Samson and Delilah (1922)

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Movie
Original title Samson and Delilah
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1922
length about 100 minutes
Rod
Director Alexander Korda
script Alexander Korda
Ladislaus Vajda
production Alexander Korda for the Corda Film Consortium in the Vita Group, Vienna
camera Nikolaus Farkas
Maurice Armand Mondet
Josef Zeitlinger
occupation

and around 400 extras

Samson and Delila is an Austrian monumental and silent film from 1922. Directed by Alexander Korda , his then wife Maria Corda plays the leading role.

action

The action takes place on two levels: one modern and one in biblical times.

Julia Sorel is a famous opera singer and ranks success after success. Her most stubborn admirer is Grand Duke Andrej, who turns out to be particularly intrusive. Her next stage will be La Scala in Milan , where she will give a performance of " Delilah ". In order to get involved with her part and the history, the celebrated artist leaves the rehearsals and visits an old rabbi . He tells her the biblical story of Samson and Delilah . Soon parallels between her own life and this legend emerge.

Back in the theater, Julia Sorel shows her diva airs. She refuses to work with her colleague, the young tenor Ettore Ricco, when he is chosen to replace the star tenor originally planned but currently prevented. When it does appear, peace seems to have been restored. After the Scala performance, the Grand Duke invites the singer onto his yacht. Andrej Andrejewitsch has his own plans: he has no plans to let Julia Sorel go again. The banquet turns into a kidnapping, and Julia finds herself locked in her cabin. Then the prince sets sail with his ship.

Andrei Andreevich is only ready to return when the artist has heard him. Neither Julia nor Andrejewitsch noticed, however, that the colleague Ettore, who was brusquely rejected by Julia, also snuck on board. He, too, knows the biblical legend of Samson and Delilah all too well and uses an old ruse (with a suspected anarchist at the center of the action) to save Juliet , which had already worked back then. The young man teaches all involved an instructive lesson. Finally, even the Grand Duke orders his yacht to return to the next port.

Production notes

Samson and Delila was shot in 1922 as a monumental film, the first production in the not yet fully completed Rosenhügel film studios, with the intention of being able to succeed with this international material on the world market. The world premiere took place on Christmas Day 1922 in Vienna.

Karl Hartl was the assistant director, Alexander Ferenczy designed the film structures . Otto Wannenmacher took care of the pyrotechnic effects.

At the beginning of the 1920s there was a brief heyday of Austrian films, during which several large-scale films were produced around Vienna that were both complex and expensive. Korda, who left his old employer, Sascha-Film , for this film in 1922 , was obviously inspired by DW Griffith's epic intolerance for Samson and Delila . The enormous expenditure on people and material and its costs were meticulously listed: 400 beards and 100 kg human hair (1500 crowns ), make-up artist (275,000 crowns), 160 working days (4,400,000 crowns). Total cost: 12,333,750 crowns.

The high costs arose, among other things, from Korda himself, who hopelessly overran the shooting schedule. In order to cope with the expenses to some extent, Korda worked here with the Hungarian production company Vita-Film. However, after Samson and Delila could not nearly recoup the costs, Korda left Austria and temporarily went to Germany with his wife Maria for further film projects.

criticism

Js. wrote in Film-Kurier : “For this reason, the positive thing about this film is not the enormous splendid buildings that recur in numerous repetitions, but the modern images, which experience their first dramatic climax with the disruption of the opera performance and then very skilfully become a happy one End of the final episode, which does not lose any of its tension against the first images of the modern conflict. In terms of direction, there are very pleasant performances: the confusion in the opera house after the assassination attempt on Prince Andrej, the game moments on board the yacht 'Rul', the appearance of the mysterious 'anarchist' on board this ship and the dissolution of the suspicion of assassination - all of that is included a lot of skill has been carried out, and the actors Maria Corda, Franz Herterich, Paul Lukas and Ernst Arndt completely correspond to their roles; in the historicizing plot, on the other hand, everything remains shadowy, unsuitable - somehow to be warmed up humanely and thus to establish internal relationships with the main negotiation. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Fritz: The Austrian feature films of the silent film era (1907–1930) . Published by the Austrian Society for Film Studies, Vienna 1967, film no.753.
  2. ↑ Samson and Delila (1922) at stummfilm.at
  3. ↑ Samson and Delila - Film-Kurier No. 93 of April 21, 1923.