This was a Weimar surprise unearthed on 35mm from the BFI’s
archives by the diligence of Tony Fletcher and given its first outing in many years
in front of an audience who hadn’t seen it including fearless accompanist Colin
Sell! We only had Tony’s word for it but as MC Michelle Facey pointed out in
her introduction, there were plenty of quality elements in this tale of crime
and punishment and a story that whilst it could be predicted was still so
perfectly timed that it allowed a warm glow for the audience much in need of it
given prevailing weather conditions in the capital.
The Hangman aka Der Henker or Der
Staatsanwalt klagt an in German was directed by Theodor Sparkuhl and Adolf
Trotz, being the former’s only directed film although he had an incredible
career as a cameraman for everyone from Lubitsch in the teens through to
Hollywood and some ground-breaking film noir. He has some good ideas here
and perhaps the presence of Trotz indicated that he wasn’t entirely comfortable
in the role but the results are certainly very interesting.
It is a tale of two women or rather four with two men of honesty and rigid morality caught up in a web of bad luck and passion all of whose fate is in the hands of chance as much a judgement. It is also a tale of two very different bars, one a dive joint offering “Varieté” on tatty posters in its grimy windows plus drinks and a good time down below, the other a kind of Weimar dream bar called Spiders with webbed interior design to match and a circular serving area at the centre to which men are inevitably drawn.
 |
| Andrée Lafayette |
At the heart of this particular parlour, we find the warm smile of French actress Andrée Lafayette who plays the perfect host: a beauty
who welcomes her male customers and yet maintains her distance only sipping the
champagne they gulp near the centre of the web. She is asked if she is happy
doing this work and smiles “not really” but she’s the consummate professional
doing what she needs to get by.
Also doing the same but in a more precarious environment
is Kiki (Irm Cherry) who works as a hostess in the less salubrious venue where
she must fend off the attentions of drunken middle-aged men such as the captain
played by Georg John who is harmless enough especially when compared with the
villain played by Fritz Kampers. She has set her sights higher though and is in
love with the tall and prosperous-looking brother of Andrée’s character played
by Spanish actor and former FC Barcelona player* (oh yes!) Félix de Pomés. Sorry,
there are so few character names, this film is barely out there online and I’m trusting
on memory: such is the thrill of the Bioscope and films that only exist on celluloid.
Welcome to the future-past of physical media.
Now… all of these connections will be vitally important
when I outline the plot and this will then revolve around the imposing presence
of public prosecutor Leander played by the sharp-featured Bernhard Goetzke a
man who looks like he’s walked straight off the Mount Rushmore of chiselled Weimar actors leaving
Emil, Conrad and Fritz stuck to the cliff face. Leander is a stickler for the
word of the law if not the spirit of justice and as the film begins we see him
sending yet another guilty party to their end with the Weimar Republic having
retained the death sentence after much debate; the guillotine was the favoured
method.
 |
| The many faces of Félix de Pomés, from the Nou Camp to Hollywood! |
He's not a man who can’t let his hair down though and
meets Andrée’s character when dragged down to the bar by a colleague. Pretty
soon he’s regularly called to the bar to find out more about this fascinating
woman who retains such dignity in the face of the inebriated and weak of
character.
Elsewhere her brother is less restrained as he finds
Kitty in the arms of a customer and following the drunken man outside, there’s
a scuffle and the older rival falls unconscious to the ground. Sadly, for him, he
awakes to find himself being robbed by the aforementioned villain who hits him
harder causing him a fatal blow on the back of the head. After the thief makes his
escape the body is found and, being the decent man he is, Félix’s character
believes he is responsible and confesses.
The circumstantial evidence is strong and this confession
surely marks this as an open and shut case but, driven not only by her concern
for her sibling but also her growing affection for Leander, Andrée’s character
determines to try and persuade the prosecutor of the need for understanding in
what seems to be a crime of passion as well as an accidental death. As things
progress there is some nice interplay between the two leads and even some
lighter moments courtesy of Leander’s housekeeper (Anna von Palen) who sees her
role being usurped by her employer's new romantic interest.
