The Man Without a Name (1921)

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Movie
Original title The man with no name
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1921
length approx. 420 minutes
Rod
Director Georg Jacoby
script Robert Liebmann
Georg Jacoby
production Paul Davidson
for PAGU, Berlin
camera Frederik Fuglsang
occupation

The Man Without a Name is a six-part German adventure film from 1921 about the globetrotter and disguise artist Peter Voss with Harry Liedtke in the title role. Directed by Georg Jacoby .

action

1st part: The millionaire

Peter Voss is a jack-of-all-trades and globetrotter - charming, eloquent, tricky and a master of masks. These qualities are also urgently needed, because his extremely rich uncle Axel Voss is in a difficult situation: In order not to go bankrupt with his private bank, this Peter asks to help him. Voss already has a plan: You only have to presumably steal your own bank in order to be restructured by the insurance company. And so junior boss Peter Voss "steals" a total of 25 million, which in truth no longer exist. In order to cover up his own track, he even fakes his own death. He starts his seaplane and allegedly smears it with it. While the plane goes up in flames, Peter runs away. However, the bank's insurance company has become suspicious and sends the clever detective Bobby Dodd to track down the missing 25 million and the thief. Dodd is always on the heels of Peter; At a party in Frederik Nissen's house, in whose daughter Gert Peter is in love, the trap almost snaps shut. Although he is masked as bandmaster, Peter is exposed. But before he can be arrested, he escapes in a wild chase over the roofs. He disguises himself as a sailor and is hired on a ship that is supposed to take him out of the country. While the steamer is casting off, Bobby and Gert reach the port with father. But they are too late.

Part 2: The Emperor of the Sahara

The escape continues across Europe: to Venice , Trieste and Scheveningen . Dodd almost caught him three times, but each time the adventurer manages to escape at the last second. In Africa, Gert, her father and Bobby Dodd succeed in picking up Peter's track again. Then the young woman has a strange encounter: One day a strange-looking man in an even stranger dress vies for the favor of the beautiful device. The desert son named Prince Achmed humbly calls himself 'Emperor of the Sahara'. At first, Gert cannot make sense of the exotic stranger's advances, nor does he feel anything for him. The young woman has not yet realized that behind this masquerade is of course Peter Voss again. When Gert recognizes him, it is almost too late for Peter.

Part 3: Yellow Beasts

While Dodd sticks to Peter's heels, he in turn pursues Frederik Nissen and his daughter Gert. All three go to the extremely magnificent castle of the alleged emperor of the Sahara, which is located in the desert of Morocco. Disguised as a camel driver, he enters his “own” castle and is immediately overwhelmed by the guards and thrown into the house's own dungeon. The real owner is a Berber prince, whose favorite wife Roschewa immediately hooks up with the European stranger. Of course, that immediately gets the Arabs going. Roschewa wants to help Peter and, while she dances in front of the guests, opens the castle's own lion cage in passing. The big cats soon chase the guests through the palace rooms, and soon the mess is perfect. Voss, who has now been able to free himself, climbs a chandelier with Gert and escapes from there to a gallery. Gert, her father and the other guests find rescue in a coach, while Voss, who is pursued by everyone, ends up on the breathless escape into the desert. There he collapses. A hyena is already sneaking around the unconscious.

4th part: The golden tide

Again, against all logic, Peter Voss is saved at the last second. His next destination: a strip of land in Spain called the "Gold Coast". All four protagonists find their way there one by one. A certain Palmas, an engineer by trade, is behind a large-scale hoax with which one wants to get hold of the millionaire Frederik Nissen. Nissen is telegraphed that a process has been developed to extract gold from seawater. To do this, the investor would have to inject a further 25 million. While Nissen wants to investigate this development, he is secretly pursued by Dodd. Gert, in turn, follows Dodd in the disguise of a boy. Voss has already slipped into a new role and is now working as a worker at Palmas in order to gain his trust. While Dodd then lets the dizziness explode and, by the way, saves Nissen's life, his 25 million go. The bullfighter Pol snatched it when Palmas died. Voss and Doddy decide to work together this once to catch Pol and get the money back from him.

5th part: The man with the iron nerves

On the hunt for Pol, Peter Voss and Bobby Dodd arrive in Barcelona. There the bullfighter pretends to be a Russian prince and plays Gernegroß. Little by little he is making fun of the stolen millions in the Moulin Rouge establishment. When Voss arrives there, he meets an old friend again, his former girlfriend Mabel Carlson. This has become a star of the variety show and has grown up on the wrong prince with the stolen millions. The jealous Mabel plays a nasty trick on Voss to wipe out one thing. After some back and forth, Peter and Bobby can arrest Pol the millionaire, and a large part of the money can be saved. But then the temporary alliance between Voss and Dodd suddenly dissolves. Dodd finally wants to arrest his friend, he's over the mountains again.

Part 6: The jump over the shadow

On his escape, Peter and Gert grew closer and closer. It is decided to get married without obtaining the consent of the father-in-law. Axel Voss pays his million dollar debt to Frederik Nissen - he sells his booming Gold Coast shares without further ado. Then Peter's uncle clears the table and confesses that he and Peter were just making up the whole alleged 25 million theft. Nissen then agrees to the marriage of the two young people and travels to Munich to give Peter and Gert his blessing. And finally, Bobby Dodd, who also arrives, can - at least for a short time - enjoy a triumph: He is finally allowed to arrest Peter Voss, the (alleged) thief of millions.

Production notes

In The Man With No Name is the first of several film versions of the popular adventure novel Peter Voss, who Millionendieb of Ewald Gerhard Seeliger . Filming began in the summer of 1920 and dragged on for several months. The film was shot in Germany, Denmark , Dalmatia , northern Italy , Spain , Morocco (e.g. Tetuan ) and the Sahara . The premieres of the individual parts were on March 11, March 18, March 29, April 8, April 19 and May 6, 1921 in the Berlin Mozart Hall . Five of the six films had a length of five acts and were between 65 and 80 minutes long, only the third part, Yellow Beasts , only had four acts.

The buildings come from the long-time film architect Ernst Lubitschs , Kurt Richter. Bruno Lopinski , who plays a supporting role here, also assisted director Jacoby. The film produced by PAGU was produced on behalf of UFA and is considered a classic example of an early German film series .

The interior photos were taken in the UFA Union studio in Berlin-Tempelhof .

Reviews

In the Kinobrief , issues 57 to 59, Hans Richter discussed the individual episodes in 1921 and came to different assessments. For example, he criticized the acting performance of Erich Kaiser-Titz, who had joined the crew in Der Kaiser der Sahara , “who unfortunately cannot get rid of a certain stiffness” and praised the rest of the time: “The pace has not slackened”. In the case of Yellow Beasts , Richter criticized the fact that this adventure episode had been “turned into a pompous oriental film. This maharajiad in the empire of the emperor is actually superfluous when viewed in light, at least for the theft of millions. ” The golden tide, on the other hand, is discussed quite well:“ Here the authors immediately follow the first part and gain the pace and the nice pace that was missed in the third part Humor again. "

Oskar Kalbus ' Vom Becoming German Film Art recalled: “The Man Without a Name” was an unconditional success. Why actually? Because he was and wanted to be nothing else than “film”. He never sought his means outside of the purely cinematic. So no "Enlightenment", no "Expressionism", no "Fiction", no "Psychology", but just over and over again only action, changing sensations, colorful events, beautiful scenes. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Richter (ed.): Kinobriefe (Kino), issue 58, Berlin April 1921
  2. ^ Oskar Kalbus: On the becoming of German film art. 1st part: The silent film. Berlin 1935. p. 48 f.

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