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

 

 

 

The women… Pavement Butterfly (1929), with Stephen Horne, Kennington Bioscope

We take it for granted, these films we watch, yes we recognise that screening rare and near impossible to find 90-year old treasures takes a huge amount of effort, but we don’t always consider the actual commitment in personal time and energy made by the managers of these passion projects.

Tonight, was an epic programme and one that not only featured a very rare film but also three shorter features that were thematically linked. You see a fascinating array of British variety acts in the first, followed by a visit to Berlin - the main feature was an Anglo-German co-production – and lastly the British comedy, Blue Bottles (1928) featuring Elsa Lanchester as herself: a woman of gumption and quick wit even under fire.

The Bioscope’s Michelle Facey programmed the evening and chose the Lanchester film partly because it has such a strong female lead and the same can absolutely be said of Anna May Wong in Pavement Butterfly (1929). That’s three remarkable women all on the one evening!

Michelle not only devised the programme she also researched the background for the films in depth and provided notes as well as her informative introductions. No wonder the Cinema Museum was packed to the rafters with not a single seat unsold: the best programmes attract the public and the sell-out spoke for itself on that one!

Mah and Coco, clown, croupier, club owner... cad!

Part of the fascination in watching Pavement Butterfly is seeing how Anna May Wong’s character gets treated. This is not a lazy modern liberal search for outrage but a fair comparison between European cinema culture and US in 1929. In her home country, Anna May Wong had struggled since her first film in 1921 to gain substantial roles and also characters that weren’t stereotypes. Yet in Europe for this film and Song (1928), her first film with director Richard Eichberg, she is not only a desirable and acceptable romantic lead, she is the star.

Eichberg simply took her natural talents and ran with them and you even read this film as a subtle critique of Western culture’s willingness to believe the worst of people of Asian origin: first the crowd at the circus where Wong’s character Mah works, turn on her very quickly assuming she has killed her magician partner and then later, when she is blackmailed by the man who committed that murder, her artist and romantic interest, all too readily thinks she has stolen the money.

For anyone who gets frustrated by such “misunderstandings” the film’s ending is richly satisfying and, in the context of so many films of this era – Hindle Wakes and a few others excepted – a blow for self-determination for women in general.

Anna May Wong, picture c. Getty Images

But the real triumph for this remarkable actor is that she gets the most screen time and the chance to behave with decency and intelligence: she is not just a cipher but the whole point of the film: she may be a butterfly of the street, but she knows how to make her own way. Wong is allowed the opportunity to fully reveal her character and there are times when Eichberg just lets his camera roll in vast close-ups, catching every moment as the poignant tears spark, flicker and then flow down the amazing face.

There are also some blokes in the film Fred Louis Lerch plays the handsome but hopeless Fedja Kusmin an artist who lacks the purity of trusting the thing he loves and the wickedly convincing Alexander Granach as Coco the Coincidental Clown who pops up throughout the film to throw mischief in our heroine’s way. Elwood Fleet Bostwick is Mr. Working a rich business man who encourages the young artist and Tilla Garden has a fine turn as his daughter Ellis who is also interestingly enough a woman who knows her mind.

Pavement Butterfly is a very fine film and Ellis and Mah are its most fully realized characters played by the two most interesting performers. That said, I shouldn't omit Gaston Jacquet as the Baron de Neuve, who helps Mah seemingly as he's keen to to the decent thing: this was good Gaston as opposed to the rogues he was also adept at playing... either way, always a twinkle in his eye though!

It’s always a special evening when Stephen Horne plays the Bioscope and this was no exception. I am constantly amazed by his improvisational range and, having watched him play just a few days ago, could sense no repetition only a performer’s joy in giving this rare screening the full bells and whistles. He started off at a canter with some meaty chords matching the carnival atmosphere and the troupe of party animals sharing Kusmin’s apartment block and began to inject subtleties of tone through flute, accordion, percussion and vibes. One day we’ll discover that they’re all pre-programmed alien artefacts from a civilisation so far in advance of our own that their musical science seems like magic.

Meg Morley was also pitch perfect accompanying the first three films. There is so much musical diversity at the Bioscope and I love the players, Meg is an accomplished jazz musician by trade and it’s fascinating to hear how this essentially emotional and improvised discipline informs her accompaniment. She is a very polished performer now and comes from the same planet as Mr Horne… they can see the future just as they duet with the past!

Elsa Lanchester

Tonight, Meg was with the stunning Elsa Lanchester in Blue Bottles (1928) as she gets mixed up in a crook’s convention and brings the full might of the Metropolitan Police Force down on them after blowing on a discarded police whistle. She toots the flute and in come mobs of plod, men on horseback, tanks, planes and even the navy – a sequence similar to the Marx Brother’s mad escalations in defence of Freedonia in Duck Soup.

It’s a riot of well-constructed slapstick as Elsa gets caught up in the rush as the cops charge into the house. There’s a running battle in which stripped-topped criminals try to avoid the police including one played by Elsa’s hubby-to-be Charles Laughton in his first film appearance. There’s mayhem as Elsa hides wherever she can only to capture the crooks single-handedly, dazed and in charge of a weapon she barely knows is in her hand.

Frank Wells falls in for Charles Laughton

There’s so much energy and invention from director Ivor Montagu on the script from Frank Wells based on a story from his father, Herbert George. They also discovered that Frank was rather good at falling down stairs and so he gets his moment playing a battered baddie.

