When does a silent classic really become a classic? When we can see a reconstituted full original version, which in this case meant decades spent waiting. G.W. Pabst’s celebrated 1927 jeopardy-soap has romance, treachery, murder, a revolutionary war and a score of terrific characters embodied by Brigitte Helm, Sig Arno, Vladimir Sokoloff and the weird Fritz Rasp. But our hearts are stolen by the wistful lady in the title role, Édith Jéhanne, whose natural performance resonates with innocence and devotion. The rambling narrative barely holds together, but this romantic winner is graced with some of the best-directed scenes from silent cinema.
The Love of Jeanne Ney
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1927 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap / 106 min. / Street Date April 21, 2020 /
Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Édith Jéhanne, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, Brigitte Helm, Adolf E. Licho, Eugen Jensen, Hans Jaray, Siegfried Arno, Hertha von Walther, Vladimir Sokoloff,...
The Love of Jeanne Ney
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1927 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap / 106 min. / Street Date April 21, 2020 /
Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Édith Jéhanne, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, Brigitte Helm, Adolf E. Licho, Eugen Jensen, Hans Jaray, Siegfried Arno, Hertha von Walther, Vladimir Sokoloff,...
- 5/2/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
He's back and more diabolically ruthless than ever! Berlin cowers under the influence of a gambler-mastermind, the secret architect of an 'Empire of Crime.' Restored to near its full length (4.5 hours!), Fritz Lang's monumental pulp masterpiece is a Euro-classic lover's delight. Dr. Mabuse The Gambler Blu-ray Kino Lorber Classics 1922 / B&W / 1:33 flat Full Frame / 270 min. / Street Date September 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Alfred Abel, Aud Egede Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Bernhard Goetzke, Robert Forster-Larrinaga, Paul Richter Cinematography Carl Hoffmann Art Direction Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, Karl Stahl-Urach, Karl Vollbrecht Writing credits Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou & Norbert Jacques from the novel by Norbert Jacques Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Fritz Lang really upped his game, directing-wise, between his 1921 fantasy epic Destiny and his next thriller extravaganza Dr. Mabuse The Gambler. Transcending contemporary notions of a popular release, the...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Fritz Lang really upped his game, directing-wise, between his 1921 fantasy epic Destiny and his next thriller extravaganza Dr. Mabuse The Gambler. Transcending contemporary notions of a popular release, the...
- 9/12/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
When Fritz Lang began in film he was a better writer than director. This lavish two-part thriller sees him concocting a multi-genre mashup, shoehorning cowboy action thrills and an exotic lost Incan civilization into dagger-and-poison serial skullduggery. The Spiders Blu-ray Kino Classics 1919 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 173 min. / Street Date August 23, 2016 / Die Spinnen / available through Kino Classics / 29.95 Starring Carl de Vogt, Ressel Orla, Lil Dagover, Georg John. Cinematography Karl Freund Designers Otto Hunte, Carl Ludwig Kirmse, Heinrich Umlauff, Hermann Warm Music (2012) Ben Model Produced by Erich Pommer Written and Directed by Fritz Lang There appears to be nothing new under the sun, even if lovers of Indiana Jones don't realize that most everything he did, had been done long before in silent serials. I have a lazy habit here of claiming that Fritz Lang invented most of the basic ideas we see in every adventure genre except the western. But these...
- 8/13/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Roland Emmerich's (More Creative) Predecessor: Lang Was Early Cinema's Foremost Master of Spectacles
'Die Nibelungen: Siegfried': Paul Richter as the dragon-slaying hero of medieval Germanic mythology. 'Die Nibelungen': Enthralling silent classic despite complex plot and countless characters Based on the medieval epic poem Nibelungenlied, itself inspired by the early medieval Germanic saga about the Burgundian royal family, Fritz Lang's two-part Die Nibelungen is one of those movies I can enjoy many times without ever really understanding who's who and what's what. After all, the semi-historical, fantasy/adventure epic is packed with intrigue, treachery, deceit, hatred, murder, and sex. And that's just the basic plotline. As seen in Kino's definitive two-disc edition, artistically and cinematically speaking Die Nibelungen contains some of the greatest visual compositions I've ever seen. Filmed mostly in long shots that frame the imaginative sets and high ceilings, each static shot is meticulously composed with such symmetry and balance that, even though Die Nibelungen takes the viewer through a mythical fantasia,...
