The Indian tomb (1921)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The Indian tomb
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1921
length restored version: 212 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Joe May
script Thea from Harbou
Fritz Lang
production May-Film GmbH
music Wilhelm Loewitt
camera Werner Brandes and Karl Puth
occupation

The Indian Tomb is a monumental film and a silent film by director Joe May in two parts. The first part is entitled “The Mission of Yoghi”, the second part is called “The Tiger of Esnapur”. The screenplay was written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou based on the novel by Thea von Harbou. The premiere took place on October 22, 1921 (1st part) and on November 19, 1921 (2nd part) in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin.

action

Part 1: The sending of Yoghi

The Maharajah of Esnapur sends his Yoghi Ramigani to the architect Herbert Rowland in England. He is supposed to build a tomb for the wife of the Maharajah. Rowland falls under the spell of Yoghi and follows him immediately to India . He leaves his bride Irene a letter informing her of the destination of the trip, but the Yoghi conjures it away. Irene finds out the destination thanks to Rowland's servant and also hurries to Esnapur. The Maharajah confides in Rowland. It turns out that Savitri, the princess, is still alive and is being held captive in her chambers. Because she had a love affair with the British officer Mac Allan, the vengeful maharajah wants to punish both of them with death. The dancer Mirrjha acts as a secret messenger of love between Mac Allen and the prisoner in the palace. But Rowland and Irene suddenly find themselves prisoners in a "golden cage", at the mercy of the Maharajah and unable to leave the heavily guarded palace. The Maharajah disapproves of Irene's presence and has a ban on contact with Rowland so that his creativity is not impaired and he can work in peace. The Maharaja's hunters cling to Mac Allan's tracks. He is ambushed during a tiger hunt and barely able to escape after a wild shootout and a desperate fight.

Part 2: The tiger of Esnapur

Irene learns that Rowland has defied the Maharaja's orders and sought contact with her. Due to the curse of a penitent, he has now become sick with leprosy and is vegetating in quarantine in the leper courtyard. At Irene's request, he is cured by Yoghi Ramigani. After a headless escape through the wilderness, Mac Allan is captured by the Maharaja's tiger hunters and thrown into the dungeon of the palace. The Maharajah lets his tigers tear him to pieces. Even the dancer Mirrjha, as a confidante of the princess, is not safe from the prince's vengeance. She is murdered by a targeted snake bite. As she dies, she warns Rowland and Irene of their own death. So they decide to flee together with the princess. At night they shoot their way out of the palace, row across the lake that surrounds it, and flee into a steep, rocky valley, closely followed by the prince and his captors. They barely escape over a suspension bridge, which Irene cuts off before crossing. When the arriving maharajah threatens to kill Irene if the refugees do not give up, the princess falls desperately into the abyss and dies. The vengeful maharajah collapses and regrets his actions. Now Rowland is building the planned tomb as a memorial to a great love and a great guilt . At the end the Maharajah lies on the front steps, suffering, desperate, wrapped in a penitential robe, while Rowland and Irene make their way home to England.

meaning

The Indian tomb is an opulent monumental film with many magnificent exotic costumes and interiors, numerous large buildings, hundreds of extras and with exotic wild animals. This makes it typical for German cinema production in the years after the First World War. The dramaturgical concept with two full-length parts that build on one another also corresponds to the customs of the time and can also be found in other productions of that time, e.g. B. in Dr. Mabuse, the player or The Nibelungs . There was also a “two-evening” version of the Austrian monumental film Sodom and Gomorrah .

Remarks

The Indian tomb was produced by May-Film GmbH of director and producer Joe May after the eight-part exotic series Die Herrin der Welt (1919) was commercially successful. Originally, screenwriter Fritz Lang was also intended to direct the film. Joe May took the project on on the grounds that Lang was too young and inexperienced for such an expensive and monumental film project. Lang then turned his back on May-Film GmbH and continued his previous collaboration with producer Erich Pommer at Decla-Bioscop .

The buildings and costumes came from Otto Hunte , Erich Kettelhut , Karl Vollbrecht and Martin Jacoby-Boy . May had several massive, large-scale structures built for The Indian Tomb on the site of his production facility in Woltersdorf (near Berlin) , including two Gopura temple buildings and a Maharaja's palace with a garden and tiger courtyard. The limestone from the neighboring quarry was used as the material. Thousands of extras filled the stage as the people of the Maharaja of Esnapur, the Sarrasani circus provided animals. The production costs for this project are said to have been between 20 and 24 million marks.

An American version of the film with English subtitles was restored by David Shepard in 2000. A DVD edition of the restored and viraged version is currently only available in the USA.

In 1938 and 1959 , the Indian tomb was remade in Germany. The plot of these two remakes differs considerably from the first version from 1921, despite similar motifs and main characters. In the version from 1959, Fritz Lang, who had returned from the USA, took over the direction.

In 2007 the audio book The Indian Tomb was published . It formed the prelude to the audio book series Films to Hear , which aims to bring the literary works behind popular film classics back into view in the form of a new medium or to make them heard. It was read by the actor and director Rudolf W. Marnitz .

See also

literature

  • Thea von Harbou : The Indian tomb . Berlin 1918.
  • Thea von Harbou : The Indian tomb. Novel . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-596-22705-4 .
  • Thea von Harbou: The Indian tomb: a fantastic audio book. Read by Rudolf Marnitz . MEDIA Net-Edition, Kassel 2007, ISBN 978-3-939988-01-4 .
  • Georges Sturm: The Circe, the Peacock and the Half-Blood. Fritz Lang's films 1916–1921 (= international film history. Vol. 8). WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2001, ISBN 3-88476-434-9 .
  • Michael Hanisch: The Indian tomb . In Günther Dahlke, Günther Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginnings to 1933. A film guide. Henschel Verlag, 2nd edition, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89487-009-5 , p. 59 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Hanisch: The Indian tomb . In Günther Dahlke, Günther Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginnings to 1933. A film guide. Henschel Verlag, 2nd edition, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89487-009-5 , p. 61.