The Green Goddess (1930)

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Movie
Original title The Green Goddess
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1930
length 73 minutes
Rod
Director Alfred E. Green
script Julien Josephson
production Warner Brothers
music Louis Silvers
camera James Van Trees
cut James Gibbon
occupation

The Green Goddess is an American fiction film with George Arliss in the lead role from 1930. The film is a remake of the 1923 film of the same name.

action

An uprising by the local population against the colonial rulers forces a group of Englishmen, including Major Crespin and his wife Lucilla, and Dr. Traherne, to escape. Your plane crashes in the remote domain of the eccentric Raja von Rukh. The Raja, who had an excellent upbringing at Oxford, hates all the English who had his three brothers shot, and at the same time is fascinated by English culture. He arrests the plane's crew and places them under house arrest in his palace.

The Raja intends to have his captives sacrificed to the gods in a ceremony. The offer to Lucille to let her live against a certain sexual concession, she refuses indignantly. Major Crespin manages to send a radio message to the nearest British garrison at the last second, but is shot immediately afterwards. Shortly before the sacrificial ceremony reaches its climax, the survivors are saved. Lucille Crespin and Dr. Traherne, who have secretly loved each other for a long time, begin a new life.

background

George Arliss had been a well-known stage star on both sides of the Atlantic since the beginning of the century. In the early 1920s he was involved in a number of film adaptations of his stage successes, including the version of The Green Goddess in 1923 . 1928, at the age of 61 years, decided Arliss, a very financially lucrative offer of $ 100,000 for three sound films from Warner Brothers to accept. He stayed true to his maxim and initially only made remakes of his old successes. For his performance in Disraeli , Arliss was awarded the Oscar for best actor at the 1930 Academy Awards (November) . The Green Goddess , filmed before Disraeli but not brought into distribution until after Disraeli , was based closely on the 1923 version. Even Alice Joyce , whose career was rapidly dwindling with the rise of the talkie, repeated her role as a virtuous wife. In Arliss' own words, the fabric was ideal for the canvas:

“There was murder, airplanes, threatening natives, secret telegrams, British officers in danger and a young woman exposed to the advances of the Raja. What more do you want?"

At Arliss' own request, Alfred E. Green took over the direction. Contrary to the usual approach, the film was shot strictly chronologically, i.e. according to the development in the script. The actor was nominated again for an Oscar for best actor for his performance. George Arliss interpreted the Raja as a man of contradictions, who on the one hand is deeply anchored in his Indian culture and yet at the same time recognizes that the world is developing and bringing changes with it. At the same time, the Raja, who was raised in England, is a subtle man with a certain sense of humor. When the British planes approached towards the end and a pilot threatens the Raja with the merciless bombing of his palace, he releases the prisoners and comments on the event with the words

"The barbaric Asia submits to civilized Europe."

At the very end, when he checks the planes, he says dryly about the loss of Alice Joyce:

"It would have been just a pain in the ass anyway."

Theatrical release

With a production cost of $ 651,000, The Green Goddess was a relatively expensive production for Warner Brothers. At the box office, the film proved to be reasonably popular and in the end could point to total box office earnings of 806,000 US dollars.

Awards

At the Oscar award ceremony in 1930 (November) , Georg Arliss received, in addition to his performance in Disraeli , a nomination in the Best Actor category for his appearance in The Green Goddess . He won his award for Disraeli . During the first four Oscar awards it was possible in some categories to receive parallel nominations for several films, each of which could be voted separately.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert M. Fells: George Arliss: The Man Who Played God. P. 35.
  2. ^ "There was a murder, airplanes, threatening natives, secret wireless, British officers in danger and the lovely lady desired by the wicked Raja. What more could you ask for? "
  3. ^ "Barbarous Asia bows to civilized Europe."
  4. ↑ "She probably would have been a nuisance."
  5. ^ Robert M. Fells: George Arliss: The Man Who Played God. P. 55.