Sad songs mean so much… Tatjana (1923), with John Sweeney, Kennington Bioscope

Ivan, they want to murder Boris! For God’s sake help!

Michelle Facey introduced the film she had found in the BFI National Film Archive and explained how, literally, one, or in this case, two things, had led to another. Firstly, the Bioscope’s screening of Asta Nielsen’s first film Afgrunden (1910) also starred Robert Dinesen, who went on to direct and star in this film and also to direct Claire (1924) – screened at the KB in 2019. Secondly, Tatjana’s mesmerising star, Olga Tschechowa, who was to later become involved in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler, also featured in last year’s screening of Ewald André Dupont’s Moulin Rouge (1928). Looking for more of their work, Michelle came up with this film which not only still existed but lived not too far away deep in the stacks over in the BFI’s Berkhamsted repository.

There is virtually nothing about the film online and, indeed, Michelle’s initial reference came from an advert in Close Up magazine’s September 1928 issue for the Shaftesbury Pavilion, “The Home of International Film” which, along with screenings for all the latest continental hits, such as the recently restored but rarely screened, Saga of Gosta Berling included a feature entitled He Who Covets, the English title for Tajana.

Digging further, a copy of the Bioscope magazine was found in the Cinema Museum archive, which included a review of Tajana, a film, the reviewer felt, that would have a strong appeal at melodrama houses. And, here we were!

Olga Tschechowa in F W Murnau’s Schloß Vogelöd (1921).

Tajana is a skilfully made tale of love and obsession during the turbulence of the Russian Revolution. Its structure is unusual, starting off in the smart part of Copenhagen, with the death of a well-to-do man, Ivan Gorykin (Paul Hartmann) found slumped at his desk in the morning by one of his servants. His wife leaves a note which leads to a flashback as the whole tale is unravelled to catch up with this mysterious moment.

We’re back in Tsarist Russia and in the house of Count Schuwaloff (Leopold von Ledebur) and his daughter Tatjana (Tschechowa) who is engaged to Prince Boris Orloff (Dinesen). The intertitles are in English and so a lot of the pronouns have been anglicised for those checking IMDB…

Schuwaloff has lost his patience with the son of one of his loyal servants, Anna (Maria Peterson), Ivan, who is too distracted by revolutionary theory to apply himself to the kinds of study the Count feels is worthwhile. The old man is quite right to be concerned because not only is Ivan a revolutionary he is also dead set on winning Tajana’s heart, even when she makes it quite clear to him that she only has eyes for Boris. She pleads with her father to carry on funding Ivan but Boris steps in to pick up the tab only for Ivan to show his gratitude by pointlessly pleading undying love to the revulsed Tajana.

Robert Dinesen

The years pass, Tajana and Boris marry and have a child whilst Russia edges ever closer to revolution. Ivan is one of the leading lights and like any bad Bolshevik decides to use the upheaval to further his own romantic agenda. He devises a plan so self-serving and cunning that even the most selfish fox might reject it as too complex and, well, he appears not to have a thorough understanding of Marx’s political philosophy, so it looks like Tajana’s old man was right about the wasted education.

The day will soon be here when we force these nobles to their knees…

Ivan arranges for the local peasantry to be both drunk and deceived, arranging for them to attack Boris and Tajana’s home whilst at the same time using his mother to provide them with an escape route straight into his arms. He pretends to help both escape, leading Boris into a trap at the border and hoping to use his supposed bravery to finally win over his suddenly isolated and devastated wife.

As plans go it underestimates the human details but when he tells Tajana that Boris has been shot by border guards, he becomes her only refuge amidst the revolutionary anarchy. Her Boris is gone and will she never hear the Chanson Triste – possibly Tchaikovsky’s Chanson Triste (Op. 40 No. 2) from 1878 - that he used to play for her, ever again?

Carl Drews’s cinematography makes the most of some marvellous snow-scapes especially during the attempted escape and the print looked splendid considering it’s possibly not been screened since its original release.

Paul Hartmann looking like an instense revolutionary in a publicity shot for something else entirely

John Sweeney is, of course, very much your man for the Russians and wove splendid dramatic and romantic lines through the web of revolutionary intrigue. He hadn’t seen the film – who had? – but he was, of course, spot on when the chanson was called upon to be très, très triste!

John was on duty for the first half too and again showed his range of quality improvisations accompanying the compilation of colourised shorts mostly shown from film.

The first two were from Bob Geoghegan’s collection, Interesting Incidents from Here and There (1916) a travelogue sadly missing the first section in London but still fascinating, and then a mild romantic comedy Une mésaventure de François Premier (1912) in which the lusty monarch tries, and fails, to have his wicked way with the wife of one of his nobles all in lovely Pathe Colour. Royalty eh? They’re nothing but trouble, just ask Ivan.

Not so simple, Simon. Ernest Bourbons screen shot courtesy of Movies Silently

There was another splendid travelogue on 35mm this time from Tony Fletcher’s collection and covering Russia in around the same period as our main film, followed by another tinted print, a French comedy called Onésime vs. Onésime (1912) (Good Simon, Bad Simon). Here forgotten French clown Ernest Bourbon plays Good Simon who tries to rid himself of his bad double with plenty of laughs and smart camera trickery to follow. There’s a review on Fritzie Kramer’s peerless Movies Silently site and it includes One of the Greatest Puns in Blogging History so you must check it out!

