The road of lost souls

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Movie
German title The road of lost souls
Original title The Woman He Scorned
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1929
length 94 (sound version 1930) minutes
Rod
Director Paul Czinner
script Charles Whittaker based on a story by Paul Czinner
production Charles Whittaker
camera Adolf Schlasy
occupation

The Street of Lost Souls (Original Title: The Woman He Scorned ) is a 1929 British film drama directed by Paul Czinner with Pola Negri in the lead role.

action

The setting is a small coastal town. The English lighthouse keeper John rescues Louise, who is only called "Lou" by everyone, from a fight with her lover and pimp Maxim, a degenerate gambler. Lou works as an animation girl in a French harbor pier. After John's heroic deed, she wants to follow him out of gratitude, but at first John rows back alone to his lighthouse. He gets caught in a heavy storm and is shipwrecked. In his distress, John promises to marry Lou if God saves him from a sailor's death. In fact, he survived. And so John marries the "fallen" girl, although he continues to despise Louise because of her past and the way of life associated with it. Lou, the common port bartender, goes to great lengths to become, for John's sake, a young lady with good manners and impeccable behavior.

John begins to love Lou as he has to acknowledge her efforts to make up for the blemish of her ancestry and become a good wife to him. One day Lou's past returns in the form of Maxim. Maxim, meanwhile a murderer, is up to no good. Rather, he tries to blackmail Lou and forces her to give him shelter for the coming night. The two men meet in the lighthouse, and there is a sharp argument in which the fists fly. From a thoughtless remark by John, Louise understands that John still seems to really despise her. Lou then decides to flee this place. Maxim also flees, followed by a police officer. On his escape, Maxim fell to his death from a cliff. Lou realizes the hopelessness of their existence, rowed the boat on the high seas and threw the oars overboard. A storm approaches and capsizes the boat. Lou finds the death she is looking for.

Background and production notes

The street of the lost souls is a typical example of the German influence on the artistically decrepit British film industry in the transition phase from silent to sound film. The engagement of non-British workers was made easier by the British government's Cinematograph Films Act 1927 at the end of 1927. As a result, a large number of German artists were able to work in London in the following years and give British cinema new impetus. From the beginning of 1928 until Hitler came to power in 1933, they included EA Dupont , Henrik Galeen , Arthur Robison , Paul Czinner (all directors), Werner Brandes , Theodor Sparkuhl , Adolf Schlasy , Günther Krampf (all camera), OF Werndorff , Alfred Junge (all Film structures). Few of these film artists stayed for long periods of time. Of the plays brought to London, only Conrad Veidt ( Rome Express ) was able to prevail in British film before 1933 .

The Street of Lost Souls was filmed by Miss Else in the spring of 1929, immediately after the shooting was over. The studio recordings were made at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The outside location was the small town of Mevagissey , Cornwall , in the far south-west of England. As was customary at the time, a set version of this silent film was made. It was called The Way of Lost Souls and was released in London cinemas on May 1, 1930.

The Street of Lost Souls had its British premiere in London in May 1929 and its German premiere in Berlin's Capitol on October 28, 1929. A program booklet appeared with the Illustrierte Film-Kurier No. 1276. Herbert Selpin served Czinner as his assistant director.

An 89-minute DVD version was released in October 2002.

Reviews

Georg Herzberg wrote in Film-Kurier : “The director brings life in an English fishing village close. […] Supported by a great photograph, Czinner lets us feel the sea. How it polishes the coastal sand like asphalt, how it lashes against harbor walls with white spray. The sailing trip with the chasing swarms of gulls was very nice, the shipwreck did not develop to the last. Czinner has the courage to make his audience think. "

Hal Rovi from the All Movie Guide said: " The Woman He Scorned proved to be such a mixed-up disaster that it would be two years before Pola Negri stepped before the cameras again."

literature

  • Hans-Michael Bock, Wolfgang Jacobsen, Jörg Schöning (Eds.): London Calling. Germans in British film of the 1930s. A CineGraph book . edition text + kritik, Munich 1993, p. 151f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Film-Kurier , October 29, 1929.
  2. ↑ The Road of Lost Souls in the All Movie Guide (English)
  3. ↑ Translation: " The Woman He Scorned turned out to be such a messy disaster that it took a full two years before Pola Negri appeared again in front of the camera."