The great gabbo

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Movie
German title The great gabbo
Original title The Great Gabbo
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1929
length 2,453.34 m (10 reels), 92 minutes
Rod
Director James Cruze
script Hugh Herbert
production James Cruze,
Nat Cordish ,
Henry D. Meyer
music Howard Jackson
camera Ira Morgan
occupation

The great Gabbo is the German title of the American sound film The Great Gabbo , which James Cruze directed in 1928 for his own company James Cruze Productions. The screenplay was written by Hugh Herbert based on the short story The Rival Dummy by Ben Hecht . The title role was played by Erich von Stroheim , who also co-directed, without being named in the opening and closing credits . It was his first sound film.

action

The ventriloquist Gabbo is able to let his ventriloquist doll Otto speak and sing while he himself eats, drinks and smokes, but is pathologically self-centered and treats Mary, his young assistant, very badly despite her undisguised affection for him. When she accidentally drops a tray one evening during his performance, he continues the performance unmoved, but covers her behind the stage with accusations and filthiness that even the stage workers notice unpleasantly. In the dressing room, Mary tries to warn him of the consequences of his unbridled selfishness; it would lead him to ruin. She threatens to leave him, he counters that he doesn't care. Then she puts her plan into action and leaves.

Gabbo is left alone with his doll Otto, with whom he speaks in the cloakroom as if she were a living person. He insists on not needing anyone but himself. Besides, Mary would come back on her own. Otto replies quietly that he doesn't see it that way. While Gabbo is having a drink and is cursing Mary, Otto starts a deeply moving speech in which he describes all the good Mary has done for him and Gabbo, and suggests that Gabbo might have liked Mary a little after all. Gabbo starts up and threatens to beat Otto to pieces if he wasn't calm. He looks at himself in the mirror and affirms that he is successful alone and on his own initiative.

Time flies. Gabbo actually becomes a huge star on Broadway and enjoys his popularity in nightclubs. There the waiters have an extra table ready for him and Otto, to which they offer the finest dishes. One evening, Mary and her new partner Frank, who are involved in the same show as Gabbo and Otto, are also guests in the bar. While Frank bluntly criticizes the excessive self-adulation that Gabbo does, Mary expresses sympathy for him. When Frank returns to the theater, Mary stays in the pub. While Gabbo is dining, Otto entertains those present with a song. Gabbo notices Mary, but it is Otto who has her invited over to the table. It is also he who tells her how much they missed her.

Mary lets Gabbo take her to the theater. Frank is not happy when he sees the two arrive. Even less so when he realizes that Gabbo had flowers brought to Mary's dressing room. He forbids her further contact with Gabbo. But she goes into his cloakroom during Gabbo's appearance on stage and arranges everything as it did when she was his assistant. When Gabbo perceives this, he tells Otto passionately that Mary would return to them. After another argument with Frank, Mary promises to tell Gabbo the truth at the earliest opportunity: that she and Frank have married. When he finds out, Gabbo goes nuts, blows up the finale of the show and hits Otto in the face. He then loses his commitment. He sneaks away when the letters of his name are removed from the program board: the “Big Gabbo” is no more.

background

Production manager was Vernon Keays , the scenery was created by the scenographer Robert E. Lee. André-ani designed the costumes . Maurice L. Kusell choreographed the dance numbers. The recordings for the optical sound of Western Electric concerned Helmar Bergman . Ira Morgan was in charge of the camera .

The film premiered in America at the Selwyn Theater in New York on September 12, 1929. It was also shown in Europe. It had its premiere in Germany and Austria only in 1930, the German version was created as one of the first dubbing works in Germany by Hermann Fellner and Josef Somló , who also did the "due to an agreement with George W. Weeds, Samuel Zierler and Harry H. Thomas" Distribution for Germany (Fellner & Somló GmbH, Berlin) took over. The German sound recordings were made by Adolf Jansen and Fritz Wenneis , the sound editing was done by E. Baum. Hans Peppler (Erich von Stroheim), Anneliese Würtz , Eugen Rex , Felix Basch, Greta Keller , Ludwig Behrends and Otto Waldis spoke the German dialogues under the direction of Felix Basch .

The film also ran in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Finland, Japan and Brazil. After Eckardt (2005) it was also shown in Cape Town .

The version originally awarded by Sono Art-World Wide Pictures had color sequences using the multicolor method; this version is presumably lost .

