Tosca

Although release was deferred, Bernhardt does not seem to have succeeded in getting it destroyed. It was finally released in 1912, to tie in with Queen Elizabeth which was enjoying great success and both Queen Elizabeth and Tosca played across the US to packed houses. With a characteristic US forthrightness, the company who detained the New York right for Tosca described it as "the greatest money-getter of the year" and warned of dire consequences for anybody trying to show it without their say-so. Bernhardt was everywhere. Asta Nielsen, the star of the moment, was continually described as "the German Bernhardt"; Helen Gardner, whose tacky Cleopatra came out the same year, was described as "Bernhardt Redivivus".

The Bernhardt films are generally less well appreciated now than they were in 1912 and it is therefore difficult for us to appreciate what a major watershed this appeared to be at the time for the motion pictures. "When it was announced several months ago, that the great actress had consented to appear in motion pictures a sensation was created. Many declared that it was a suicidal step - the blotting of a glorious career. The pictures were made, and packed all the houses at which they were booked., night after night" The US vaudeville houses, feeling at a disadvantage, booked the French actress, sixty-nine by this time, to do a tour that same year which again, with typical bravado, she agreed to do. "Think of the "great actress" Sarah going into vaudeville!". She was however said to be receiving $8,000 a week for the tour.

There is a review of the Bernhardt Tosca in Moving Picture World for October which provides some details of the cast. If De Max did indeed play Scarpia, Cavaradossi was in fact played by Georges Deneubourg whileAngelotti was played by a M. Maury.

The most interesting part of the review is as follows:

"The action is fast. That it is interesting is proved by the fact that the two reels seem unusually short. There is no sterner test than this of the holding quality, or, to use a much-abused word, the gripping quality of a film. To compress into forty minutes the essentials of this great story necessarily involves the elimination of minor factors. So we have preserved the really vital scenes. If there is an absence of perfect clarity the clarity in one or two of the opening scenes the path of the drama is rapidly smoothed as the plot proceeds."

Interesting that already by 1912 there is some dissatisfaction with what the French call a moyen-métrage (c. 40 mins), so fast was the idea of the full-length feature taking hold. The apologies for lack of clarity also suggest that there may have been cuts at Bernhardt's insistence of some parts that she had particularly disliked.