Hilde Warren and death

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Movie
Original title Hilde Warren and death
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1917
length 80 minutes
Rod
Director Joe May
script Fritz Lang
production Joe May
camera Carl Hoffmann (questionable)
Curt Courant
occupation

Hilde Warren and Death is a German feature film from 1917 by Joe May (director) and Fritz Lang (screenplay). The title role of Hilde was played by May's wife Mia May .

action

Hilde Warren is a well-known, cheerful stage actress. One day, during the rehearsals for The Master of Palmyra, there is a conversation that focuses on death. She explains to her artistic director, Wengraf, that she does not understand if someone longs for death. Wengraf, who has long since fallen in love with his ensemble actress, cannot win her over and is rejected by her. Even more than private happiness, high art has priority in Hilde Warren's life at the moment.

One day the actress marries a wanted murderer. It's about the cosmopolitan and elegant Hector Roger. When he tried to evade his arrest a little later, he was shot by the police. Hilde Warren, pregnant with the dead man, is now buzzing with confused visions of death. Now all that remains is the son to whom she wants to give all her love. One day, artistic director Wengraf approaches her again and makes Hilde an offer. He is still ready to marry her, but on one condition: she must give up her child, the brood of a murderer.

Hilde Warren would never accept such an immoral offer. Instead, despite all the adverse circumstances, she tries to become a good mother to the boy. But her son Egon, a crawling, greasy figure, like his father, gets on the wrong track. His crooked businesses soon take on the format of his father. Soon he leaves his mother in the lurch and only shows up again when the police are looking for him. Like his father, he is said to have committed murder.

Hilde Warren sees only one way to end this misery. When he pushes her away at home and wants to rob her because of lack of money, she judges her son herself and shoots him. The police appear and drive them, dressed in black and in mourning, with the carriage to prison. Hilde Warren now thinks back to the conversation she once had with the director. Her life is in ruins, and she is after nothing more than a gracious death that means redemption for a grieving mother. And the spindly, tall Death that stands behind her is gracious: He extends his arms, which are wrapped in pitch black cloth, which are now like wings, envelops Hilde until she disappears completely into his arms and releases her from her earthly pain.

Production notes

The film was made in June 1917 and was censored the following month. A ban on children and young people was issued. The world premiere took place on August 31, 1917 in the Tauentzienpalast in Berlin.

For Fritz Lang this script was one of his first manuscripts. The young cameraman Curt Courant , who has just turned 18 , made his debut as chief cameraman here, presumably at the side of the experienced Carl Hoffmann . The buildings are by Siegfried Wroblewsky.

Georg John gave a highly distinctive performance as Death in this film. There "John appeared, thin as a towel, pale as a corpse and with a long, stringy mane, as a spooky, dry, shuddering, nightmarish vision."

Reviews

In the Lichtbild stage it says: “Mia May draws, no, she lives Hilde Warren in her fate, nowhere posing, full of life truth. The other artists also live in the spirit of the plot and make Joe May's film a rich one. "

The cinematograph reads: “A fate, human touching, a character with whom one feels, with whom one worries and whose redemption one feels as a release from earthly torment. For Mia May a big role with big tasks. How the artist solves it shows us clearly what representational power is in her. First the life-advocate, then the still strong woman, on whom fate inexorably falls. The way in which death appears to her as savior is truly shocking. A new glory to Mia May's old successes. Mierendorff, Kastner and Matray are full partners. Staging and photography are again of dignified taste. "

Concerning the quality of Lang's script compared to his predecessor The Wedding in the Excentric Club , Heinrich Fraenkel wrote : “But Lang's next manuscript for May, Hilde Warren and Death was mentally much more demanding and thematically the forerunner of his first major directorial assignment : The tired death . "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 194.
  2. ↑ Lichtbild-Bühne, No. 35, from September 1, 1917
  3. ↑ Der Kinematograph, No. 558, September 5, 1917
  4. ^ Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. The great chronicle from the Laterna Magica to the sound film. Munich 1956, p. 141