviel (Feuillade regular Édouard Mathé) and where the two Germans also infiltrate.  Wilfred (Louis Leubas) and Fritz (Manuel Caméré) cause much disruption as they try to further the fading German cause and frame a gypsy, Sarah (Mary Harald, who also featured in the director’s Tih Minh (1918) and who was of mixed race possibly born in Hong Kong or Vietnam) as they rob the Captain… there are fuller characters than in the director’s more adventure-based serials and, as the propaganda it undoubtedly was, Vendemiaire stirs your heart as you hope for the best for these refugees.

 

Accompaniment for the 143 minute run time was split between Gabriel Thibaudeau and John Sweeney who both provided the lyricism and spirit the subject matter demanded; John’s triumphant cadences at the films’ end were especially moving as the certainty of the victory at the time of release was clearly less and we now know that the new peace was only to last barely twenty-odd years.

 

There were also some extra special entrees before Poker Faces accompanied by maestro Stephen Horne and including some wonderful colour shots around Niagara Falls in, er, Wonderful Water (1922) and Max Roach comedy, A Truthful Liar (1924) featuring Will Rogers as Alfalfa Doolittle who becomes Ambassador to Cornucopia where he dispenses with formalities and gets matey with the King (Richard Pennell) who would much rather go to an American bar in the city than spend time with his suffocating court. Alfalfa duly uses his cowboy powers to rescue the King from runaway horses and would be assassins. It spoofs the whole Ruritanian idea and features the immortal couplet:

 

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I’m against royalty,

How about you?

 

There were also some poignant footage of the man Chaplin called The Master, Max Linder in 1924, still so full of charm and intelligence and yet struggling with mental health issues after the war that would lead to his death the following year. Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think…

 

 

René Cresté and Gaston Michel Vendémiaire (1918) 

 

*See Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 42, Day Four

Fever dreams… The Indian Tomb (1921), Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-ray

I want this tomb to be built by a man from whose hands the stones receive a soul.

 

Fritz Lang later described Thea von Harbou’s novel on which this two-part epic was based as a fever dream and those were exactly my thoughts after spending the last few days emersed in Joe May’s visuals and the hypnotic new score from Irena and Vojtěch Havel. It’s 243 minutes of high-quality atmospherics, drenched in bass desire and the magic ethereality of the imagined sub-continent, all recreated on a grand scale in Woltersdorf, a lake land and forested area not far from Berlin.

On the centenary of its opening Eureka are releasing a 2k digital transfer on Blu-ray as part of the Masters of Cinema series and it fully warrants the treatment. Lang co-scripted with von Harbou and expected to direct only for May to tell him, truthfully or not, that he couldn’t get the financial backing for a directorial novice. Lang would later return to the story for two films in the late fifties showing this was an itch he had to scratch near the end of his career. Budget-busting exotica may have been in vogue, when funding was available, but it’s very interesting to hear comments from film preservation student Sreya Chatterjee who, whilst noting that the film draws from a variety of Indian cultures, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist, sees it as an objective and non-judgemental creation with “respect and fascination” for its subject.

Mr Veidt

Indeed, the depth of characterisation of the “Indians”, including Conrad Veidt’s tour de force portrayal of the conflicted Ayan III, the Maharajah of Bengal, offsets charges of “orientalism”, especially as the whole story is based on love, loss and betrayal not one-dimensional autocracy. It’s also a commentary on British colonialism, certainly a feature of von Harbou’s writing in general, and here the cause of the broken hearts that drive the narrative. It’s even suggested in the excellent video essay from David Cairns and Fiona Watson, that part of the reasons the British kept the writer interned for three months after the second world war, was because of her critique of the Empire. That’s a Nazi party member calling the kettle pot black but these things are complicated… just ask Mr Lang.

Back in 1920, Germany had just lost a ruinous conflict with the British and the film was more escapism for a cash-strapped population who wanted to travel virtually away from their troubles. May’s India was a mix of huge sets of which DeMille would have been proud and the mountains of southern Germany which may or may not have seen the first cinematic use of the wooden rope bridges so beloved of adventure serials from Indiana Jones to Jumanji.

There are still a few properties in Woltersdorf adorned with the remnants off these giant sets

May’s direction is big on grandeur if less on camera mobility but he makes the most of his luminous stars with my hard drive now heavy with screen grabs of close-up Connie emoting. Having seen so much recently of Asta Nielsen’s perfection of the art of screen acting intensity, here we have the next stage of that evolution with a quite incredible range of explosive expression, blood pumping through engorged veins as his heart bursts with anger and utter despair, he’s a stressful watch. Conrad runs the range from unknowingly imperious to devastated wreck always hinting at that vulnerability even when at his most commanding.

