Broken Blossoms (1936)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Broken Blossoms |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1936 |
| length | 86 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hans Brahm |
| script | Emlyn Williams |
| production | Julius Hagen |
| music | Karol Town Hall |
| camera | Curt Courant |
| cut |
Ralph Kemplen Jack Harris |
| occupation | |
| |
Broken Blossoms is a 1935 British melodrama directed by Hans Brahm , which he and his wife Dolly Haas directed in London during a stopover on their trip to the United States. The film is a remake of the Lillian Gish classic A Blossom Broken and, with the story The Chink and the Child, has a literary source by Thomas Burke .
action
Cheng Huan leaves his native China to make the Buddha's teachings known in the West. One day he arrives in the slums of London. He quickly becomes disillusioned, and all his confidence and optimism vanishes after he gets to know the harsh realities of the common people in the slums. Cheng is robbed and arrested and finally has to realize that nobody in this country is interested in Buddhism . Lucy Burrows lives in Cheng's neighborhood, the adopted daughter of the brutal prize boxer Battling Burrows, who regularly abuses and bullies the delicate girl. After Lucy is beaten again by Battling Burrows, the “broken flower”, as the title suggests, lies unconscious in the snow.
There she finds Cheng Huan, who takes Lucy into his modest accommodation and offers protection there. The Chinese carers Lucy lovingly and gives the beaten girl an impression of happiness for the first time in her life. But the one week of deep inner peace comes to an abrupt end when Battling Burrows tracks down Lucy at Cheng's after a fight they won, dragged her out of the apartment and, when her tutor, offended in his “honor”, dragged her home. There he beats her to death. Cheng runs after Lucy, but finds only the battered corpse of Lucy at Burrows. The Buddhist uses a revolver to kill the girl's killer who attacked him. Then the Chinese carries Lucy's body home, which is no longer but a burning hole: The suspicious neighbors have meanwhile burned Cheng's domicile down.
Production notes
Broken Blossoms was created in Twickenham Studios in October 1935 and was shown to a (business) audience for the first time on May 20, 1936 as part of a demonstration. The film could not be seen in Germany, not least because of the participation of the Jewish couple Haas / Brahm and other Jewish exiles (cameraman Curt Courant , composer Karol Rathaus ).
Alexander Korda was involved in the production without a name. Vincent Korda designed the film structures that Frederick Pusey carried out. Muir Mathieson was musical director.
useful information
Richard Barthelmess , the star of the first film adaptation, who was to stand in front of the camera with Dolly Haas in their next film project “Spy of Napoleon” in 1936, was amazed by the language talent of Haas, who spoke hard Cockney English in Broken Blossoms : “ I got the shock of my life when I found out that she was German and that she speaks privately with a light German accent ”.
Reviews
“Those German artists who turned their backs on the Third Reich usually didn't do badly. (…) This first foreign film [sic!] Means a triumph for the actress Dolly Haas, a considerable increase in her creative ability, as we knew it from Germany. She was never more mature, more full-blooded, more dramatic. (...) In her eyes there is an expression of horror, we find moments of despair, then complete submission again - sensations that were shaped with the most vivid force. (...) Having escaped the mediocrity of Berlin, it has, so to speak, been rediscovered. "
"Quite stylish and in some ways even more interesting than its predecessor."
Individual evidence
- ↑ cit. n. Kay Less : In life, more is taken from you than is given ... Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria 1933 to 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, p. 224, Hamburg 2011. Originally printed in “Film Weekly” of June 27, 1936
Web links
- Broken Blossoms in the Internet Movie Database (English)