- 6/22/2016
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
The Nazis can't even keep the National Socialist propaganda out of a simple science fiction fable. Hans Albers is the Aryan King Midas as a scientist, and gorgeous Brigitte Helm the Englishwoman who thinks he's peachy keen. The climax is pure Sci-Fi heaven, an unstable 'Atomic Fracturing' installation, wa-ay deep down in a mineshaft under the ocean. Gold (1934) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1934 / B&W / 1:33 flat Full Frame / 117 min. / Street Date June 14, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Hans Albers, Friedrich Kayßler, Brigitte Helm, Michael Bohnen, Ernst Karchow, Lien Deyers, Eberhard Leithoff, Rudolf Platte. Cinematography Otto Baecker, Werner Bohne, Günther Rittau Art Direction Otto Hunte Film Editor Wolfgang Becker Original Music Hans-Otto Borgmann Written by Rolf E. Vanloo Produced by Alfred Zeisler Directed by Karl Hartl
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Hardy Encyclopedia of Science Fiction still teases Sci-fi fans that want to see everything listed in its pages. Thankfully, videodisc companies catering to collectors make possible the sale of titles that might never show up on some (authorized) streaming service. Video disc has brought us the original Der Schweigende Stern and Alraune from Germany, and I hope to someday see good copies of Kurt Siodmak and Karl Hartl's F.P. 1 Does Not Answer and the Harry Piel Sci-fi trilogy An Invisible Man Roams the City, The World Unmasked (an X-ray television camera) and Master of the World (a robot with a death ray). I've read about Karl Hartl's 1934 Gold for at least fifty years, since John Baxter's Science Fiction in the Cinema told us (not quite correctly) that its final reel had been borrowed for the conclusion of Ivan Tors' 1953 Sci-fi picture The Magnetic Monster. As it turns out, Kino is releasing both movies in the same week. Sometimes referred to as the Nazi Metropolis, Hartl's Gold is a follow-up to the director's very successful F.P.1. Does Not Answer, a spy thriller about a fantastic airport in the mid-Atlantic called Floating Platform One. Both pictures were filmed in simultaneous foreign versions to maximize the box office take. The German original of F.P. 1 starred matinee idol Hans Albers (The Blue Angel) Sybille Schmitz (Vampyr) and Peter Lorre, while a concurrent French version used Charles Boyer, Danièle Parola and Pierre Brasseur. A third English version starred Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmond and Donald Calthrop. The French version starred Brigitte Helm in the same role, but star Hans Albers reportedly rebelled at making two movies for the price of one. According to reports, the exceedingly expensive Gold was in production for fifteen months. We can see the cost immediately in the enormous main set for the 'atomic fracturing' machine built to transmute lead into gold. Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau designed and filmed special effects for Metropolis and the impressive set is very much in the same style. Off the top of my head I can't think of any technical apparatus quite so elaborate (and solid-looking) built for a film until the 1960s and Ken Adam's outlandish settings for UA's James Bond films. Writer Rolf E. Vanloo had worked on the silent classic Asphalt and is the sole writer credited on the popular Marlene Dietrich vehicle I Kiss Your Hand, Madame. His screenplay for Gold is tight and credible, even if its theme is even more simplistic than -- and somewhat similar to -- that of Thea von Harbou for Metropolis. Scientist Werner Holk (Hans Albers) aids the visionary Professor Achenbach (Friedrich Kayßler) in testing what looks like an electric atom smasher. The experiment: to turn lead into gold. The 'Atomic Fracturer' explodes, killing the old genius, whose work is discredited. Holk barely survives, thanks to a blood transfusion from his faithful girlfriend Margit Moller (Lien Deyers). When agents for the fabulously wealthy Englishman John Wills (Michael Bohnen) contact Holk, he realizes that the experiment was sabotaged. Werner allows himself to be taken to a fabulous yacht and from there to a Scottish castle, where, hundreds of feet under the ocean, Wills has constructed his own, far larger atom smasher with plans stolen from Achenbach. Split between his need for revenge and a desire to prove the dead Achenbach's theories, Holk goes through with the experiment. Wills' daughter Florence (Brigitte Helm), a gorgeous playgirl, is attracted to the German visitor, Holk finds that the workers' foreman, Schwarz (Rudolf Platte) is of a like mind on economic issues. But Wills' engineer Harris (Eberhard Leithoff) is jealous of Holk's talent, and cannot be trusted. Gold begins by repeating the 'big money hostile takeover of science' theme from Fritz Lang's Frau im mond: a pioneering German scientific exploit is siezed by an unscrupulous international business entity. The unspoken message is that the weakened Germany is being cheated in the world economy because it lacks the resources to exploit its superior technology. The avaricious John Wills makes big financial decisions all day long. There's no gray area in this conflict, as Wells murders, steals and spies on people to get what he wants. We've seen his ruthless agents wreck Achenbach's original, modest experiment. This 'England plays dirty' theme mirrors Germany's bitterness toward England for at least the better part of a century of colonial, naval and financial competition. Versailles and WW1 aren't mentioned, but that had to be on the minds of the audience as well: Germany innovates and works hard, but is consistently handed a raw deal. The scenes with the sleek, fascinating Brigitte Helm would be better if they went somewhere; her Florence does what she can to entice Herr Holk but withdraws when he declares his love for his faithful girl back home, the one whose life blood now flows in his veins. 'Das Blut' cannot be dishonored, even if Holk is half convinced that Wills is going to have him murdered after the giant machine starts turning out Gold by the ton. Act Two instead becomes a conflict between Big Capitalism and the lowly-but-virtuous Working Man. Down in the underground warren of tunnels (another Metropolis parallel) Wills' Scottish workforce of sandhogs and technicians side with Holk against their boss. After a preliminary test yields a tiny bit of gold, we get the expected montages of worldwide economic panic, standard material in socially oriented sci-fi as diverse as La fin du monde and Red Planet Mars. Wells plans to grow rich by flooding the world with his artificially produced gold, a strategy that will have to be explained to me. Gold is the world's standard of value precisely because it's rare; it can't be printed up like money. Thirty years later, the surprisingly sophisticated scheme of Auric Goldfinger is to increase the value of his stash of gold bullion by rendering America's gold reserves radioactive, and therefore worthless. If scarcity raises the value of the element, making more should do the opposite. (On the other hand, what about artificial diamonds? Is there any correspondence there?) [I'm acutely aware that discussing the subject matter of movies mainly points up how much I don't know, about anything but movies.] The Incredible Holk convinces the mob of workers that he represents their interests better than the greedy John Wills. The idea that rich English capitalists need to