The film music was arranged by Howard Jackson . The film includes song numbers by Lynn Cowan and Paul Titsworth ( Every Now and Then , I'm in Love with You , The New Dance Step ) and by Donald McNamee and King Zany ( I'm Laughing , Ickey , Caught in a Web of Love , also the now lost colored number The Ga-Ga Bird ):

  • Text: Lynn Cowan, Music: Paul Titsworth:
    • Every Now and Then - sung by Marjorie Kane and Donald Douglas
    • I'm in Love with You - sung by Betty Compson and Donald Douglas
    • That New Step - sung by Marjorie Kane and choir
  • Text: King Zany, Music: Donald McNamee:
    • I'm Laughing - sung by Otto the dummy and Erich von Stroheim
    • Ickey (Lollipop Song) - sung by Otto the dummy and Erich von Stroheim
    • Web of Love - sung by Betty Compson and Donald Douglas

These pieces of music were also available on gramophone records . Examples:

  • I'm in Love with You (from the movie The Great Gabbo , 1929) (Lynn Cowan / Paul Titsworth), The High Hatters, with vocal refrain, on HMV 1929

Robert Gilbert , Richard Rillo and Armin Robinson wrote the lyrics for the German edition in 1930:

  • What your look promises ( I'm in Love with You ) Foxtrot from the sound film “The Big Gabbo” (P. Titsworth, R. Rillo, A. Robinson). Fred Bird Rhythmicans with Refraingesang: Luigi Bernauer , on Homocord 4-3706-I (Matr. H-62807), 1930
  • Ha, ha, ha! Then I laugh! ( I'm laughing ) Foxtrot from the sound film “The Great Gabbo” (King Zany and Don. McNamee) Text by Robert Gilbert and A. Robinson. Dajos Béla dance orchestra with singing, on Odeon O-2917 a (Matr.Be 8926), 1930

reception

The Great Gabbo met with rather restrained enthusiasm when it premiered in America. Stroheim received good reviews, but the film did nothing to advance his career.

"With characters like that of the seedy magician [!] In The Great Gabbo (1929, The Great Gabbo), he began to ironically break his image of the villain or his standard appearance as a gaudy officer, and later to humanize it with resignation."

- steffi-line

The mixing of the tragedy about the ventriloquist with revue-like dance and song numbers that were perceived as inorganic was not well received. For the magazine Photoplay the film was "a bitter disappointment":

“This is a bitter disappointment. Director James Cruze tried to cross a fine Ben Hecht story of an insanely egotistical vaudeville ventriloquist with one of these Hollywood musical revues, and both suffer. Only a fine performance by the bullet-headed Eric von Stroheim and a good one by Betty Compson save the pieces. Cruze seems to have lost his sense of humor, and the lighting and scenario are terrible. "

- Photoplay, December 1929.

The New York Times found “[…] the narrative absorbing, so much that its 'elaborate pictorial spectacle on the stage and a real adagio act' impeded appreciation of the story of the 'presumably marvelous ventriloquist'.” And it said about the main actor therein: "Mr. von Stroheim is punctilious in the earnestness with which he attacks his role. He might perhaps imbued it with a little more imagination, for when he is supposed, and only supposed, to make the dummy talk there is never a sign of movement in his throat. "

The film historian Arthur Lennig wrote that the film showed little ingenuity and did not bring its actors to advantage. On the budget restrictions of the film, he attributes several "slip of the tongue" by members of the cast to the final cut. Only Erich von Stroheim's voice made an impression:

"It is the voice, frenzied and then modulated to a pianissimo, that is one of the strongest threads, carrying the interest over sequences devoted to color and stage show that would be irrelevant gaps in productions less skillfully directed and enacted."

- Variety , December 31, 1928

Stroheim, who immigrated to America in 1909, spoke a strange mixture of continental Viennese and broad American Midwest dialect around 1929. Stroheim takes on this mixture again as Gabbo, while Gabbo's second self, the ventriloquist dummy Otto, speaks with a distinctly “foreign” sounding, theatrical German accent, as comedians do on entertainment stages when they are supposed to portray Germans.

In Paimann's film lists , the German version The Great Gabbo is rated quite positively:

“The interest in the topic overcomes the initial monotony of the dialogue between the artist and his puppet. It gets very gripping later. The direction maintains the continuity of the events in spite of the script that breaks up into appearances. Stroheim lends his abundant skill to the main role, complemented by Peppler's organ corresponding to his habitus. The rest of the ensemble also plays well. "

Aftermath

The basic idea of ​​the film, the ventriloquist drifting into madness and his alter ego , the ventriloquist dummy, has had a stimulating effect several times over the course of film history:

  • The most famous was the British episodic horror film Dead of Night from 1945, to which Alberto Cavalcanti contributed an episode entitled The Ventriloquist's Dummy .
  • The 1978 film Magic, starring Anthony Hopkins and Ann-Margret , is about a ventriloquist who, madly, commits murders at the imaginary command of his doll "Fats".
  • Two episodes of the American mystery television series The Twilight Zone (German title: Incredible stories ) by Rod Serling , The Dummy and Caesar and Me take up the motif.
  • In an episode of the animated series The Simpsons , Krusty Gets Kancelled , there is a ventriloquist dummy called "Gabbo".
  • The “villain” Arnold Wesker, the “ventriloquist” (The Ventriloquist) and his doll “Scarface” in the Batman comic series are also based on The Great Gabbo : if there was “Otto” for the friendly, bright half of Gabbo's soul, like that Here the doll embodies the dark side of Wesker's split personality.

