Lady Hamilton (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Lady Hamilton |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1921 |
| length | 100 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Richard Oswald |
| script | Richard Oswald based on templates by Heinrich Vollrath Schumacher |
| production | Richard Oswald for Richard Oswald-Film AG, Berlin |
| camera | Carl Hoffmann |
| occupation | |
| |
Lady Hamilton is a German historical and silent film from 1921. Directed by Richard Oswald , Liane Haid and Conrad Veidt play the historically guaranteed lovers Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson .
action
Oswald's portrait of women and history depicts the eventful life and love story of the historically guaranteed Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson, admiral of the British fleet, in a very free adaptation. Lady Hamilton is born as Emma Lyon, daughter of a lumberjack and a cow girl, in very poor circumstances. London society soon became aware of her, the famous painter George Romney immortalized her beauty several times on canvas. Romney becomes a loyal friend on her short and yet very adventurous life, which is marked by numerous ups and downs.
Emma Lyon achieved social advancement through her marriage to William Hamilton, the English ambassador to the court of the Kingdom of Naples. Lady Hamilton quickly made friends with the Queen of Naples and soon gained influence. When Emma Hamilton met Admiral Nelson, the English sea lord famous for his courage and daring, one day, it was for both of them. Again and again their paths cross and again and again there is a painful farewell until Nelson one day has to go into a sea battle again.
He returns from this battle severely wounded and one-eyed. Emma is horrified, but these wounds cannot harm her love. But Emma realizes that she will never have Nelson all to herself. Then, the year is 1805, he has to go back to sea. It will be his last deployment, at the Battle of Trafalgar Lord Nelson is badly wounded in massive enemy fire and dies on the ship, cared for by his comrades. He no longer lived to see the triumphant English victory. Emma Hamilton is left alone. The beloved quickly becomes impoverished and very sick, her own end is sealed, since no one feels responsible for her any more.
Production notes
With Lady Hamilton , Oswald's short-lived phase of monumental, costume and historical films began. About a third of 1921 was shot. On October 15, 1921, Lady Hamilton was banned from censorship . The premiere of the very long - seven acts at 3,673 meters, which corresponds to over two hours in the original - took place on October 20, 1921 in the Richard-Oswald-Lichtspiele.
The film was based on Heinrich Vollrath Schumacher's novels Love and Life of Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson's Last Love . The film structures and costumes were made by Paul Leni , Hans Dreier carried out Leni's architectural designs. Karl Vass assisted head cameraman Carl Hoffmann .
useful information
The extremely elaborate filming caused enormous costs, which, as with other German films of the early 1920s, were particularly due to the inflation- related depreciation of the Reichsmark , and consumed around 120 days of shooting. For comparison: The Oswald film "Das Haus in der Dragonergasse", made immediately before Lady Hamilton , was wound down in just three to four days.
As noted in Kay Weniger's encyclopedia 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...', Lady Hamilton was a huge box office both at home and abroad - albeit not a critical success. The film marked the big breakthrough of Liane Haid, who had been known mainly in Austria until then, and who became a film star with Lady Hamilton in Germany almost overnight.
Liane Haid saw this breakthrough with great gratitude. Even decades later, she looked back on the opportunities offered to her in Berlin at the beginning of the 1920s. In an undated letter (probably from the 1960s) it says, among other things: “Germany - to which all my love belongs. What perspectives, looking back, wonderful memories! Even though I was born in Vienna, I owe my ascent to Germany when, as a very young thing, I was called to “Lady Hamilton”, “Lukrezia Borgia” with Conrad Veidt, Werner Kraus in Berlin. "
Liane Haid was by no means the first choice for portraying Hamilton. As can be read in Heinrich Fraenkel's Immortal Film , Oswald said the following in response to Fraenkel's request from Hollywood: “He had planned a very famous English actress for the role of Lady Hamilton and had her come to Berlin. When he went to see her at the Adlon - he had never seen her before - she met him in a half-darkened room, and the next day's screen tests confirmed his fears that the lady was too old to play Nelson's teenage mistress. He sent her back to London with a substantial settlement, but the diva, wounded in her pride, immediately mobilized her influential friends to make the still unborn film in England impossible ”.