be rejected in favor of honest German morality is the only real message here. It's as simple as the 'heart mediating between the hands and the brain' slogan of Metropolis, but with a slightly arrogant nationalism added. The lavishly produced Gold was filmed on a series of truly impressive sets, including Wills' enormous Scottish mansion. But the giant setting for the climax, deep in a mine under the ocean floor, is the stuff of core Sci-fi. Millions of volts of electricity are harnessed to transmute lead into Gold. That's got to be a heck of an electricity bill; factor in the other enormous overhead costs and we wonder if Wills will ever turn a profit. The special effects for this sequence are sensational. The enormous apparatus is suspended on huge oversized porcelain insulators. The giant glass tubes atop the specimen stage are apparently visualized with mattes and foreground miniatures. But the camera pans and trucks all over the hangar-sized set; it all looks real, with bolts of electricity flashing like crazy. It's a dynamic special effect highlight of the 1930s. The actors sell the conflict well. Beefy Hans Albers sometimes looks like George C. Scott. He exudes personal integrity and a calm force of will. Lien Dyers is as wholesome here as she was wantonly sexualized six years earlier in Fritz Lang's Spies. Michael Bohnen is more than convincing as a powerful man trying to corner all business on an international scale. Although mostly in for decoration, Brigitte Helm is a sophisticated dazzler. Those penciled eyebrows remind us that she had become the Marlene Dietrich that didn't go to Hollywood. Although she did have offers, Helm wanted to stay in Germany. The Nazification of the film industry and the appalling political climate motivated her to leave for Switzerland in 1935, abandoning her career. Although the gist of Gold fits in with Josef Goebbels' National Socialist propaganda aims, the movie doesn't attack England directly. Ufa may have held hopes of foreign distribution. The one man in Scotland that Holk knows he can trust is the captain of Wills' yacht, a fellow German. Nine years later, Josef Goebbels' anti-British version of Titanic would make a German the single ethical person in authority on the doomed ocean liner. The fellow is constantly badmouthing the craven captain and the venal English ship owner. When Hans Albers finishes this movie with a ten-cent moral about love being the only real treasure, the show seems plenty dumb. But that amazing special effect set piece is too good to dismiss so easily. Gold is a classic of giddy '30s science fiction. The Kino Classics Blu-ray of Gold (1934) is a good encoding of the Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung's best copy of this once-rare item. The print we see is intact and with has good audio, but the contrast is rough. It shifts and flutters a bit, especially in some scenes in the middle. I did notice that the final special effects sequences looked better than much of the rest of this surviving print. But the parts of the movie repurposed for The Magnetic Monster look better on that 1953 science fiction film than they do here. In his book Film in the Third Reich David Stewart Hull explains that when the occupation forces reviewed the recovered German films, they ordered this one destroyed. They were concerned that the Alchemy / Atomic Fracturing machine might have some connection to Germany's wartime nuclear program. So how could Ivan Tors have bought the footage from Ufa, if the U.S. Army had seized it? I have a feeling - just idle speculation -- that it might have been obtained in a special deal made through government connections. Since the image looks much better on The Magnetic Monster, Ivan Tors might even have cut up Gold's only existing printing element to make his movie. After finally seeing Gold, one more thing impresses me besides the grandiose special effects. It's sort of a 'brain-drain' movie. In the '30s, Germany had a reputation for the best precision engineering in the world. Werner Holk is semi-kidnapped to serve John Wills' greedy science project, which was pirated from Germany in the first place. Also in awe of German scientific prowess is Brigitte Helm's Florence. The playgirl finds Werner Wolk's brilliance and clarity of mission irresistible. He's both smarter and more ethical than her father. Holk just stands there looking like he's posing for a statue, and Florence is carried away. Ms. Helm is terrific, but it would be nice if her character had a more central role to play in the story. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Gold (1934) Blu-ray rates: Movie: Very Good Video: Fair + This may be a rare surviving print. Sound: Good - Minus Supplements: none Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 10, 2016 (5137)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Hardy Encyclopedia of Science Fiction still teases Sci-fi fans that want to see everything listed in its pages. Thankfully, videodisc companies catering to collectors make possible the sale of titles that might never show up on some (authorized) streaming service. Video disc has brought us the original Der Schweigende Stern and Alraune from Germany, and I hope to someday see good copies of Kurt Siodmak and Karl Hartl's F.P. 1 Does Not Answer and the Harry Piel Sci-fi trilogy An Invisible Man Roams the City, The World Unmasked (an X-ray television camera) and Master of the World (a robot with a death ray). I've read about Karl Hartl's 1934 Gold for at least fifty years, since John Baxter's Science Fiction in the Cinema told us (not quite correctly) that its final reel had been borrowed for the conclusion of Ivan Tors' 1953 Sci-fi picture The Magnetic Monster. As it turns out, Kino is releasing both movies in the same week. Sometimes referred to as the Nazi Metropolis, Hartl's Gold is a follow-up to the director's very successful F.P.1. Does Not Answer, a spy thriller about a fantastic airport in the mid-Atlantic called Floating Platform One. Both pictures were filmed in simultaneous foreign versions to maximize the box office take. The German original of F.P. 1 starred matinee idol Hans Albers (The Blue Angel) Sybille Schmitz (Vampyr) and Peter Lorre, while a concurrent French version used Charles Boyer, Danièle Parola and Pierre Brasseur. A third English version starred Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmond and Donald Calthrop. The French version starred Brigitte Helm in the same role, but star Hans Albers reportedly rebelled at making two movies for the price of one. According to reports, the exceedingly expensive Gold was in production for fifteen months. We can see the cost immediately in the enormous main set for the 'atomic fracturing' machine built to transmute lead into gold. Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau designed and filmed special effects for Metropolis and the impressive set is very much in the same style. Off the top of my head I can't think of any technical apparatus quite so elaborate (and solid-looking) built for a film until the 1960s and Ken Adam's outlandish settings for UA's James Bond films. Writer Rolf E. Vanloo had worked on the silent classic Asphalt and is the sole writer credited on the popular Marlene Dietrich vehicle I Kiss Your Hand, Madame. His screenplay for Gold is tight and credible, even if its theme is even more simplistic than -- and somewhat similar to -- that of Thea von Harbou for Metropolis. Scientist Werner Holk (Hans Albers) aids the visionary Professor Achenbach (Friedrich Kayßler) in testing what looks like an electric atom smasher. The experiment: to turn lead into gold. The 'Atomic Fracturer' explodes, killing the old genius, whose work is discredited. Holk barely survives, thanks to a blood transfusion from his faithful girlfriend Margit Moller (Lien Deyers). When agents for the fabulously wealthy Englishman John Wills (Michael Bohnen) contact Holk, he realizes that the experiment was sabotaged. Werner allows himself to be taken to a fabulous yacht and from there to a Scottish castle, where, hundreds of feet under the ocean, Wills has constructed his own, far larger atom smasher with plans stolen from Achenbach. Split between his need for revenge and a desire to prove the dead Achenbach's theories, Holk goes through with the experiment. Wills' daughter Florence (Brigitte Helm), a gorgeous playgirl, is attracted to the German visitor, Holk finds that the workers' foreman, Schwarz (Rudolf Platte) is of a like mind on economic issues. But Wills' engineer Harris (Eberhard Leithoff) is jealous of Holk's talent, and cannot be trusted. Gold begins by repeating the 'big money hostile takeover of science' theme from Fritz Lang's Frau im mond: a pioneering German scientific exploit is siezed by an unscrupulous international business entity. The unspoken message is that the weakened Germany is being cheated in the world economy because it lacks the resources to exploit its superior technology. The avaricious John Wills makes big financial decisions all day long. There's no gray area in this conflict, as Wells murders, steals and spies on people to get what he wants. We've seen his ruthless agents wreck Achenbach's original, modest experiment. This 'England plays dirty' theme mirrors Germany's bitterness toward England for at least the better part of a century of colonial, naval and financial competition. Versailles and WW1 aren't mentioned, but that had to be on the minds of the audience as well: Germany innovates and works hard, but is consistently handed a raw deal. The scenes with the sleek, fascinating Brigitte Helm would be better if they went somewhere; her Florence does what she can to entice Herr Holk but withdraws when he declares his love for his faithful girl back home, the one whose life blood now flows in his veins. 'Das Blut' cannot be dishonored, even if Holk is half convinced that Wills is going to have him murdered after the giant machine starts turning out Gold by the ton. Act Two instead becomes a conflict between Big Capitalism and the lowly-but-virtuous Working Man. Down in the underground warren of tunnels (another Metropolis parallel) Wills' Scottish workforce of sandhogs and technicians side with Holk against their boss. After a preliminary test yields a tiny bit of gold, we get the expected montages of worldwide economic panic, standard material in socially oriented sci-fi as diverse as La fin du monde and Red Planet Mars. Wells plans to grow rich by flooding the world with his artificially produced gold, a strategy that will have to be explained to me. Gold is the world's standard of value precisely because it's rare; it can't be printed up like money. Thirty years later, the surprisingly sophisticated scheme of Auric Goldfinger is to increase the value of his stash of gold bullion by rendering America's gold reserves radioactive, and therefore worthless. If scarcity raises the value of the element, making more should do the opposite. (On the other hand, what about artificial diamonds? Is there any correspondence there?) [I'm acutely aware that discussing the subject matter of movies mainly points up how much I don't know, about anything but movies.] The Incredible Holk convinces the mob of workers that he represents their interests better than the greedy John Wills. The idea that rich English capitalists need to be rejected in favor of honest German morality is the only real message here. It's as simple as the 'heart mediating between the hands and the brain' slogan of Metropolis, but with a slightly arrogant nationalism added. The lavishly produced Gold was filmed on a series of truly impressive sets, including Wills' enormous Scottish mansion. But the giant setting for the climax, deep in a mine under the ocean floor, is the stuff of core Sci-fi. Millions of volts of electricity are harnessed to transmute lead into Gold. That's got to be a heck of an electricity bill; factor in the other enormous overhead costs and we wonder if Wills will ever turn a profit. The special effects for this sequence are sensational. The enormous apparatus is suspended on huge oversized porcelain insulators. The giant glass tubes atop the specimen stage are apparently visualized with mattes and foreground miniatures. But the camera pans and trucks all over the hangar-sized set; it all looks real, with bolts of electricity flashing like crazy. It's a dynamic special effect highlight of the 1930s. The actors sell the conflict well. Beefy Hans Albers sometimes looks like George C. Scott. He exudes personal integrity and a calm force of will. Lien Dyers is as wholesome here as she was wantonly sexualized six years earlier in Fritz Lang's Spies. Michael Bohnen is more than convincing as a powerful man trying to corner all business on an international scale. Although mostly in for decoration, Brigitte Helm is a sophisticated dazzler. Those penciled eyebrows remind us that she had become the Marlene Dietrich that didn't go to Hollywood. Although she did have offers, Helm wanted to stay in Germany. The Nazification of the film industry and the appalling political climate motivated her to leave for Switzerland in 1935, abandoning her career. Although the gist of Gold fits in with Josef Goebbels' National Socialist propaganda aims, the movie doesn't attack England directly. Ufa may have held hopes of foreign distribution. The one man in Scotland that Holk knows he can trust is the captain of Wills' yacht, a fellow German. Nine years later, Josef Goebbels' anti-British version of Titanic would make a German the single ethical person in authority on the doomed ocean liner. The fellow is constantly badmouthing the craven captain and the venal English ship owner. When Hans Albers finishes this movie with a ten-cent moral about love being the only real treasure, the show seems plenty dumb. But that amazing special effect set piece is too good to dismiss so easily. Gold is a classic of giddy '30s science fiction. The Kino Classics Blu-ray of Gold (1934) is a good encoding of the Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung's best copy of this once-rare item. The print we see is intact and with has good audio, but the contrast is rough. It shifts and flutters a bit, especially in some scenes in the middle. I did notice that the final special effects sequences looked better than much of the rest of this surviving print. But the parts of the movie repurposed for The Magnetic Monster look better on that 1953 science fiction film than they do here. In his book Film in the Third Reich David Stewart Hull explains that when the occupation forces reviewed the recovered German films, they ordered this one destroyed. They were concerned that the Alchemy / Atomic Fracturing machine might have some connection to Germany's wartime nuclear program. So how could Ivan Tors have bought the footage from Ufa, if the U.S. Army had seized it? I have a feeling - just idle speculation -- that it might have been obtained in a special deal made through government connections. Since the image looks much better on The Magnetic Monster, Ivan Tors might even have cut up Gold's only existing printing element to make his movie. After finally seeing Gold, one more thing impresses me besides the grandiose special effects. It's sort of a 'brain-drain' movie. In the '30s, Germany had a reputation for the best precision engineering in the world. Werner Holk is semi-kidnapped to serve John Wills' greedy science project, which was pirated from Germany in the first place. Also in awe of German scientific prowess is Brigitte Helm's Florence. The playgirl finds Werner Wolk's brilliance and clarity of mission irresistible. He's both smarter and more ethical than her father. Holk just stands there looking like he's posing for a statue, and Florence is carried away. Ms. Helm is terrific, but it would be nice if her character had a more central role to play in the story. