Carmen (1918)

Movie
Original title	Carmen
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	1918
length	80 minutes
Rod
Director	Ernst Lubitsch
script	Norbert Falk , Hanns Kraly
production	Paul Davidson
music	Artur Vieregg (cinema music)
camera	Alfred Hansen
occupation
Pola Negri : Carmen Harry Liedtke : Don José Navarro Leopold von Ledebur : Escamillo Grete Diercks : Dolores Paul Biensfeldt : Smuggler Garcia Paul Conradi : Smuggler Don Cairo Max Kronert : Smuggler Remendato Margarete Kupfer : Carmen's landlady Sophie Pagay : Don José's mother Magnus Stifter : Lieutenant Esteban Heinrich Peer : English officer Wilhelm Diegelmann : prison guard Victor Janson Albert Venohr

Carmen is a German feature film by Ernst Lubitsch from 1918 and an early film adaptation of the opera Carmen of the same name .

action

The dragoon Don José visits his mother and bride Dolores, who live somewhere in the Spanish province. There he received the order to come to Seville , as he was to be promoted. In Seville he met the cigarette factory worker Carmen . The attractive gypsy is arrested after a fight in the factory. Don José is supposed to guard them and cannot resist Carmen's approaches. He helps her to escape and is demoted again as a punishment. As a simple guard he now leads a bleak existence. Again he meets Carmen in Seville and she takes advantage of him again. The guard is distracted by Carmen so that a gang of smugglers remains undetected. Don José is finally expelled from the army when he kills an officer in a duel. He is now a smuggler himself and can be so close to Carmen. However, Don José soon realizes that the bullfighter Escamillo has won Carmen's heart. Out of jealousy, he stabs Carmen to death in front of the bullring .

background

The film had its world premiere on December 20, 1918 in Berlin in the Union Theater ( UT Kurfürstendamm ). In 1921 the film was premiered in the United States under the title Gypsy Blood . In the USA there had already been two large-scale productions of the Carmen story in 1915. The first was staged by Cecil B. DeMille with opera singer Geraldine Farrar in the title role. Raoul Walsh shot the second version in 1915 with Theda Bara in the title role. In 1916 the Carmen parody Burlesque on Carmen by Charles Chaplin appeared in the USA .

Reviews

• Lexicon of international films : the plot advances with difficulty and the characters are barely developed; nevertheless, the film established the fame of actress Pola Negri. Despite all the weaknesses, not only of great interest in terms of film history.

Web links

• Carmen in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Carmen in the online film database
• Carmen at filmportal.de
• Film poster by Josef Fenneker at Deutsche Kinemathek

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Carmen. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 15, 2017 .