Before this were two documentaries of which the British one, Hello Piccadilly (1925) was especially precious, the Jack Hylton band playing in the background as variety performers – a chorus line, contortionists and amazing trick dancers (you would scarce believe The Cat and The Dog dance: Strictly Come Dangerous!) – showed us what our great grand parents used to enjoy. They'd look over their pints of mild and smile at us all, sat in the dark watching proper entertainment. Cheers!

Thanks again to the Bioscope in general and to all those who volunteer and make these evenings possible.

PS I must also thank Dr Sylvia Hardy who has just shown my Elsa Lanchester's actual copy of the script for Blue Bottles and also let me scan her original photographic stills from the film. A prominent member of the HG Wells Society she is indeed another remarkable woman!

Elsa's script for Blue Bottles

A star is re-born… The Sins of Love (1929), UK premier with Ivan Acher, Barbican

This was the UK premier of Hríchy lásky, screened as part of the 21^st Made in Prague Festival in partnership with the Czech Centre London and National Film Archive Prague. It’s a great shame we’ve had to wait so long for it is a lovely picture with an intensity and vision that tells an old tale in an unusual way.

Like many silent films of this period the cast was international with Italian actress Marcella Albani, the German Walter Rilla and dapper Frenchman Gaston Jacquet as a cross between Adolphe Menjou and David Niven… a smooth operator! Josef Rovenský plays the main role and does so powerfully with a Jannings-esque physicality allied to soulful eyes that convey the utmost misery on a face that you’d expect to naturally hope for the best.

Karel Lamac was an actor as well as a film maker as the Czech Centre’s Renata Clark explained in her introduction – staring in films with Anny Ondra, setting up a film studio together as well as dating. The two never married yet remained close and he was to die in her arms in 1952.

Here he directs with the assured hand of experience and you’d be hard pressed to separate The Sins of Love from a German or French production.

Josef Rovenský and Marcella Albani

The story is one of the oldest in cinema but with a twist… successful, middle-aged rural actor Ivan Kristen (Josef Rovenský) who leaves for the city and a bigger stage along with his younger and very noticeable wife, Sona (Marcella Albani) an aspiring actress.

In the Grand Theatre their arrival is unnoticed as Director Eduard Warren (Gaston Jacquet) has just been told by his brattish main actress, Mimi Stevens (Bronislava Livia), that she will not perform in Romeo and Juliet as he didn’t print her name in large enough text in the advertising. Hmm, she looks a little like Anny, I wonder who Karel had in mind?

Now, can you guess what’s going to happen next? There’s only 24 hours until curtain up and all Warren has to do is find a beautiful leading actress who knows the part of Juliet. Even in the confusion and panic he has already clocked Sona in his waiting room and quickly arranges a read-through with his Romeo, actor Richard Kent (Walter Rilla) who is impressed, immediately and in all ways.

Walter Rilla

Fast forward a year and Sona has been established as a star whilst her husband waits for his big break. Meanwhile she has grown close to Richard but her loyalty to Ivan has prevented her from acting on her impulses. Director Warren is also keen, as he is on any young woman… how times change eh?

Sona manages to swing Ivan a lead role and he goes to a dive bar to observe the criminal underclasses. He engages a pick pocket called Ferda Štika (LH Struna) to advise on clothing and criminality and the two strike an unlikely friendship. As with other parts of the film, Lamac is at pains to establish a warmth between the characters and Ferda is not just an archetype he’s going to be loyal to his new friend.

Gaston Jacquet

Ivan’s new play opens well and he’s riding high after a first half in which his groundwork has enabled him to produce a performance of depth with the dress and mannerisms of Ferda. During the interval, he spots Richard on the phone to Sona with a note in his hand clearly in her handwriting. Ivan jumps to conclusions and attacks his rival before being kicked back on stage by an exasperated Warren.

Ferda promises to get the incriminating letter and sets off to burgle Warren’s apartment… what can possibly go wrong?

The closing section is frenetic and moving as the actuality is revealed. It’s not quite what you’d expect but I can say no more…

Josef Rovenský and LH Struna

Rovenský goes through his paces and his character is a believable one: he’s a generous and slightly-deluded man but who doesn’t need to believe the best of themselves? The other main players are also top notch, Gaston Jacquet showing charm enough to convince as the manoeuvring Warren, Marcella Albani the beauteous talent with a heart of gold and Walter Rilla as her conflicted lover, restrained by honour.

This is another great Czech film as we’re now expecting every year from Made in Prague!

Czech musician and artist Ivan Acher performed a part-improvised and composed score using samples of found sounds, jazz-age rhythms and freshly-recorded brass. The music was near-ambient and reminiscent of the electronica of The Caretaker aka James Leyland Kirby – haunted echoes of distant dance-floors, the audio ghosts of good times past. It’s the kind of music I’d listen to on its own but here it set a mood but was not flexible enough to respond to the film’s emotional narrative.

It is good to experiment and whilst not to everyone’s tastes, the music and the images gradually came into balance whilst never quite sustaining alignment. Still some lovely soundscapes all the same.

Made in Prague continues until the end of November and details are available on the Czech Centre website. Details of Ivan Archer’s multi-media expressions are to be found on his website.

PS. My afternoon at the Barbican was completed by listening to some fearsome free jazz from Estonian prog-metal-jazz group Heavy Beauty whose blistering new album, Propaganda is out now!