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Gold (1934) Blu-ray rates: Movie: Very Good Video: Fair + This may be a rare surviving print. Sound: Good - Minus Supplements: none Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 10, 2016 (5137)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
- 6/14/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Ivan Tors and Curt Siodmak 'borrow' nine minutes of dynamite special effects from an obscure-because-suppressed German sci-fi picture, write a new script, and come up with an eccentric thriller where atom scientists behave like G-Men crossed with Albert Einstein. The challenge? How to make a faceless unstable atomic isotope into a worthy science fiction 'monster.' The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 76 min. / Street Date June 14, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Richard Carlson, King Donovan, Jean Byron, Leonard Mudie, Byron Foulger, Michael Fox, Frank Gerstle, Charles Williams, Kathleen Freeman, Strother Martin, Jarma Lewis. Cinematography Charles Van Enger Supervising Film Editor Herbert L. Strock Original Music Blaine Sanford Written by Curt Siodmak, Ivan Tors Produced by Ivan Tors Directed by Curt Siodmak
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
How did we ever survive without an "Office of Scientific Investigation?" In the early 1950s, producer Ivan Tors launched himself with a trio of science fiction movies based on that non-existent government entity, sort of an FBI for strange scientific phenomena. As of this writing, Kino has released a terrific 3-D Blu-ray of the third entry, 1954's Gog. The second Tors Osi mini-epic is the interesting, if scientifically scrambled Riders to the Stars, which shows up from time to time on TCM but has yet to find its way to home video in any format. The first of the series, 1953's The Magnetic Monster is considered the most scientifically interesting, although it mainly promotes its own laundry list of goofy notions about physics and chemistry. As it pretends that it is based on scientific ideas instead of rubber-suited monsters, Tors' abstract threat is more than just another 'thing' trying to abduct the leading lady. Exploiting the common fear of radiation, a force little understood by the general public, The Magnetic Monster invents a whole new secret government bureau dedicated to solving 'dangerous scientific problems' -- the inference being, of course, that there's always something threatening about science. Actually, producer Tors was probably inspired by his partner Curt Siodmak to take advantage of a fantastic special effects opportunity that a small show like Magnetic could normally never afford. More on that later. The script plays like an episode of Dragnet, substituting scientific detectives for L.A.P.D. gumshoes. Top-kick nuclear troubleshooter Dr. Jeff Stewart (Richard Carlson) can't afford to buy a tract home for his pregnant wife Connie (beautiful Jean Byron, later of The Patty Duke Show). He is one of just a few dauntless Osi operatives standing between us and scientific disaster. When local cops route a weird distress call to the Osi office, Jeff and his Phd. sidekick Dan Forbes (King Donovan) discover that someone has been tampering with an unstable isotope in a room above a housewares store on Lincoln Blvd.: every metallic object in the store has become magnetized. The agents trace the explosive element to one Dr. Serny (Michael Fox), whose "lone wolf" experiments have created a new monster element, a Unipolar watchamacallit sometimes referred to as Serranium. If not 'fed' huge amounts of energy this new element will implode, expand, and explode again on a predictable timetable. Local efforts to neutralize the element fail, and an entire lab building is destroyed. Dan and Jeff rush the now-larger isotope to a fantastic Canadian "Deltatron" constructed in a super-scientific complex deep under the ocean off Nova Scotia. The plan is to bombard the stuff with so much energy that it will disintegrate harmlessly. But does the Deltatron have enough juice to do the job? Its Canadian supervisor tries to halt the procedure just as the time limit to the next implosion is coming due! Sincere, likeable and quaint, The Magnetic Monster is nevertheless a prime candidate for chuckles, thanks to a screenplay with a high clunk factor. Big cheese scientist Jeff Stewart interrupts his experimental bombardment of metals in his atom smasher to go out on blind neighborhood calls, dispensing atom know-how like a pizza deliveryman. He takes time out to make fat jokes at the expense of the lab's switchboard operator, the charming Kathleen Freeman. The Osi's super-computer provides instant answers to various mysteries. Its name in this show is the acronym M.A.N.I.A.C.. Was naming differential analyzers some kind of a fetish with early computer men? Quick, which '50s Sci-fi gem has a computer named S.U.S.I.E.? The strange isotope harnesses a vague amalgam of nuclear and magnetic forces. It might seem logical to small kids just learning about the invisible wonder of magnetism -- and that understand none of it. All the silverware at the store sticks together. It is odd, but not enough to cause the sexy blonde saleswoman (Elizabeth Root) to scream and jump as if goosed by Our Friend the Atom. When a call comes in that a taxi's engine has become magnetized, our agents are slow to catch on. Gee, could that crazy event be related to our mystery element? When the culprit scientist is finally tracked down, and pulled off an airliner, he's already near death from overexposure to his own creation. We admire Dr. Serny, who after all managed to create a new element on his own, without benefit of a billion dollar physics lab. He also must be a prize dope for not realizing that the resulting radiation would kill him. The Osi troubleshooters deliver a stern lesson that all of us need to remember: "In nuclear research there is no place for lone wolves." If you think about it, the agency's function is to protect us from science itself, with blame leveled at individual, free-thinking, 'rogue' brainiacs. (Sarcasm alert.) The danger in nuclear research comes not from mad militarists trying to make bigger and more awful bombs; the villains are those crackpots cooking up end-of-the-world scenarios in their home workshops. Dr. Serny probably didn't even have a security clearance! The Magnetic Monster has a delightful gaffe in every scene. When a dangerous isotope is said to be 'on the loose,' a police radio order is broadcast to Shoot To Kill ... Shoot what exactly, they don't