The Lady in the Mask (1928)

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Movie
Original title The lady in the mask
Country of production German Empire
original language German
Publishing year 1928
length 100 minutes
Rod
Director Wilhelm Thiele
script Henrik Galeen
Alexander Esway
production UFA , Berlin
camera Carl Drews
occupation

The Lady with the Mask is a German silent film drama from 1928 by Wilhelm Thiele with the French Arlette Marchal in the title role of an impoverished young aristocrat and Max Gülstorff as her father. Heinrich George played another major role as a sleazy upstart in this "inflationary tragedy".

action

Germany in the 1920s. The old Baron von Seefeld and his pretty young daughter Doris have lost everything due to hyperinflation and are now impoverished. Doris relocates her most valuable coat, and father and daughter also have to sell their neat house. The new villa owner is the beefy wood dealer Otto Hanke and a parvenu straight out of a picture book. To keep his young lover, the dancer Kitty, in a good mood, he got on board as the financier of the Apollo Theater, where the devil is trying to get the largely talent-free young woman as a revue star. Doris von Seefeld is so desperate about her situation that she toyed with the idea of ​​killing herself and going into the water. In this situation she met the Russian exile Alexander von Illagin, who fled to Germany from Bolshevik Russia, who, once rich as a landowner in the tsarist empire, is now impoverished like her and makes his way as an extra at the Apollo Theater. Alexander recommends Doris, like him, to try the Apollo Theater, maybe there will be a job for her.

Said and done. When Doris goes to the revue director, he immediately realizes that she has talent - at least more than that Kitty. Doris is now supposed to replace Kitty and become the upcoming revue star instead. But there is one catch: you make it clear to her that she is lightly dressed, not to say, almost completely naked. Indignantly, the young woman, with her aristocratic pride, initially rejects this request. But then she ponders the alternative, which is anything but good for her and her destitute father. And so Doris accepts the offer - but on one condition: she asks that she can always wear a mask during her appearances in order not to be recognized and to get into talk. Your request will be granted. In order to be able to plausibly explain the expected windfall to the father at home, Doris claims that she placed the hunting story manuscript of her father, who works as a hobby author, at a publishing house and that she found herself a job as a piano player.

Since the uncouth Klotz Hanke now likes the attractive and sensual Doris much better than Kitty, he drops his previous girlfriend for the noblewoman. But she is very shy and turns down all his invitations for a private rendezvous. Thereupon Hanke, the financier of the revue troupe, invites them in toto to a sociable get-together in his villa. At midnight, the ominous "lady in the mask" also appears. But it's not Doris. Hanke is now trying to put pressure on her by threatening to tell her father the whole truth about Doris' real occupation. Doris finally gives in, but as a precaution takes a revolver to the forced Tête-à-Tête. Otto Hanke promptly becomes intrusive, but with the gun in hand the young woman is able to keep the unsympathetic at a distance. Like a beaten dog, Hanke returns to the disdainful kitty, while Doris and her exiled Russian Alexander, who in the meantime have regained part of his fortune - there is valuable jewelry in the sole of his shoe, a well-meaning person shortly before Alexander's flight from the newly created Soviet state had hidden there - could, wants to get together.

Production notes

The Lady with the Mask was created in the spring of 1928 in the UFA Ateliers in Neubabelsberg. The film was 2520 meters long, divided into six acts. The world premiere took place on September 26, 1928 in the Berlin Chamber Light Theater.

When it was first submitted to censorship on May 18, 1928, the film was viewed as "demoralizing" because of the numerous scenes with women wearing lightly or not at all, and was therefore completely banned by the authorities. This ban was lifted six days later and the film was generally approved after a few cuts, which were only 23 meters. Only a youth ban was issued.

Hans von Wolzüge and Alexander Esway took over the production management, the film structures were created by Erich Czerwonski . Hans Richter took care of the optical trick shots (for example, at the beginning of the film he cleverly incorporated an inflation image).

Reviews

In Film-Kurier , Hans Feld first praised Hans Richter's montage inflation scenes and otherwise said: “The main effects of the film are derived from the world of scenery, which is always interesting. A revue in the making, splendid star appearances (...) The technical cleanliness with which a business film was deliberately produced is remarkable. The generously proportioned frame enables the cameraman Carl Drews to do equally balanced work in close-ups and long shots. (...) The director is not asked to do more than translate the script into appearances and individual scenes, Wilhelm Thiele corresponds to that. (...) Heinrich George, visibly irritated by the lack of an authority to guide the players, gropes around without finding his way around. Without pushing forward, Paul Hörbiger effortlessly achieves a special success, so focused, so truly funny, so humanly real, he plays the role of the farmhand. "

In the trade journal Der Film , Henrik Galeen's screenplay, which was felt to be out of date, was massively criticized. But it also read: “Wilhelm Thiele staged this very cleverly. He wondered what the essentials of a film would be, and found the answer in empirical theory that pictures have to please a large audience. He acted accordingly and brought momentum and movement and contrasting effects into the plot, lingered on small, subtle incidental matters, decorated and filed and did not spare even with full scenes. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. The great chronicle from the Laterna Magica to the sound film. Munich 1956, p. 430
  2. ↑ Censorship decision of May 18, 1928
  3. ↑ Censorship decision of May 24, 1928
  4. ^ Film-Kurier, issue of September 27, 1928
  5. ^ Haßreiter in: Der Film, issue of October 2, 1928

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