literature

  • Richard Barrios: A Song in the Dark. The Birth of the Musical Film . Illustrated Edition, Oxford University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-19-508811-5 , pp. 12, 111, 124, 126, 128, 131, 186, 189, 217–221, 261, 272, 302, 388, 396, 406, 441. (English)
  • Edwin M. Bradley: The First Hollywood Musicals. A Critical Filmography of 171 Features, 1927 through 1932. McFarland, 2004, ISBN 0-7864-2029-4 , pp. Xi, 60–62, 264, 372. (English)
  • Michael Eckardt: Film Criticism in Cape Town 1928–1930: An Explorative Investigation Into the Cape Times and Die Burger . AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2005, ISBN 1-919980-61-X . (English)
  • Kim R. Holston: Movie Roadshows. A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings, 1911-1973. McFarland, 2012, ISBN 978-0-7864-6062-5 , pp. 66–67, 291, 360. (English)
  • Miles Kreuger (Ed.): The Movie Musical from Vitaphone to 42nd Street as Reported in a Great Fan Magazine . Dover Publications, New York 1975, ISBN 0-486-23154-2 . (English)
  • Arthur Lennig: Stroheim . University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2000, ISBN 0-8131-2138-8 . (English)
  • Arne Lunde: Nordic Exposures. Scandinavian Identities in Classical Hollywood Cinema. (= New Directions in Scandinavian Studies ). University of Washington Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-295-99045-3 , pp. 108-109, 211. (English)
  • Jerry Vermilye: The Films of the Twenties . Citadel Press, Secaucus 1985, ISBN 0-8065-0960-0 . (English)

Web links

items

Illustrations

Illustrated Film-Kurier No. 1406, 1930

Still images

Film music

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See IFK No. 1406, p. 2.
  2. ↑ "In 1930 he took over the first synchronization of a foreign language production in Germany ( The Great Gabbo with Erich v. Stroheim)", cf. ÖBL
  3. ↑ Information from IFK No. 1406, cf. kinofilmfan January 14, 2014.
  4. ↑ See release info in the Internet Movie Database
  5. ↑ See Eckard p. 101.
  6. ↑ Multicolor was an additive two-color process and built on the older Prizmacolor process by William Van Doren Kelley and Charles Raleigh (1913): “Multicolor, based on the earlier Prizmacolor process, went out of business in 1932, and its assets were bought by Cinecolor. "
  7. ↑ Bradley has more information about this number: “An even more bizarre number, The Ga-Ga Bird , was filmed for The Great Gabbo but is absent from the public-domain prints now in circulation, as well as - regrettably - the recent restoration of the film by the Library of Congress. James Cozart, who oversaw the restoration, believes, that The Ga-Ga Bird and also maybe The Web of Love were filmed in color some time after the rest of the film was made, probably as a booster for the box-office. [...] The Web of Love survives, The Ga-Ga Bird has not; apparently. A glimpse on the number - dancers moving around in chicken suits - can be seen during the climactic montage. The restored print is missing the few seconds of accompanying music, but it can be heard on other prints. There is also a short sequence earlier of chorus girls removing what looks to be the same costumes. This was probably where Ga-Ga Bird was positioned in the film. " (Bradley p. 62).
  8. ↑ See plate review by Maurice Fenton in Photoplay , February 1930, p. 84.
  9. ↑ Label shown at ytimg.com
  10. ↑ label shown. at discogs.com
  11. ↑ Lenning p. 295.
  12. ↑ See mrqe.com : “The Great Gabbo, made at the height of the early talkie musical revue boom, contains a series of inexplicable and incongruous musical production numbers, clumsily grafted onto this Lon Chaney-esque tale of psychological horror.”
  13. ↑ Cf. virtual-history.com , illustration at archive.org , quoted in. at Kreuger p. 111.
  14. ↑ Quoted from Holston, p. 66.
  15. ↑ Cf. Lennig p. 292, according to Bradly that also concerned Stroheim himself, cf. P. 61: “Cruze did not bother to re-take Stroheim's periodic flubbing of his lines; one stumble comes during a tense scene at the climax. "
  16. ↑ See Lunde p. 109.
  17. ↑ See postimg.org
  18. ↑ Season 3, episode 33.
  19. ↑ Season 5, Episode 148.
  20. ↑ Season 4, episode 22.
  21. ↑ It is named after the title character of the gangster film of the same name, which Howard Hawks made in 1932 with Paul Muni in the title role.
  22. ↑ See wikia.com , German at wikia.com ; Arnold Wesker is probably not called for nothing like a British playwright who became famous in the 1950s and 1960s for works such as The Kitchen , Chicken Soup with Barley , Next Year in Jerusalem and Day after Day .