A strange painting
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | A strange painting |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1914 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Franz Hofer |
| script | Franz Hofer |
| production | Max Maschke for Luna-Film, Berlin |
| occupation | |
| |
A Strange Painting is a German silent film drama from 1914 by Franz Hofer .
action
When the young Lissy Janère wants a fortune teller to predict her future, she turns her away; that's exactly what she had promised Lissy's mother. A servant of the fortune teller leads Lissy back to her mother. She says to her daughter: “Look into your fiancé's eyes, your future is written there”. The mother takes a painting from the wall, removes it from the frame and presents Lissy with the treasure trove hidden in it. John, Lissy's fiancé, secretly observes this scene from off. The young man once came into conflict with the law and has always had few qualms. Now he plans to take the fortune hidden in the painting unnoticed. A former accomplice writes to him and threatens to put John behind bars for a past deed if he does not help her out financially. So John breaks into his fiancée's mother and removes the picture frame. He is surprised by his mother. John knocks the old woman down and escapes with the cash. When Lissy rushes over, her mother is ready to die. Lissy rushes to John and sees, pale with horror, how he hands over money to his former accomplice. Lissy immediately understands the connections and, daring to die, throws herself on her criminal fiancé. "I will take revenge on you, put you in prison!" the young woman swears, then she collapses under the weight of events.
Some time later. Lissy has come into the care of old Mabel, who introduces the young woman to the art of card reading. When Mabel dies a little later, Lissy leaves the city and begins a new life elsewhere than Ellen Lanière. The lessons given by Mabel have meanwhile borne fruit, so that Lissy, alias Ellen, also begins to lay cards under the artist name “Lablanche”. She was quickly introduced to high society, where she learned all sorts of secrets of the haute volée that could be useful to her later. One day she overhears a young girl who is telling someone about her fiancé and shows a portrait of the future man. This is none other than Lissy's ex John. Lissy decides to put the cards to John in her strong masking as an old woman and predicts, unrecognized by him, that a person in black dominoes will approach him at the upcoming masked ball at midnight . She doesn't tell any more, but leaves the room with a sneer, leaving John pensive.
Indeed, John attends the masquerade ball, and indeed the predicted “Black Domino” strides towards him. John drops the champagne flute and follows the mysterious person into the next room. When he tries to grab the mask to tear it down, the person in the domino defends himself. John now throws himself at the stranger in his own brutal way, but is kept in check by him with a drawn revolver. John collapses, startled, because he believes the fortune teller's ominous announcement of fate. An attempt at bribery to get a better fate interpreted with money had failed. The domino, in truth, of course, Lissy in the role of the old fortune teller, explains to him that he should come and see her with his bride, then he would find out about his fate. In fact, the couple appears to her. “The future will be clear to you, my dear child,” begins the old woman, turning to John's new fiancé, “when I reveal the past to you!” The young woman from the disguised Lissy, alias “Lablanche”, learns of John's terrible crime. He is furious and wants to pounce on the old woman, when Lissy tears off her mask. John looks scared to death in the face of his ex. When John finally wants to finish off Lissy, he is hit by a pistol from the hand of Lissy's loyal servant. So that was his future.
Production notes
The three-act act A Strange Painting was probably created at the turn of the year 1913/14 in the Luna Film Atelier in Berlin's Friedrichstrasse 224, censored in January 1914 and had its world premiere on March 6, 1914.