A sunken world
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | A sunken world |
| Country of production | Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1922 |
| length | approx. 96 (original), 58 (preserved fragment) minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alexander Korda |
| script | Alexander Korda based on the novel Serpolette by Lajos Biró |
| production | Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky for Sascha-Film (Vienna) |
| camera | Hans Theyer |
| cut | Karl Hartl |
| occupation | |
| |
A Sunken World is an Austrian silent film drama from 1922 directed by Alexander Korda .
action
Somewhere in an old European monarchy. The old Grand Duke expects his son to bow to his will and marry Maria, the nun who was intended for him. But unlike many representatives of his class, Archduke Peter is a liberal free spirit who wants to break free from the shackles of rigid aristocratic class conceit and is no longer willing to obey his father's wishes. He has long longed for other social circumstances that promise justice and equality. A life marked by pomp and splendor, servants and etiquette, which appears to him like a golden cage, means nothing to him. Peter's affection belongs to a simple girl from the people, the dancer Anny Lind.
But the Hofschranzen intend not to let it go to extremes and try to separate the two young people. The Grand Duke's men are not exactly squeamish when it comes to choosing the means; They are trying hard to get Anny to go abroad. The dancer, who has just performed a performance in the Alhambra Theater, can use a trick to evade her captors and rushes to the battleship "Invincible", on which Peter was forced to take command. A feast is being given there in honor of the Duke. When Peter learns of the activities against his beloved Anny, he is beside himself. He resigns from command and renounces all titles and dignities. The ship's officers around him and his father's court turn away from him, only his adjutant Ridarsky and the valet Bartel remain loyally by his side. Peter and Anny get married.
Then he decides to transform his noble ideals on the high seas. Peter converts his yacht into a merchant ship and calls it the "Serpolette". With her he goes on a long journey to South America. Here on board in the desolate infinity of a world ocean, the former duke wants to realize his idealistic dreams of a world among equals. From now on, all class differences should no longer apply, in private life alone should count. But things develop differently than the noble social romantic would like: Both his team and his wife interpret his social dream dances as a weakness. Anny soon misses the aristocratic splendor of her husband and in the heat near the equator is finally bored of the monotonous processes on board an ocean ship. She takes a liking to the singing and guitar-playing Italian sailor Vannoni, a masculine guy, starts an affair with him and thus humiliates her husband in front of the assembled crew.
Soon the sailors only think of their personal advantage, the duke's class struggle equality goals are not theirs. Instead, indiscipline breaks out everywhere. Soon nobody wants to be responsible for the big picture, the ship - a symbol for the new society to be created. Peter's desired dissolution of hierarchies and the presence of the "sinful" woman who is turning the heads of all men, even the faithful Ridarsky, lead straight into anarchy on board. Landed in a South American port, the sailors go on a long carousing and pub crawl with Anny. At that moment the noble captain receives the news that the Grand Duke has died. When Anny and the sailors come back on board, they are all completely drunk. Anny dances in ecstasy in front of the drooling and greedy sailors like a bitch in heat.
Peter is horrified, his ideals have turned into the opposite. He thinks of suicide, his faithful servant Bartel, who no longer wants to see his master's misery, thinks of murder. The old order has broken and the new one that is striven for cannot be enforced. Deeply disillusioned and disappointed, Duke Peter seeks a radical end to his utopias and steers the ship directly onto a chain of several rocky reefs. While Anny and the sailors celebrate the dance on the volcano like crazy in wild feasts, the yacht crashes against the rock face at full speed and bursts into a thousand pieces as a result of a violent boiler explosion. All people on board find their deaths. With the wreck, hope for a better world sinks to the bottom of the sea.
Production notes
A Sunken World , sometimes referred to as The Tragedy of a Missing Prince's Son, was filmed on the Adriatic Sea , in Dalmatia and in Africa in 1921 and premiered on February 22, 1922 at the Löwen-Kino in Vienna . The five-act film was about 2,300 meters long and was banned from young people. The film opened in Germany in August of the same year.
The story is based on events surrounding the archducal dropout "Johann Orth" .
The films are made by Alexander Ferenczy , Emil Stepanek and Max H. Joli. Karl Hartl was one of two assistant directors. The costumes come from Lambert Hofer .
A sunken world received the first prize (gold medal) for the best dramatic film at the Concorso Cinematografico Internazionale in Milan. Korda shot this film and Lords of the Seas one after the other at the same locations.
“ The sunken world of Alexander Korda has leafed through the book of L'Histoire de la Révolution française . Another chapter was written with the confirmed case of the prince's son. It led into the middle of a spider's web, to doom. In 1922, Korda used the metaphor of the ship of state for a gloomy, pessimistic comment. "
criticism
In Paimann's film lists you can read: “The subject is heavily based on the Johann Orth affair, the direction worked well, but there were a few passages. The portrayal was consistently excellent in the male roles, especially Capozzi found herself well in the role of the brooding duke, the female leading actress was weaker. The landscape motifs were very beautiful, the photographic execution excellent. "
Web links
- A lost world in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- A sunken world at filmportal.de
- A sunken world on stummfilm.at
Individual evidence
- ↑ Other sources name - unlikely - Paul Falkenberg .
- ↑ See Wilhelm Fritz: The Austrian feature films of the silent film era (1907–1930) . 1922/769. Vienna 1967.
- ↑ See Büttner on stummfilm.at
- ↑ A sunken world ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Paimann's film lists
