Ernst Lubitsch and Films in the Jewish Milieu
Wednesday, 13th march 2019 – 7.00 pm
Stephanssaal, Ständehausstraße 4 – Opening Event –
The Wildcat (OT: Die Bergkatze)
Germany 1921, 67 min.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Accompaniment: Ensemble under the Direction of Gabriel Thibaudeau (piano) with Sally Clarke (viola) and Julius Oppermann (percussion).
Rischka, called the “‘ The Wild Cat ”, (Pola Negri) is the scruffy but charming daughter of a robber captain who is not up to mischief near a place called Piffkaneiro and the Tossenstein Fort. Piffkaneiro, built in a kind of expressionist confectioner style, lies lonely in front of a picturesque alpine backdrop. A jaunty officer who has not only turned his head to many virgins is transferred there as a punishment. First, Rischka robbed the officer down to his underpants and then fell in love with him. Papa robber captain doesn’t like it that much. This leads to some turbulence and a successful siege of the fort. …
(Translation: GT, JJ)
Thursday, 14th march 2019 – 8.00 pm
Studio 3, Cinema of the Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Kaiserpassage
The city without Jews
Austria 1924, 87 min.
Director: Hans Karl Breslauer
Musical accompaniment: Günter Buchwald (piano)
As the title suggests, the film plays out a model that was soon to become a horrific reality in the Third Reich. In the novel by the Jewish author Hugo Bettauer, which served as a model for the film, the action takes place in Vienna; in the film it will be a fantasy city that the Jewish population is supposed to leave. Opinions clash irreconcilably: will the displacement lead to an economic boom or is the loss of the Jewish part of the people an irreplaceable loss? The most radical leader of the anti-semitic party played the actor Hans Moser, who was already well known at the time. His only problem is his propensity for alcohol, which promptly becomes his undoing, but gives the film a happy ending.
Until a few years ago, only an incomplete sw copy was known. Then a very nicely colored copy was discovered in Paris, which was restored by the Filmarchiv Austria and can now be presented at the Karlsruhe Silent Film Festival.
Translation: GT/JJ
Thursday, 14th march 2019 – 9.15 pm
Studio 3, Cinema of the Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Kaiserpassage
Meyer from Berlin (OT: Meyer aus Berlin)
Germany 1918, 58 min.
Direcetor: Ernst Lubitsch
Musical Accompaniment: Gabriel Thibaudeau (piano)
Friday, 15th march 2019 – 7.00 pm
Studio 3, Cinema of the Kinemathek Karlsruhe
The Ancient Law
Germany 1923, 135 min
Director: E. A. Dupont
Accoompaniment: Günter Buchwald (piano)
E. A. Dupont is best known as the director of the film “Varieté”; but has created an extensive oeuvre that deserves to be better known.
About the content: Young Baruch grows up in an Eastern European shtetl. After attending a performance at a traveling theater, he dreams of a career as an actor. His father, the rabbi, is strictly against the son’s plans. His dream comes true, but he has to leave the shtetl in order to be sponsored by a princess in Vienna, to become an admired actor. His father rejected him; however, his heart remained in the shtetl. In the “Old Law” the culture of the Eastern European Jews and the Western culture of the capital of Austria-Hungary meet. The film depicts this conflict convincingly.
In the leading roles Ernst Deutsch (emigrated to the USA) and Henny Porten (had been married to a Jewish man since 1921 and withstood the constant pressure and repeated requests to divorce her husband).
Translation: GT/JJ
Friday, 15th march 2019 – 9.30 pm
Studio 3, Cinema of the Kinemathek Karlsruhe
The Curse (OT: Der Fluch)
Austria 1924, 71 min.
Director: Robert Land
Musical Accompaniment: Andreas Benz (piano)
The Filmarchiv Austria has made a contribution to the rediscovery of Robert Land, who is best known to us as the director of “I kiss your hand, Madame” (OT: Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame). One of the films made accessible again is “The Curse” from Land’s early work.
Against the backdrop of a 19th-century Galician shtetl, this story evolves around love, disloyalty, guilt and atonement, but also about forgiveness and forgiveness. Jehuda Nachmann, an enterprising horse dealer, does not strictly adhere to the ingrained traditions of the Jewish shtetl. On the day of the wedding he cheated on his wife Leah with the more attractive Rachel. Lea commits suicide; her father Esra curses the faithless Yehuda. He has to leave the shtetl and tries his luck in exile until a servant of Esra tracks him down. Yehuda has to flee again … The film is a “must” for all Lilian Harvey fans; her role as Nachmann’s daughter was her first ever film engagement!
Translation: GT/JJ
Saturday, 16th march 2019, 4.00 pm
Stephanssaal, Ständehausstraße 4
East and West / Mazel Tov!
Austria 1923, 91 min.
Director: Sidney Goldin
Musical Accompaniment: Günter Buchwald (piano and violin)
In this silent film comedy “East and West”, Yiddish “Misrech und Majrew”, german “Ost und West”, meet in an almost classic way. Sidney Goldin was on a European tour with his American Yiddish theater and the well-known actors Molly Picon and Jacob Kalich and took the opportunity to shoot this film in Vienna. A Jewish millionaire and his daughter from New York travel to a wedding of close relatives in Poland, who practice their traditional lifestyle in a Jewish shtetl. This also includes a lot of music, so that there is a lot of Yiddish fiddling with the musical accompaniment. The lively and carefree daughter (Molly Picon) is only too happy to ignore traditions. When her cousin Selda is about to get married, she plays a wedding with some guests, but with a ring on her finger, she is suddenly really married to the Talmudic student Ruben, and he doesn’t want to divorce until five years later. A long time, during which Ruben in Vienna slowly underwent a transformation into a Western-assimilated Jew. With amazing consequences!