The first part is the Mission of the Yogi and here we learn of the maharajah’s plan to recruit a leading German architect, Herbert Rowland (Olaf Fønss) using the mysterious powers of Ramigani 'Rami', the Yogi (Bernhard Goetzke) a fanciful mix of Indian spirituality and a “genie” straight out of the pages of the Arabian Nights. Rami can astrally project, control peoples’ minds and cure the seemingly incurable. Goetzke’s is another remarkable performance with his impassive granite-featured majesty somehow making you convinced of his mystical capabilities.

If you want to obey the command of my lord… you must do so within the hour. But no one must know of your departure, including your bride.

Olaf Fønss and Bernhard Goetzke

The Maharajah wants Rowland to build a huge temple to house his beloved, Princess Savitri (Erna Morena) in a manner echoing the Taj Mahal, built in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Rowland is shown earlier in the film marvelling at a drawing of the Taj, telling his fiancé, Irene ((Joe May’s wife, Mia, a theatre actor and singer, turned film star under his guidance), how he would love to build something so beautiful. Initially reluctant, the architect agrees to travel out to India with the Yogi under a cloak of secrecy.

 

Irene, however, is a woman to be reckoned with – as are all the female leads – and, despite the Yogi having telekinetically removed Rowland’s illicit note to her, she decides that something is amiss in Rowland’s departure and follows the trial to the coast and from there way out east.

 

Up here, nearer to heaven than earth, I shall raise up the mighty building.

 

Conrad Veidt and Mia May

Arrived in Bengal, Rowland finally meets his new employer who shows him round hid opulent palace, introducing him to his pet tigers and then taking him to the Valley of Sorrow, high up in eth mountains. It is here that he reveals that the person whom the tomb will commemorate, is very much alive… collapsing in grief to the rocks the Maharajah tells Rowland that, you shall not build a tomb for the dead or the living… but for the great love I have squandered, like a god or a fool.

 

It is very much as if destiny has already set these tragic events in stone… a frequent concern of Lang’s work. He even made a film about it with Bernhard Goetzke again uncanny.

 

The players are revealed as the story of Princess Savitri’s love affair with British officer, Mac Allan (Paul Richter) is revealed to Rowland by her faithful maid servant Mirrjha (Lya De Putti) who appeals to him and Irene separately, to save the Englishman from a trap set by the Maharajah. It’s hard not to see the disruption caused by Mac Allan as a reflection of colonial ambition and it’s a classic betrayal that drives the all-powerful Maharajah to punish those who have betrayed him. He’s not going to gain any satisfaction and as the Yogi, the epitome of Indian spirituality, warns, his plans are unconscionable.

 

Paul Richter and Erna Morena

Meanwhile, as Irene walks through the palace’s beautiful gardens and Rowland learns the full story, Mac Allan is ambushed on a tiger hunt by the Maharajah’s henchmen. The officer is an all-action superhero, fighting off dozens with gun and fists before escaping on his horse… all the ingenuity and ferocity that built our Empire and forced the German surrender in 1918. Is he a good guy in the film? He’s as nuanced as the Maharajah in that respect, not everyone in Europe would be rooting for the Brit…

 

Part two, The Tiger of Eschnapur, deals with the coming together of all the players as the action hots up and the full extent of von Harbou and Lang’s vision becomes clear. You don’t want any more of my summary, you need to buy this disc and relax into this moral adventure on a stormy weekend afternoon with a full pot of Darjeeling followed by liberal amounts of schnaps… the later to aid recovery after the tumultuous final segments.

Lya De Outtie and Erna Morena

The release comes with a fulsome collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Philip Kemp along with that superb video essay by David Cairns and Fiona Watson. It is presented in 1080p HD, from 2K restorations undertaken by the Murnau foundation and does this major film due services.

It’s released on Monday 21^st February and you can order direct from Eureka who very kindly send me review copies. No silent home should be without it!

 

Connie improvises with a curious elephant. Master!

Here’s Connie! Der Gang in Die Nacht (1920) with Richard Siedhoff, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto Day 6

"Where does the art of the writer end, and the art of the director and the actors start? One doesn’t know. Everything is intertwined. Everything is – there’s no better word for it – complete…

Willy Haas, Film-Kurier (no. 277, 14 December 1920)

If Der Gang In Die Nacht (Love’s Mockery) was Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s only film we’d probably rate it a bit higher than we are able to in the context of his later work. All the same I was surprised at its controlled composition and feel although it varies in tone from comedy to weird.

