Cagliostro (1929)
Cagliostro is a French-German costume and historical silent film from 1929 by Richard Oswald . In the title role is Hans Stüwe to see.
action
The adventures of the Italian alchemist and impostor Joseph / Giuseppe Balsamo, who called himself Alessandro Cagliostro, are retold like a colorful sheet of pictures. With the conventionally designed film, great importance was attached to the visual display of splendor (film structures and costumes).
In a small, rural town, the still relatively unknown man from Palermo marries the young Lorenza Feliziani. On the same day he is said to be arrested for a number of offenses, but Cagliostro escapes arrest, accompanied by Lorenzas. Only now does she recognize the true self of her newlywed. Arrived in France, Cagliostro went in and out of the high nobility and tried to gain their trust. At the French royal court, he even gets into a tangible intrigue, the focus of which is the collar affair around Queen Marie Antoinette. Lorenza's love for her husband makes these Cagliostro's sinister plans to Louis XVI. betrayed in order to put her husband back on the right track. Cagliostro now has to flee again and follows his Lorenza, who has returned to Italy. But it is too late: Cagliostro falls into the hands of the judiciary and is supposed to answer for his actions on the bench. At the last minute he escapes the hangman's ax and flees again with Lorenza.
Production notes
Cagliostro was based on the novel of the same name (1927) by Johannes von Günther and Joseph Balsamo by Alexandre Dumas the Elder (1846). The film was shot in the studios of Paris and Epinay from October 1928 until the beginning of 1929. Cagliostro passed the German censorship on March 10, 1929. The premier of the ten-act film took place in Leipzig on April 4, 1929, four days later the Berlin premiere. Only a few days later Cagliostro could also be seen in cinemas in Vienna. The film opened in Paris on June 21, 1929.
Other award titles in Germany were Cagliostro - Life and Love of a Great Adventurer and Cagliostro - The Story of a Wild Life .
Maurice Desfassiaux and Jean Dréville worked on head cameraman Jules Krüger , the two Russian exiles Wladimir Wengeroff and Alexandre Kamenka were in charge of production. Alexander Ferenczy designed the buildings, which were executed by Lazare Meerson , the costume designs come from Eugène Lourié . Veteran director Siegfried Dessauer was only employed as a unit manager on this production. Marcel Carné gained early experience as an assistant director with this late silent film.
Ila Meery as Jeanne de la Motte has a short topless appearance, which caused all sorts of indignation at the time of the premiere.
Of the more than two hours of playing time (3241 meters), only about 54 minutes have been preserved.
Reviews
The film was almost always not very friendly.
Hanns G. Lustig wrote in pace : "Cagliostro. A crook. A crook? How can he then be personable? How can he then be a movie hero? He is - a handsome crook, a neat crook; and he loves his faithful Woman. (With Richard Oswald.) Oh, we would have preferred it if he hadn't been half as handsome as Herr Stüwe (…) The theater exists if it has résumés, stations. The film throws light on the broad fields in between, on the excitingly colorful landscape to the left and right of the racetrack. Richard Oswald, however, has a studio. He builds pretty stairs in it; and pretty little boxes, pretty dungeon walls; and pretty Hans Stuewe. and Miss Meery with a pretty, haunted bare chest. The famous necklace story ends here in great opera. Tosca, third act. And yet a happy ending with melancholy. Cagliostro: dangerous prelude to the great revolution. Richard Oswald, however, has a pretty studio. "
In Die Welt am Abend it says: "The Cagliostro film that Richard Oswald made tells, hesitantly, lengthily, not without repetitions and often incomprehensible, the story of the gold maker and adventurer who was involved in the infamous necklace process and who was one of the most delicate The film is in the manner of the American period films, but without speed, frenzy and ideas; towards the end, when Cagliostro is led to the gallows, some movement comes into the picture, but now it's too late, and that nice, personable Stüwe is anything more than a swindler. "
Hans Sahl found in the Berlin stock exchange courier : “With Cagliostro , Richard Oswald lets the old historical film appear again in the widely played costume parade. But the attempt fails. Richard Oswald, the director of gripping, moving city films, has neither the historical perspective nor the ability to roll up the Cagliostro material clearly and vividly for the French eighteenth century. Decorations, furniture, props, they alone are the mute heroes of a film plot that invented a sentimental, kitsch romance for the figure of the great adventurer (...). "
Hanns Horkheimer judged no less critical in the Berliner Tageblatt : “A German-French joint film with a time and cost expenditure of almost Fritz Lang's dimensions. The result: partly picture book, partly pompous revue. Again a splendid, perhaps the most splendid film material in history and world literature is wasted. (...) Cagliostro is Stüwe. In the midst of the pictorial jazz tempo, he celebrates played opera melodies in a strangely sweet way. Without the look of genius, without the grandeur of the man who was a world sensation for decades. (...) Oswald, the director, is difficult to judge after this film. This Cagliostro, this architecture and this author couple, who often enough failed even before smaller tasks, are too embarrassing. "
In the edition of April 6, 1929, on page 21 of the Österreichische Film-Zeitung, you can read: "This extraordinary film is fascinating because of the adventurous and colorful variety of its plot, as well as because of its sensational presentation, which has put enormous resources into service The constantly changing milieu offers incredibly effective picture sequences, which provide an extremely attractive background for the eventful course of events. (...) Hans Stüwe as the actor in the title role develops an extremely characteristic, pointed game "
Web links
- Cagliostro in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Cagliostro at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the Deutsche Zeitung, No. 84 a, of April 11, 1929, one can read: “What is striking about this film is a repulsive obscenity. There are scenes that the censors should have deleted for aesthetic reasons. One believes the de la Motte her whore nature when one sees her face, what with quite undelicate nudes! "
- ↑ Tempo, Berlin No. 82, April 9, 1929
- ↑ Eichberg Novelties in Die Welt am Abend, Berlin, No. 84, April 11, 1929
- ↑ HS, Berliner Börsen-Courier, No. 173 of April 14, 1929
- ↑ Berliner Tageblatt, No. 176 of April 14, 1929
- ↑ "Cagliostro". In: Österreichische Film-Zeitung , April 6, 1929, p. 21 (online at ANNO ).