say. This line could very well have been invented in the film's audio mix, if producer Tors thought the scene needed an extra jolt. Despite the fact that writer-director Curt Siodmak cooked up the brilliant concept of Donovan's Brain and personally invented a bona fide classic monster mythology, his '50s sci-fi efforts strain credibility in all directions. As I explain in the Gold review, Siodmak may have been the one to come up with the idea of repurposing the climax of the old film. He was a refugee from Hitler's Germany, and had written a film with director Karl Hartl. Reading accounts in books by Tom Weaver and Bill Warren, we learn that the writer Siodmak had difficulty functioning as a director and that credited editor Herbert Strock stepped in to direct. Strock later claimed that the noted writer was indecisive on the set. The truly remarkable aspect of The Magnetic Monster comes in the last reel, when Jeff and Dan take an elevator ride way, way down to Canada's subterranean, sub-Atlantic Deltatron atom-smasher. They're suddenly wearing styles not worn in the early 'fifties -- big blocky coats and wide-brimmed hats. The answer comes when they step out into a wild mad-lab construction worthy of the visuals in Metropolis. A giant power station is outfitted with oversized white porcelain insulators -- even a set of stairs looks like an insulator. Atop the control booth is an array of (giant, what else) glass tubes with glowing neon lights inside. Cables and wires go every which-way. A crew of workers in wrinkled shop suits stands about like extras from The Three-Penny Opera. For quite some time, only readers of old issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland knew the secret of this bizarre footage, which is actually from the 1934 German sci-fi thriller Gold, directed by Karl Hartl and starring Hans Albers and Brigitte Helm. Tors and Siodmak do their best to integrate Richard Carlson and King Donovan into this spectacular twenty-year-old stock footage, even though the extravagant production values and the expressionist patina of the Ufa visuals are a gross mismatch for The Magnetic Monster's '50s semi-docu look. Jeff's wide hat and David Byrne coat are there to make him look more like Hans Albers in the 1934 film, which doesn't work because Albers must be four inches taller and forty pounds beefier than Richard Carlson. Jeff climbs around the Deltatron, enters a control booth and argues with the Canadian scientist/turnkey, who is a much better match for the villain of Gold. Jeff changes into a different costume, with a different cap -- so he can match Albers in the different scene in Gold. The exciting climax repurposes the extravagant special effects of Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau, changing the original film's attempted atomic alchemy into a desperate attempt to neutralize the nasty new element before it can explode again. The matching works rather well for Jeff's desperate struggle to close an enormous pair of bulkhead doors that have been sabotaged. And a matched cut on a whip pan from center stage to a high control room is very nicely integrated into the old footage. The bizarre scene doesn't quite come off... even kids must have known that older footage was being used. In the long shots, Richard Carlson doesn't look anything like Hans Albers. A fuel-rod plunger in the control room displays a German-style cross, even though the corresponding instrument in the original show wasn't so decorated. Some impressive close-up views of a blob of metal being bombarded by atomic particles are from the old movie, and others are new effects. Metallurgy is scary, man. The "Serranium" threat establishes a pattern touched upon by later Sci-fi movies with organic or abstract forces that grow from relative insignificance to world-threatening proportions. The Monolith Monsters proposes giant crystals that grow to the size of skyscrapers, threatening to cover the earth with a giant quartz-pile. The Sam Katzman quickie The Day the World Exploded makes The Magnetic Monster look like an expensive production. It invents a new mineral that explodes when exposed to air. The supporting cast of The Magnetic Monster gives us some pleasant, familiar faces. In addition to the beloved Kathleen Freeman is Strother Martin as a concerned airline pilot. Fussy Byron Foulger owns the housewares store and granite-jawed Frank Gerstle (Gristle?) is a gruff general. The gorgeous Jarma Lewis has a quick bit as a stewardess. The Kl Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Magnetic Monster is a fine transfer of this B&W gem from United Artists. Once hard to see, it was part of an expensive MGM-Image laserdisc set twenty years ago and then an Mod DVD in 2011. The disc comes with a socko original trailer that explains why it did reasonably well at the box office. Every exciting moment is edited into a coming attraction that really hypes the jeopardy factor. At that time, just the sight of a hero in a radiation suit promised something unusual. Nowadays, Hazardous Waste workers use suits like that to clean up common chemical spills. The commentary for The Magnetic Monster is by Fangoria writer Derek Botelho, whose name is misspelled as Botello on the disc package. I've heard Derek on a couple of David del Valle tracks for Vincent Price movies, where he functioned mainly as an Ed McMahon-like fan sidekick. His talk tends to drift into loosely related sidebar observations. Instead of discussing how the movie was made by cannibalizing another, he recounts for us the comedy stock footage discovery scene from Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Several pages recited from memoirs by Curt Siodmak and Herbert Strock do provide useful information on the film. Botelho appreciates actress Kathleen Freeman. You can't go wrong doing that. Viewers that obtain Kino's concurrent Blu-ray release of the original 1934 German thriller Gold will note that the repurposed scenes from that film look much better here, although they still bear some scratches. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray rates: Movie: Good + Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Commentary with Derek Botelho, Theatrical trailer Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? N0; Subtitles: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 8, 2016 (5138magn)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