Both Simons were courtesy of Christopher Bird’s collection and so he along with Bob and Tony prove the worth of private collections alongside institutions like the BFI, in preserving the almost lost corners of early film. Credit too to the Bioscope which continues to provide an opportunity to see these rare gems screened and accompanied as cinematic nature intended.

#TheyAlso… Claire (1924), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

Lya De Putti

Good programming from the Bioscope tonight with two films variously entitled Passions of Men and The Woman Always Pays… even in the early years there were important social questions being raised especially in Europe, in this case Germany and Denmark.

What a year it’s been for Weimar Cinema and out of the blue comes a rarity to Kennington extracted by Bioscope stalwart Tony Fletcher from the BFI archives – not lost but certainly a film that hasn’t been seen for some time.

Directed by Robert Dinesen, Claire (aka Passions of Men), stars the incredibly watchable Lya de Putti, the sharpest profile in Berlin with pencil-thin eyebrows capping sublime arches over eyes flickering the deepest darkest black… There’s something about Lya and that’s exactly what this film is about as the plot is essentially a story of her efforts to evade unwanted male attention; that might be a proto-feminist theme and it’s certainly not the only film of this period dealing in man’s inhumanity to woman.

Frida Richard playing another mum in The Path of Grete Lessen (1919)

Claire lives with a rich older man (Eduard von Winterstein, Claudius in Asta’s Hamlet) who has taken her in along with her mother (Frida Richard, who played the manically possessive mother in Lupu Pick’s New Year’s Eve aka Sylvester (1924)) with the aim of marrying her – he’s over fifty and she’s just twenty which means she was about sixteen when he made an offer that couldn’t be refused. The film repeatedly has Claire “facing the World” – a woman with little power and reliant on the kindness of male strangers.

Claire is, however, made of stern stuff and refuses the old man’s take it or leave it offer, leading the old buzzard to turf both her and her mother out immediately. He soon relents and chases after them on horseback in terrific shots along a snowy lane lined as far as the eye can see by winter trees. He loses the women and falls off his horse, losing the use of his legs in the process.

Eduard von Winterstein - a face made for drama

Claire gets a job as a poorly paid administrator whilst her mother grows increasingly frail in their one-room apartment. They can’t afford to eat properly and the old woman collapses and is almost gassed for want of a decent meal. A kindly Doctor (Theodor Loos) helps and even waves his fee after Claire tells him they can’t afford him again. Claire attendance at work is affected by her mother’s plight and she is dismissed by her boss unless that is, she would like to make up for her tardiness in kind.

On her way home she catches the eye of a con artist (Erich Kaiser-Titz) who spies the chance to romance only to have his plans interrupted by the police. He makes a break for it and hides thousands of Marks worth of forged notes in Claire’s bag. Claire gets arrested trying to buy her mother a chicken for supper… but has a lucky break when the police commander believes her story even when she opens her purse to reveal the rotten notes.

By the time she gets home her mother has passed away and, alone in the world as the Doctor says, accepts his kind offer of work as his assistant. The two go close and she frets over the visits of a woman who turns out o be his sister. The film could end with their embrace and the Doctor’s highly prominent hair fetish – he just can’t stroke it enough – where it not for the surprisingly early release of the forger.

Theodor Loos in kindly Doctor mode

This is where the plot gets a little convoluted when he works out where Claire lives and – successfully - tries to drive a wedge between her and the Doctor. Claire’s options begin to narrow but, as she has done all along, she refuses to sacrifice her independence and morality and, after a chance encounter, meets her former master’s son (Eberhard Leithoff) who pleads with her to return and look after him as his mental and physical health declines.

Trouble is, the old fellow is still infatuated with Claire and he has the gun in his pocket to prove it! Will Claire’s luck finally run out – I know it doesn’t sound like she’s had much – or is there one more twist to prevent the woman from paying?

Claire is convoluted fun and John Sweeney enlightened the narrative with romantic flourishes and dramatic interventions that ensured we were firmly focused on the extraordinary expressiveness of Lya. Michell Facey introduced and told of the Hungarian actress’ success in Germany – including Variety and her off-screen/in-trailer relationship with Emil Jannings – before she tried her luck in Hollywood. She couldn’t sustain success there and died tragically young after surgery to remove a chicken bone led to infection. By coincidence tonight was the anniversary of her death in 1931.

Asta on the tram

Claire was a rather calming experience after the Bioscope audience was left shaken and rather stirred by young Asta Nielsen’s outrageously sexual dancing in Afgrunden (1910). Colin Sell ventured that the actress might have had control of her costume design because the fabric used could hardly have been more revealing as she writhed her way around circus cowboy (Poul Reumert) in a deliberate, distended demonstration of dominance over her bound “captive”. Syncopated BDSM with a beat and a swing... as it were.

The alternate title for this film is The Woman Always Pays and even as early as 1910, Asta was questioning why this should be with a character who is dependent on male patronage and who cannot be free of the “male passions” that plague Lya too. They were making sophisticated films for women as well as men and you can only wonder what Die Asta – the first true European film star along with Max Linder – did for her sisters over this time?

She is famously one of the inventors of screen acting and her ability to express cinematically – nuanced and naturalistic – is something to behold. On the big screen she’s stunning, using fine-motor physical control that, as Angela Dalle Vacche has said, seemed to anticipate the close-up's subliminal impact.

Colin Sell accompanied with remarkably steady hands despite the on-screen excitement and combined so well with this remarkably advanced film which, blemishes aside, stands as one of the pinnacles of early European cinema.

"And she can dance..."