For me this is a better film than say The Haunted Castle from the following year but that could also be down to the uncanny presence of Conrad Veidt who’s eyes, hands and, indeed forehead… are transfixing throughout. Murnau makes the most of his gaunt asset from the get-go when he arrives by boat, standing tall with sightless eyes, seeing more than we know… a foretaste of Count Orlac on the ship.

Doctor Eigil Börne (Olaf Fønss) is engaged to doe-eyed Helene (Erna Morena, her out of Von morgens bis mitternachts), until he gets distracted by the charms of music-hall performer Lilly (Gudrun Bruun-Stefenssen) who, by combining charm with a faked ankle injury manages to get her man. The Doctor quits his promising city work and becomes a GP in a remote costal area far away from the tattling tongues of the metropolitan elite…

At first all is well and the two love-birds enjoy healthy walks and jokes about feet until, that is, the dramatic appearance of Conrad as Der Maler – an artist who has gone blind and is seeking a cure from the remarkable country doctor.

As usual the promotions team got carried away... give him two years and he'll scare you alright!

 The sequences showing the return of Maler’s sight are very effective and once the artist can see again he’s drawn to natural beauty all around including Lilly who, to be fair, has also more than noticed him. Now… this can’t go well for the three of them and we shouldn’t really forget poor Helene wasting away back in Berlin.

The narrative lets the film down but the atmospherics eventually win through as passions are stirred, the doctor performs miracles and love does indeed make fools of them all. Veidt stands out, natürlich, but this is still a well-shot film if not a “complete” single-vision… yet it’s now one that has been stunningly well-restored. And I mean stunning!

Richard Siedhoff  accompanied with elegance and edge and also enjoyed himself with Der Golem (detailed below).

We also watched: a third collection of Nasty Women including the gloriously kick-ass Texas Guignan.

Harry Solter’s The Taming of Jane (1910) featured an odd courting ritual involving a cowboy trying to lasso his intended into forced matrimony… maybe they’d been inspired by Asta Nielsen’s dance in Afgrunden or maybe this was indeed the norm in the land of the free? Then again, as with all the films in this delightful strand, the women are smarter than the men. Which is not difficult someone said...

George Le Soir’s An Up-to-date Squaw (1911) was another victory for les girls this time with a fashion-conscious squaw who can’t resist westernising her wardrobe…

The Taming of Jane (1910)

Texas Guignan brought the house down in Jay Hunt’s The Night Rider (1920) when, deciding she needs to take a husband to help prevent cattle rustlers, she lassoes one chap only to then find a much better option: “wish I’d seen you first!” she exclaimed and half the audience laughed!

I like Texas a lot and she is so assured in her characterisation and whip smart in delivery; this was a delight with a plot that served its sense of humour well.

The Circus Imps (1920) was surely an inspiration for Todd Browning as two cheeky girls run away to the circus and hang out with the freak show. The Dog-Faced Boy is shocking but no more so than when the two kids – Katherine and Jane Lee - share a bath and a pot of jam!? Not in our house they didn’t!

Neil Brand was our compositional cowboy and he corralled this feisty herd with the practiced poise of William S Hart himself.

The Duel After the Masquerade by Jean-Léon Gérôme

Tableaux Vivants was a fascinating experiment and one of the most delightfully immersive experiences of the week so far. Valentine Robert has spent years collating film sequences that are based on artworks from the religious work of Gustav Dore (natch!) and James Tissot to recreations of historical scenes such as Archibald Willard’s The Spirit of ’76 (c. 1875) and the Assassinat de Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday (engraved in 1793).

The paintings inspired films which then inspired other films and the visual language became passed down morphing from its illustrative origins to more cinematic copying: Alphonse de Neuville’s Franco-Prussian War painting, Les Dernières Cartouches (1873), was the basis for scenes in films by Lumière (1897), Méliès (1897), Pathé (1899), Gaumont (1898 and 1907).

Of course, “art” always provided and excuse for showing a nudity and the film of the 1900s embraced that as new media always does.

Stephen Horne improvised with great subtlety and variety through these various scenarios. This was no gentle picture show, there’s an impact and edge to some of this art which still challenges.

Duel after the Ball (1908)

One of the treats of the week was also a restoration of Heinrich Galeen’s Der Golem (1915) or at least what remains of a film thought lost until the recent discovery of the second reel. It is very similar to the 1920 version and Paul Wegener’s costume and menace are tantalisingly in place but there are differences in setting – this is the modern world and an altogether different “origin”.

The film is not complete – just 24 precious minutes but, as with the Murnau and Now We’re in the Air we have something!

Der Golem brings something new to the party.