How did we ever survive without an "Office of Scientific Investigation?" In the early 1950s, producer Ivan Tors launched himself with a trio of science fiction movies based on that non-existent government entity, sort of an FBI for strange scientific phenomena. As of this writing, Kino has released a terrific 3-D Blu-ray of the third entry, 1954's Gog. The second Tors Osi mini-epic is the interesting, if scientifically scrambled Riders to the Stars, which shows up from time to time on TCM but has yet to find its way to home video in any format. The first of the series, 1953's The Magnetic Monster is considered the most scientifically interesting, although it mainly promotes its own laundry list of goofy notions about physics and chemistry. As it pretends that it is based on scientific ideas instead of rubber-suited monsters, Tors' abstract threat is more than just another 'thing' trying to abduct the leading lady. Exploiting the common fear of radiation, a force little understood by the general public, The Magnetic Monster invents a whole new secret government bureau dedicated to solving 'dangerous scientific problems' -- the inference being, of course, that there's always something threatening about science. Actually, producer Tors was probably inspired by his partner Curt Siodmak to take advantage of a fantastic special effects opportunity that a small show like Magnetic could normally never afford. More on that later. The script plays like an episode of Dragnet, substituting scientific detectives for L.A.P.D. gumshoes. Top-kick nuclear troubleshooter Dr. Jeff Stewart (Richard Carlson) can't afford to buy a tract home for his pregnant wife Connie (beautiful Jean Byron, later of The Patty Duke Show). He is one of just a few dauntless Osi operatives standing between us and scientific disaster. When local cops route a weird distress call to the Osi office, Jeff and his Phd. sidekick Dan Forbes (King Donovan) discover that someone has been tampering with an unstable isotope in a room above a housewares store on Lincoln Blvd.: every metallic object in the store has become magnetized. The agents trace the explosive element to one Dr. Serny (Michael Fox), whose "lone wolf" experiments have created a new monster element, a Unipolar watchamacallit sometimes referred to as Serranium. If not 'fed' huge amounts of energy this new element will implode, expand, and explode again on a predictable timetable. Local efforts to neutralize the element fail, and an entire lab building is destroyed. Dan and Jeff rush the now-larger isotope to a fantastic Canadian "Deltatron" constructed in a super-scientific complex deep under the ocean off Nova Scotia. The plan is to bombard the stuff with so much energy that it will disintegrate harmlessly. But does the Deltatron have enough juice to do the job? Its Canadian supervisor tries to halt the procedure just as the time limit to the next implosion is coming due! Sincere, likeable and quaint, The Magnetic Monster is nevertheless a prime candidate for chuckles, thanks to a screenplay with a high clunk factor. Big cheese scientist Jeff Stewart interrupts his experimental bombardment of metals in his atom smasher to go out on blind neighborhood calls, dispensing atom know-how like a pizza deliveryman. He takes time out to make fat jokes at the expense of the lab's switchboard operator, the charming Kathleen Freeman. The Osi's super-computer provides instant answers to various mysteries. Its name in this show is the acronym M.A.N.I.A.C.. Was naming differential analyzers some kind of a fetish with early computer men? Quick, which '50s Sci-fi gem has a computer named S.U.S.I.E.? The strange isotope harnesses a vague amalgam of nuclear and magnetic forces. It might seem logical to small kids just learning about the invisible wonder of magnetism -- and that understand none of it. All the silverware at the store sticks together. It is odd, but not enough to cause the sexy blonde saleswoman (Elizabeth Root) to scream and jump as if goosed by Our Friend the Atom. When a call comes in that a taxi's engine has become magnetized, our agents are slow to catch on. Gee, could that crazy event be related to our mystery element? When the culprit scientist is finally tracked down, and pulled off an airliner, he's already near death from overexposure to his own creation. We admire Dr. Serny, who after all managed to create a new element on his own, without benefit of a billion dollar physics lab. He also must be a prize dope for not realizing that the resulting radiation would kill him. The Osi troubleshooters deliver a stern lesson that all of us need to remember: "In nuclear research there is no place for lone wolves." If you think about it, the agency's function is to protect us from science itself, with blame leveled at individual, free-thinking, 'rogue' brainiacs. (Sarcasm alert.) The danger in nuclear research comes not from mad militarists trying to make bigger and more awful bombs; the villains are those crackpots cooking up end-of-the-world scenarios in their home workshops. Dr. Serny probably didn't even have a security clearance! The Magnetic Monster has a delightful gaffe in every scene. When a dangerous isotope is said to be 'on the loose,' a police radio order is broadcast to Shoot To Kill ... Shoot what exactly, they don't say. This line could very well have been invented in the film's audio mix, if producer Tors thought the scene needed an extra jolt. Despite the fact that writer-director Curt Siodmak cooked up the brilliant concept of Donovan's Brain and personally invented a bona fide classic monster mythology, his '50s sci-fi efforts strain credibility in all directions. As I explain in the Gold review, Siodmak may have been the one to come up with the idea of repurposing the climax of the old film. He was a refugee from Hitler's Germany, and had written a film with director Karl Hartl. Reading accounts in books by Tom Weaver and Bill Warren, we learn that the writer Siodmak had difficulty functioning as a director and that credited editor Herbert Strock stepped in to direct. Strock later claimed that the noted writer was indecisive on the set. The truly remarkable aspect of The Magnetic Monster comes in the last reel, when Jeff and Dan take an elevator ride way, way down to Canada's subterranean, sub-Atlantic Deltatron atom-smasher. They're suddenly wearing styles not worn in the early 'fifties -- big blocky coats and wide-brimmed hats. The answer comes when they step out into a wild mad-lab construction worthy of the visuals in Metropolis. A giant power station is outfitted with oversized white porcelain insulators -- even a set of stairs looks like an insulator. Atop the control booth is an array of (giant, what else) glass tubes with glowing neon lights inside. Cables and wires go every which-way. A crew of workers in wrinkled shop suits stands about like extras from The Three-Penny Opera. For quite some time, only readers of old issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland knew the secret of this bizarre footage, which is actually from the 1934 German sci-fi thriller Gold, directed by Karl Hartl and starring Hans Albers and Brigitte Helm. Tors and Siodmak do their best to integrate Richard Carlson and King Donovan into this spectacular twenty-year-old stock footage, even though the extravagant production values and the expressionist patina of the Ufa visuals are a gross mismatch for The Magnetic Monster's '50s semi-docu look. Jeff's wide hat and David Byrne coat are there to make him look more like Hans Albers in the 1934 film, which doesn't work because Albers must be four inches taller and forty pounds beefier than Richard Carlson. Jeff climbs around the Deltatron, enters a control booth and argues with the Canadian scientist/turnkey, who is a much better match for the villain of Gold. Jeff changes into a different costume, with a different cap -- so he can match Albers in the different scene in Gold. The exciting climax repurposes the extravagant special effects of Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau, changing the original film's attempted atomic alchemy into a desperate attempt to neutralize the nasty new element before it can explode again. The matching works rather well for Jeff's desperate struggle to close an enormous pair of bulkhead doors that have been sabotaged. And a matched cut on a whip pan from center stage to a high control room is very nicely integrated into the old footage. The bizarre scene doesn't quite come off... even kids must have known that older footage was being used. In the