Rags and silk

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Movie
Original title Rags and silk
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1925
length approx. 98 minutes
Rod
Director Richard Oswald
script Adolf Lantz
Heinz Goldberg
production Richard Oswald
music Hugo Hirsch
camera Emil Schünemann
Mutz Greenbaum
occupation

Rags and silk is a German silent film from 1925 by Richard Oswald .

action

Rags and silk is one of the few comedies that Oswald shot during the silent film era. At the center of this social satire is the wealthy and bored couple Irene and Erik. When Erik meets Hilde, who comes from a humble background, one evening in a chic club, he sees this as an opportunity for the couple to sexually spice up their worn-out relationship and to escape through a ménage à trois of both marriage routine: rags meets silk.

But with Hilde, Erik and Irene suddenly have Max on their feet too. He claims to be Hilde's fiancé and quickly turns out to be just as slutty as half-silky greyhound and charmer. You drive to the couple's noble villa and plan to have fun with all sorts of experimental sex bandits ... if it weren't for Ulrike, the family's own household dragon, who absolutely wants to make sure that the immoral quartet doesn't do too well. Eventually, Irene and Erik achieve exactly what they intended: They begin to rediscover each other and give their marriage new impetus. In addition, they manage to talk Hilde out of her rotten Max. Because with Werner, Erik's younger brother, another family member comes into play. And he shows a serious interest in the kind Hilde.

Production notes

The six-act film with a length of 2,456 meters passed the German film censorship on December 2, 1924 and was premiered on January 9, 1925 in the Alhambra cinema in Berlin .

Hugo Hirsch composed the song "Shimmy" as the title melody, based on the fashion dance of the same name from the 1920s , with a text by Arthur Rebner .

Director Oswald provided the idea for this film material. The film structures come from Ernst Lubitsch's long-time film architect Kurt Richter .

In Deulig Week No. 16, 1924 (from April 15, 24, 137 meters, silent) there are pictures from the “director's briefing for the Richard Oswald film 'Rags and Silk'”.

Reviews

The Film-Kurier went into detail about Oswald's first production after the end of his monumental film phase from 1921 to 1924 ( Lady Hamilton , Lucrezia Borgia , Carlos and Elisabeth ) and praised it: “Here an impatient and, in its naivety, incredibly bold theatrical hand took hold. Here once a born film man really whistled as his beak grew - cynisms, sentimentalities, cheeky jokes, jokes and jokes, often dazzling, sometimes mediocre, sometimes just indecent, but through it all flashed a real- life humor , a hard look for life facts, a compassionate look for life resignations - -. In this line, Oswald's new film begins again - after an interlude of several years with major historical films. In the meantime everything has become a bit more moderate, less uninhibited, less cheeky and bold, less throwing around; the motto 'Pour épater le bourgeois' could no longer stand above it - but new germs are beginning to sprout: the finesse of the new setting and game direction, the 'eroticon' and the 'marriage in a circle', have fertilized his directorial art, it is everything mimicked more elegantly and precisely arranged, it sounds more melodious in the eye, so to speak. The mere anecdotal aspects of his acting direction (which, however, were dazzling) seeks ways and possibilities to grow together with the pictorial rhythm, pictorial musicality of the newer directing tendencies. Oswald still wavers here sometimes; but in the long, carefully worked-out scenes in the game, it is often perfect. The manuscript - by Heinz Goldberg and Adolf Lantz - is very well adapted to this inner situation. "

Uta Berg-Ganschow wrote in the CineGraph Book series : “A thoroughly average film, shot for everyday cinema needs. Everyday stuff that is forgotten. An experienced director, an experienced actor, the fable a futile occasion. You can see what was still fun, specialty pieces by the actors, the outfitters. (...) Richard Oswald is equally interested in rags and silk draperies, in crude pleasure as well as in the adolescent flirting of the rich. The director jumps nimbly back and forth between the two scenes, often stages frontal appearances, develops an interest in furnishing details, especially the props of wealth, and identifies with those displaced in the respective milieu. Pointers in the play of the actors are not set by camera or montage. Oswald stages by illustrating the material together with his actors, he likes them strong, clear, does not rely so much on surprise as on recognition effects with his audience. "

“Oswald stages a crude erotic comedy as a moral film, but with a wink. The film, which is wound down quickly, has little finesse, lives entirely from the burlesque situation and the actors. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Finding aids on the holdings of the Federal Archives, Volume 8, newsreels and documentaries 1895 - 1950, in the Bundesarchiv -Filmarchiv, p. 8.
  2. ^ Film-Kurier, No. 9 of January 10, 1925
  3. ↑ rags and silk in cinegraph.de
  4. ^ Rags and silk on Stummfilm.at

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