As a result, Fraenkel continued, Oswald was desperately looking for a replacement. Finally, the director thought of the name Liane Haid, who had just been in Berlin. The next morning at 7 a.m., Liane Haid was rang out of bed at her guesthouse and dragged her to a dress rehearsal without breakfast. Two hours later she was in front of the camera with her make-up ready for the first shot.
Reviews
Star critic Herbert Jhering viewed Oswald's foray into costume, set and monumental films, like most of his colleagues in those but also later years, very critically. He wrote in the Berlin Börsen-Courier regarding Oswald: "A temperament that is geared towards observing the typical that could create modern big-city films turns to historical costume films, for which it lacks the prerequisites of taste and imagination."
In the Lichtbild-Bühne, Hans Wollenberg went into detail about the deficiencies he had identified: “A work that bears the label" Million-Film "assumes obligations: obligations, not just in terms of production costs and export profits, but also in terms of internal ones Concerns qualities that may concern the critic alone. This film accuses the lives and loves of a woman of unusual beauty and character. One must readily attest that the beauty is there. One believes that Liane Haidt has a magnetic effect on all men. What is not there, on the other hand, is character, that is to say, what is educative; this beauty always remains - beauty, does not become a person, personality, individual, whose feelings you sympathize with. Whether it is the actress's fault or whether it is the director's fault - who can tell today? Perhaps this seven-act would then (if the photographed person striding through his scenes from beginning to end had been shaped into a personality), perhaps the inorganic-episodic would have been tied into a dramatically closed unity through such a representational bracket. But as it is, the dramatic dynamic is missing. Seven acts, but none - drama. [...] The pictorial quality of this film creates a wealth of pure enjoyment, whether it be Italian landscapes and cityscapes, seascapes, interior shots or studio buildings. Paul Leni has, as has been proven here, reached perfect maturity as a creator of animated images. Jewels also flash in the acting; most splendidly the Lord Nelson Conrad Veidts; he forms the mutilated sea hero, the great man and his love vividly, shockingly alive. Immediately alive in his grotesque vitality also Werner Krauss as Lord Hamilton. Schünzel as King of Naples perhaps exaggerates the comedy by a few degrees. Friedrich Kühne, Hugo Döblin and Ilka Grüning, on the other hand, create a few dramatic pieces in smaller roles that do not get lost in the abundance of stories. All in all: a work that can confidently be described as a good film in the context of German production and that perhaps only disappoints a little because the lively announcement as a "million-dollar film" seemed to promise even more. "
Oskar Kalbus ' Vom Becoming German Film Art said: “Liane Haid, however, was unable to make Lady Hamilton credible to us in the film of the same name (1921). She was very beautiful in the film, just beautiful, but no character, no personality, not a person. The whole film lacked the dramatic dynamic that the painter Paul Leni could not replace with wonderful interior shots and studio buildings. That the director Richard Oswald used to do a lot of work with the historical facts of his subjects and ruthlessly subordinated them to his creative will, summarized them, rearranged and changed them, was already proven by his Lady Hamilton . As far as this free switching with the history of the unity of the picture benefits, it will be accepted as poetic freedom. "
In Heinrich Fraenkel's Immortal Film it says: “Historically unreliable, but nevertheless, and perhaps precisely because of this, Lady Hamilton was a good film . Because the director Richard Oswald, bearing in mind the saying that there is such a thing as a “higher truth”, disregarded facts with sovereign carelessness, such as Lord Nelson's short and stocky figure. For the cinema audience, it was more important that Conrad Veidt gave the role all of its (although not Nelsonian) charm. For Liane Haid, the title role was the start of a great career ”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. The great chronicle from the Laterna Magica to the sound film. Kindler Verlag Munich 1956, p. 108
- ↑ Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 380.
- ↑ See also Oswald in cinegraph.de
- ^ Letter from Liane Spycher-Haid from Friborg (CH), Bahnhofstr. 10, is available in the Kay Less film archive
- ↑ Immortal Film, p. 108
- ↑ ibid., P. 108 f.
- ^ Berliner Börsen-Courier of October 24, 1921
- ↑ Lichtbild-Bühne, No. 43, of October 22, 1921
- ^ Oskar Kalbus: On the becoming of German film art. 1st part: The silent film. Berlin 1935. p. 52
- ↑ Immortal Film , p. 342
Web links
- Lady Hamilton at the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Lady Hamilton at filmportal.de