PAGU

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Projektions-AG "Union" , similar to UFA mostly under an uppercase abbreviation, PAGU , was a German film production company that existed from 1906 (or 1909) to 1922 and was one of the country's most important film companies at the end of the German Empire. Directors such as Max Reinhardt , Joe May , Urban Gad , Max Mack , Rochus Gliese , Georg Jacoby , Arthur von Gerlach , Berthold Viertel and several times Richard Oswald , Paul Leni and above all Ernst Lubitsch , all of whom work at PAGU, have worked under the PAGU umbrella were allowed to direct for the first time. Lubitsch worked exclusively for PAGU from his debut as a film actor in 1913 until 1921. The screen stars under PAGU contract included Asta Nielsen , Max Landa , Rudolf Schildkraut , Alfred Abel , Hanni Weisse , Erna Morena and, most recently, Paul Wegener .

history

PAGU is considered to be the first German film company to simultaneously deal with the production of films, their distribution and the operation of movie theaters (cinemas). The East Prussian Paul Davidson became the central personality of this large company and, after Oskar Messter, probably the most important film producer personality of the German Empire. Davidson founded the forerunner company "Allgemeine Kinematographen Ges. Union-Theater für Leben und Tonbilder GmbH" in March 1906 in Frankfurt am Main with a share capital of 20,000 Reichsmarks . A year later he established his first immobile cinema in Mannheim . Other cinemas followed in Ludwigshafen, Düsseldorf and Essen. On September 4, 1909, the company was converted to the Aktiengesellschaft Projektions-AG "Union" (PAGU). PAGU was thus the first German stock corporation to deal with the production and distribution of moving images, later called "films". In order to have an exclusive venue for its own celluloid products permanently available in the capital of Berlin, Davidson's PAGU established its own cinema on Alexanderplatz with the UT, the abbreviation for "Union Theater" .

While the PAGU dealt almost exclusively with the production of short film documentaries in the first decade of the 20th century, this should change from the early 1910s. With the Danish film Abfalls , in which the stage artist Asta Nielsen made her successful debut in front of the camera, PAGU started its business as a distribution company for feature films in an efficient way. Davidson now also took part in the international film sales company, which owned the rights for " Afgrunden ", the original title, across Europe . Soon after Messter's production company, PAGU had blossomed into the most important film company of the imperial era. With the move of the company headquarters to Berlin in 1913, PAGU was able to continue on its successful path. In that year Davidson began to produce artistically and commercially extremely successful films and secured leading forces in German theater for this. With Ernst Lubitsch, Max Reinhardt and above all with Asta Nielsen he had signed three outstanding personalities at the same time. In the industry it was said at the time: " What the Messter his Henny , the Davidson his Asta ". In the following year, 1914, the directors Richard Oswald and Max Mack followed, who ensured full coffers at PAGU, especially during the First World War.

In January 1914 the first important merger of PAGU with another important film production company took place. In order to use synergy effects, Vitascope GmbH merged Jules Greenbaums , which had caused a sensation the year before with the psychologizing Albert Bassermann drama Der Andere , and PAGU. The entire assets of Vitascope (further spelling also Vitaskop) passed into the possession of PAGU, as the specialist publication "Das Lichtbildtheater" reported in its issue no. 4 from 1914. The same report also states: “Messrs. Jules Greenbaum, Max Grünbaum and Hermann Fellner are joining the management of Projektions-Aktiengesellschaft Union. (...) Vitaskop GmbH previously had a new film production workshop in Weissensee, in which a daily production of 100,000 meters of film could be made. After the merger of the two companies, the total production per film per day can be increased to 150,000 meters. The main reason for the merger was a reduction in community expenses. It is intended that the Projektions-AG Union increase its share capital, which was previously 1.5 million marks, by approx. 750,000 marks. ” The name Vitaskop was to be retained for the time being, but finally disappeared at the end of 1914.

In the early phase of the First World War Davidson's company got temporarily into financial difficulties, which forced the general manager to sell the "Union" cinemas to the Danish competitor Nordisk in August 1915 . Above all, Lubitsch, initially as an actor, but soon afterwards also as a director in the service of the company, remained loyal to PAGU from the time he received his first film role from this company in 1913 until shortly before he left for Hollywood and was known for lavish top productions such as Die Eyes of the mummy Ma , Carmen , Madame Dubarry and Anna Boleyn as a box office success guarantee until the end. In the final phase of the war, PAGU had built a new studio in Berlin-Tempelhof . As a result of the founding of the UFA in December 1917, the PAGU and the UT group were absorbed by the new large corporation together with the Nordisk. With Paul Wegener's The Golem as It Came into the World, PAGU achieved an artistic and financial coup in 1920. Until the end of the same year, PAGU still appeared as a brand name of UFA, but with the departure of Davidson and Lubitsch, who founded his own production company in 1921, the abbreviation, which was famous at the time, also disappeared. The last PAGU production was Berthold Viertel's Ibsen adaptation Nora in 1922 , the PAGU production “Must the woman become a mother?” , Which was banned by the film censors in 1925, is just a new cut of Georg Jacoby's production “Moral and Sensuality” from 1924 1919.

The most important PAGU films

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cit. n. Heinrich Fraenkel : Immortal Film. The great chronicle from the Laterna Magica to the sound film. Munich 1956, p. 71
  2. ↑ cit. n. Immortal Film, p. 78
  3. ↑ cf. Gerhard Lamprecht : German silent films 1903–1912, hrgg. vd Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin 1969, p. 48

literature

  • Hans-Michael Bock : The refinement of the Kintopp. In: The Ufa book. Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 60-63.
  • SS Prawer : Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Presence in German and Austrian Film, 1910–1933. Berghahn Books, New York 2005, pp. 2-6.

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