Special marks
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Special marks |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1929 |
| length | 95 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Edmund Heuberger |
| script | Edmund Heuberger |
| production | Gustav Althoff |
| camera | Max Grix |
| occupation | |
| |
A special feature is a German crime - silent film with comedic undertones from 1929 by Edmund Heuberger with Carl Auen as a shrewd gentleman crook in the lead role.
action
Paris in the late 1920s. The gentleman Raoul leads a double life. During the day he appears as a man of honor with perfect manners, but at night he mutates into Lux, the criminal, a burglar king and impostor, who likes to show himself in a wide variety of masks. The police are always on his trail, and even the slightly idiot head of the international detective agency, Monsieur Fardot, a rather poor cartoon by Sherlock Holmes , whose wife is also cheating, tries in vain with his no less underexposed five detective agency employees to try Lux catch. The master crook always outsmarts his captors.
One day things get really serious for the gentleman crook. He is accused of having committed murder. Of course, Raoul is innocent, because he is not capable of such meanness. Now Lux has to rely entirely on his own nose and do the police and detective work himself to prove his innocence. After all sorts of detours that lead him into dangerous situations, Raoul alias Lux is able to convict the real culprit. By the way, he also helps the very young Marion, a girl in great need, out of a jam: a valuable old painting was stolen from her. Before the state power can arrest Lux for all the other crimes that they have long been accused of, the latter manages to escape via Lake Constance to Switzerland in the final hunt by car, plane and motorboat .
Production notes
The film, shot in August 1929 in Berlin and the surrounding area and in the Staaken film studios in just a few weeks, was censored on September 11, 1929. The first performance of the six-act act with a length of 2457 meters took place on December 13, 1929 in the Wittelsbach Palace. A youth ban was issued.
The buildings were designed by Gustav A. Knauer and Willy Schiller . Producer Gustav Althoff also took over the production management.
useful information
The film Special Characteristics is part of a series of later silent films (1929/1930) about the master crook “Lux”, which the Swiss-born Edmund Heuberger made with Carl Auen. The first strip of this series appeared in early 1929 under the title " Lux, the king of criminals " or " Lux, the king of bandits ". It followed, until the sound film had finally established itself in Germany, including the Lux film adventures "The Man in the Dark", "The Green Lantern", "Paris Underworld" and "Twice Lux" .
It was a characteristic of these films that the sympathy of the moviegoer should be drawn to the side of the “gangster”, ie Lux. The king of infiltration and escape and gentleman thief was always smart and shrewd, possessed charm and elegance and, moreover, a big heart, while the state power persecuting him was portrayed as fundamentally limited and simple-minded, dumb and slow and, moreover, as inexperienced.
Reviews
The reviews were mixed. Here are three examples:
"The detective humor, the funny cheek of the persecuted keep the audience in the mood, and the individual scenes with the different masks here and there always provide new tension. An equally realistic and humorous cash bar scene is one of the best of its kind. It is Edmund Heuberger's full technical direction. "
"The whole thing is a bit primitive, especially when French cars and police officers are unmistakably moving in the vicinity of Berlin, but Heuberger delivers a very neat cliché work, the special feature of which is that they have no special license plates."
“All the ideas of criminals and impostors are not enough to meet the film's need for such. (...) It would have been enough if a special style had been found in terms of film and performance. That's not the case; even humor does not arise. So the result is mediocrity. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ was shot at Wannsee
- ↑ According to the censorship authority, this last scene of the film with the successful attempt to evade the German police by fleeing could not be expected of the German cinema-goers and was then removed. This shortened the film by 48 meters, from 2,448 to 2,400 meters. That corresponds to about two minutes of film duration.
Web links
- Special features in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Special features at filmportal.de