long shots, Richard Carlson doesn't look anything like Hans Albers. A fuel-rod plunger in the control room displays a German-style cross, even though the corresponding instrument in the original show wasn't so decorated. Some impressive close-up views of a blob of metal being bombarded by atomic particles are from the old movie, and others are new effects. Metallurgy is scary, man. The "Serranium" threat establishes a pattern touched upon by later Sci-fi movies with organic or abstract forces that grow from relative insignificance to world-threatening proportions. The Monolith Monsters proposes giant crystals that grow to the size of skyscrapers, threatening to cover the earth with a giant quartz-pile. The Sam Katzman quickie The Day the World Exploded makes The Magnetic Monster look like an expensive production. It invents a new mineral that explodes when exposed to air. The supporting cast of The Magnetic Monster gives us some pleasant, familiar faces. In addition to the beloved Kathleen Freeman is Strother Martin as a concerned airline pilot. Fussy Byron Foulger owns the housewares store and granite-jawed Frank Gerstle (Gristle?) is a gruff general. The gorgeous Jarma Lewis has a quick bit as a stewardess. The Kl Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Magnetic Monster is a fine transfer of this B&W gem from United Artists. Once hard to see, it was part of an expensive MGM-Image laserdisc set twenty years ago and then an Mod DVD in 2011. The disc comes with a socko original trailer that explains why it did reasonably well at the box office. Every exciting moment is edited into a coming attraction that really hypes the jeopardy factor. At that time, just the sight of a hero in a radiation suit promised something unusual. Nowadays, Hazardous Waste workers use suits like that to clean up common chemical spills. The commentary for The Magnetic Monster is by Fangoria writer Derek Botelho, whose name is misspelled as Botello on the disc package. I've heard Derek on a couple of David del Valle tracks for Vincent Price movies, where he functioned mainly as an Ed McMahon-like fan sidekick. His talk tends to drift into loosely related sidebar observations. Instead of discussing how the movie was made by cannibalizing another, he recounts for us the comedy stock footage discovery scene from Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Several pages recited from memoirs by Curt Siodmak and Herbert Strock do provide useful information on the film. Botelho appreciates actress Kathleen Freeman. You can't go wrong doing that. Viewers that obtain Kino's concurrent Blu-ray release of the original 1934 German thriller Gold will note that the repurposed scenes from that film look much better here, although they still bear some scratches. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray rates: Movie: Good + Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Commentary with Derek Botelho, Theatrical trailer Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? N0; Subtitles: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 8, 2016 (5138magn)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
- 6/14/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Guns! Bombs! Assassinations! Blackmail! Fritz Lang invents the escapist super-spy thriller! To seize a set of political documents the evil Haghi dispatches the seductive agents Kitty and Sonya to neutralize a Japanese security man and our own top spy No. 236. (that's 007 x 33,714.2857!) It's a top-rank silent winner from the maker of Metropolis. Spies (Spione) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1928 / B&W /1:33 Silent Aperture / 150 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, Willy Fritsch, Lupu Pick, Hertha von Walther, Fritz Rasp, Craighall Sherry, Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner Art Directors Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht Set Designer Edgar G. Ulmer (reported) Original Music Werner R. Heymann (original) Neil Brand piano score on this disc. Written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou from her novel Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
How did Fritz Lang...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
How did Fritz Lang...
- 3/19/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Fritz Lang applies rigorous realism and excellent science in the first half of his final silent film, a treat for fantasy fans and those impressed by a Nasa-like moon rocket forty years before the reality. The action on the moon is pure green-cheese fantasy, with breathable air, deposits of gold and evidence of a human civilization. Let's go! Woman in the Moon Blu-ray Kino Classics 1929 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 169 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Willy Frisch, Gerda Maurus, Gustav von Wangenheim, Klaus Phol, Fritz Rasp, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography: Curt Courant, Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Otto Kanturek Art Direction: Joseph Danilowitz, Emil Hasler, Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht, Prof. Gustav Wolff Technical Advisors Willy Ley, Hermann Oberth Special Effects Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet Original Music Willy Schmidt-Gentner Written by Fritz Lang, Hermann Oberth, Thea von Harbou Produced and Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...
- 2/10/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Rating: 5.0/5.0
Chicago – Not since the restoration of Orson Welles’s “Touch of Evil” has a butchered cinematic classic been brought to such startling new life as “The Complete Metropolis.” Though Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece “Metropolis” may never be restored to its original cut, this latest theatrical re-release is as close as film preservationists have ever gotten to recreating the legendary science-fiction epic in its entirety.
The twenty-five minutes of new footage added to this cut of “Metropolis” are nothing short of miraculous, especially in light of how they were found. Two summers ago, a 16mm back-up copy of the film’s original 35mm nitrate print was discovered in Buenos Aires. Though the print was badly damaged, it offered a wealth of missing scenes, as well as a complete blueprint for the film’s editing. Despite its permanently scratched surface, the Murnau Foundation decided to add the new material into the...
Chicago – Not since the restoration of Orson Welles’s “Touch of Evil” has a butchered cinematic classic been brought to such startling new life as “The Complete Metropolis.” Though Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece “Metropolis” may never be restored to its original cut, this latest theatrical re-release is as close as film preservationists have ever gotten to recreating the legendary science-fiction epic in its entirety.
The twenty-five minutes of new footage added to this cut of “Metropolis” are nothing short of miraculous, especially in light of how they were found. Two summers ago, a 16mm back-up copy of the film’s original 35mm nitrate print was discovered in Buenos Aires. Though the print was badly damaged, it offered a wealth of missing scenes, as well as a complete blueprint for the film’s editing. Despite its permanently scratched surface, the Murnau Foundation decided to add the new material into the...
- 6/3/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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