Translation: GT/JJ
Project “Education and Silent Film“
The city of Karlsruhe has been promoting projects by artists with students for many years. At the festival in March 2018, we were able to present the results of two projects on the subject of “School and Silent Film” that were carried out at the Helmholtz and Lessing grammar schools. After the success of these two projects, the City of Karlsruhe approved two further projects, which were carried out again at the Helmholtz and now at the Bismarck-Gymnasium. Unfortunately, the audience response fell short of our expectations last year. We have therefore decided to fully integrate the project at the Helmholtz-Gymnasium into the festival and not to choose a special program outside of the festival’s theme. The young musicians of the Helmholtz-Gymnasium will be able to present their musical silent film accompaniments in a prominent place in the program – as a film concert on Saturday evening!
Translation: GT/JJ
Poster by Josef Fenneker, photo/file: SDK Berlin, © City of Bocholt
Saturday 16th march 2019 – 7.00 pm
Stephanssaal, Ständehausstraße 4
Film Concert
Guest Project: Education and Silent Film – Helmholtz-Gymnasium
“Ernst Lubitsch – Three Early Films”
Ernst Lubitsch, When I was dead (photo: FWM-Stiftung)
Saturday, 16th march 2019 – 10.00 pm
Stephanssaal, Ständehausstraße 4
The Yellow Ticket (The Devil’s Pawn ) (OT: Der Gelbe Schein)
Germany 1918, 63 min.
Director: Victor Janson and Eugen Illés
Musical Accompaniment: Karlsruher Improvisations-Ensemble (Matthias Vogt – Bhadra H. Nofer – Nieder is prevented)
Jewish women who want to live in St. Petersburg in Russia during the Tsarist era need a “yellow ticket”. However, they are then only allowed to pursue one activity: they have to work as prostitutes. The young Lea (Pola Negri), supposedly of Jewish origin, wants to study medicine in St. Petersburg. In order to realize this, she has acquired a second identity. She leads a double life that inevitably collapses when a student who has fallen in love with her meets her in the brothel. How the highly dramatic and intricately told film comes to a happy ending is not revealed here. Not even what consequences the film had for Pola Negri.
Translation: GT/JJ
Sunday, 17th march 2019 – 12 am
Stephanssaal, Ständehausstraße 4
The Pride of the Company (OT: Der Stolz der Firma)
Germany 1914, 58 min.
Director: Carl Wilhelm
with Ernst Lubitsch
Musical Accompaniment: Andreas Benz (piano)
The film is more or less a continuation of the successful previous film “The company is getting married” (OT: Die Firma heiratet), which unfortunately is considered lost. Again the clumsy apprentice Siegmund Lachmann is in the foreground, played by Ernst Lubitsch so great that he carried the audience to laughter. Lachmann has to leave his hometown because his boss fired him. He goes to the capital, to Berlin and finds a job in a fashion salon. Soon he was flirting not only with all the female customers, but also with the boss’s daughter. That costs him the job again. …
Translation: GT/JJ
Sunday, 17th march 2019, 3.00 pm
Stephanssaal, Ständehausstraße 4
Guest Project: Education and Silent Film – Bismarck-Gymnasium (Highschool) “Georges Meliès and Segundo de Chomon – Fantasy-Cinema of the silent film era”
Duration: approx. 60 min.
The pianist Frieder Egri also supervised the project at the Bismarck-Gymnasium. Together with the music teacher of the AG Musik und Film, Jan H. Kuschel, musical accompaniments were created for a short film program that convincingly shows that fantasy cinema produced great films a hundred years ago.
The films: The Trip to the Moon (OT: Le voyage dans la lune) from 1903 by Georges Meliès is one of the great classics of silent films. A couple of daring scientists have the idea to be shot at the moon in a capsule. Landing on the moon, the cheeky scientists have to endure all kinds of adventures. We present the restored colored version.
“The Trip to the Moon” by Georges Meliès
The Red Spectre (OT: Le spectre rouge)
The lesser-known Segundo de Chomon is considered the Spanish Meliès. A ghost climbs out of a coffin and unfolds its supernatural powers: Figures disappear and are transformed. A visually opulent film that convinces with the many fantastic ideas and the splendid coloring.
The other films: The infernal Cake-walk (OT: Le Cake-Walk infernal) (Georges Meliès, 1903)
Apparitions (OT: Le Revenant) (Georges Meliés, 1903)
The Loony Musician (OT: Le Maestro Do-Mi-Sol-Do) (Georges Meliés, 1906)
Baron Münchhausen’s dream (OT: Les hallucinations du Baron de Munchhausen) (Georges Meliés, 1911)
Baron Münchhausen eats well and a lot and drinks even more. This has fatal consequences: at night he rolls in bed, dreams badly and worse and worse.
Sunday 17th march – 7.00 pm
Stephanssaal, Ständehausstraße 4 – Closing Event
Two Films by Ernst Lubitsch
When Four Do the Same Thing
Germany 1917, 29min.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Musical Accompaniment: EMURA, Reiko (piano) and MINAMI, Shinichi (Percussion)
Romeo and Juliet in the Snow (OT: Romeo und Julia im Schnee)
Germany 1919/20, 45 min.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Musical Accompaniment: EMURA, Reiko (piano) and MINAMI, Shinichi (Percussion)
