Back stairs (1921)

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Movie
Original title Back stairs
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1921
length 40 minutes
Rod
Director Leopold Jessner ,
Paul Leni
script Carl Mayer
production Hanns Lippmann ,
Henny Porten
music Hans Landsberger
camera Karl Hasselmann ,
Willy Hameister
occupation

Hintertreppe is a film by the theater director Leopold Jessner from 1921. Paul Leni , who is also responsible for the film construction, worked as co-director .

action

Every evening a maid meets with her lover at the exit of the back stairs of her house. The two are regularly watched by the crippled postman who lives in the basement and who secretly loves the girl. One day she waits in vain for her lover, his letters also fail to appear. Then the postman brings her a letter in which her lover pledges his love for her. Full of exuberance to thank him, she brings the postman a jug of punch in his basement apartment. She notices that he had written her the letter to comfort her. Feeling abandoned by her lover, she finally turns to the postman. You are in a romance. While he is waiting for her to have dinner, the former lover unexpectedly returns, he was in the hospital and his mail did not arrive - the postman had withheld it out of jealousy. An argument ensues between the postman and the lover, at the end of which the residents find the postman with an ax in his hand and the dead lover at his feet. Because of the scandal, the maid loses her job. She climbs to the roof of the house and jumps to her death.

Remarks

Back stairs is the Expressionism arrested chamber feature film . This is represented by the picture-filling buildings by Paul Leni and Karl Görge (in particular the narrow, winding back stairs and the towering, barely light-letting house fronts), but even more so the stage expressionist play by Fritz Kortner under the leadership of Leopold Jessner . The Austrian Carl Mayer , author of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari , here for the second time after Schherd (director: Lupu Pick ) turns away from the fantastic and towards realism.

The film premiered on December 11, 1921 in Berlin's Kurfürstendamm UT.

literature

  • Horst Claus: Shards on the back stairs . In: Michael Omasta, Brigitte Mayr, Christian Cargnelli (eds.): Carl Mayer, Scenar [t] is. A script by him was already a film - "A script by Carl Mayer was already a film" . Synema, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-901644-10-5
  • Fred Gehler back stairs . In Günther Dahlke, Günther Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginnings to 1933. A film guide. Henschel Verlag, 2nd edition, Berlin 1993, p. 62 f. ISBN 3-89487-009-5

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