There’s also excellent support from the siblings’ mother, played by Antonie
Jaeckel, who has previously been estranged for a long time from her daughter.
 |
| Irm Cherry wearing a hat in 1928. |
The narrative flows with Sparkuhl and Trotz mixing the
growing injustice, the family and romantic ties in with solid control and
building up the tension as the legal rock meets the moral hard place… It’s
heart-felt and heart-breaking when you look forward to the tens of thousands
who were to be sentenced to death under the next regime in Germany.
The film features lots of pleasing late silent camera
movements with clever reverse shots of the characters in the bar and tracking
shots as Leander walks with his love. There is also some expressionist overlays
as Leander walks dazed through the city streets contemplating what he has
become in a literal tumult of conflicted emotions, the pavements and houses
revolving around his intense confliction.
Colin Sell accompanied sight unseen and provided
marvellous flourishes to adorn the twisty tale as the honesty and dogged
morality of both men threatens to doom one and kill the other. We shuffled
nervously in our seats as the climax approached and well… let’s hope someone else
screens this film before too long! It was a hit Tony, a palpable hit!
Tony Fletcher also presented the first part of the evening
with a look at films made at Fort Lee near New Jersey in the period before
Hollywood with excerpts from the fabulous double Milestone/Kino Blu-ray Made in
New Jersey: Films from Fort Lee which he had procured in Pordenone.
New Jersey, not Hollywood, was the real birthplace of the
modern film industry. Fort Lee — just across the Hudson from the Bronx — became
a key site for early film production. During the 1910s, motion pictures were a
major part of suburban New Jersey community which looks much more like the old
country than the dusty modernist landscapes of California. It’s a bit more
built up these days and we saw a poignant documentary film showing the decaying
lot in excerpts from Theodore Buff's Ghost Town (1935).
 |
| "Forget your land I have a nice hat..." |
The Curtain Pole (1909), a short comedy directed
by D.W. Griffith with an uncredited Mack Sennett as a man who search for the titular
pole leads to chaos also including Florence Lawrence. The Indian Land Grab
(1910), a young Indian chief goes to Washington to stop a land grab and is
almost knocked off course by the daughter of the land grabber in question who
is instructed to use her womanly wiles to distract him. A shock of the old
certainly but the audiences were apparently more upset about the genuine
romance that develops between the two than the film’s call for fairness to
native Americans. Go figure
Talking of shocks, we also had an extract from the
legendary The Vampire (1913) which featured an outrageously sexualised
dance with Bert French and Alice Eis which captures the essence of Rudyard
Kipling’s 1897 poem describing the dangers of women of a certain sort. The
dance is watched by Harold Brentwell (Harry F. Millarde) making him consider
his relationship with Sybil the Vampire (Alice Hollister) and I can’t wait to
find out what happens… The poem and the story were used as the basis of Theda
Bara’s A Fool There Was (1915). Women were to blame for so many things
back in the day.
.jpg) |
| Bert French and Alice Eis were once arrested for performing this dance on stage... |
John Sweeney accompanied and I had to check that his
keyboard was not aflame for the above dance sequence, he plays so well
anticipating the rhythms and the emotional movements in ways that really help
us to connect with these archaic sensibilities, the media meets an audience who
are moved to the 1910s as much as the history comes to us now. Here, actions
and piano speak more eloquently than words ever could.
Yet another special event at the Cinema Museum and thanks
to the cast and crew who enabled us to see this long-hidden film. No archive is
too deep or too dusty to prevent the determined search of the Bioscope’s
researchers!
You can order the set from Amazon.com at reasonable rates
as well as from Kino in the USA. It’s worth it for The Vampire dance alone but
Fort Lee remains a major part of cinematic history!
.jpg) |
| Andrée Lafayette also appeared in the 1923 Hollywood adaptation of Trilby the second of many Svengali features... EYE have a copy! |
* Señor de Pomés played for FC Barcelona and RCD Espanyol (Barca’s reserves) in the 1910s, during the sport's amateur era and he also played for Catalonia, the national team who strangely, unlike Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland don’t get to compete at World Cups. He was also a skilled swordsman who featured for Spain in the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics. The Hangman was one of his first feature films and he made over 70 more into the late sixties, including King of Kings (1961) and Lost Command (1966).
 |
| 28 appearances and one goal for Barça! |
%20credits%205.png)
+colour.png)
