News

It’s Marlene Dietrich, before Josef von Sternberg and The Blue Angel — and much of her mystique is already present. This sophisticated German silent observes a precarious, dangerous love triangle. Two men are entranced by the same woman: one deserts his bride on their wedding night and the other may have killed to possess her. Neither seems to get what he wants, yet Dietrich’s ‘woman one longs for’ is not a scheming femme fatale … maybe. The fluid, very modern direction of Curtis Bernhardt will be a revelation — this obscure Marlene Dietrich starrer is a superior piece of filmcraft.

The Woman One Longs For

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1929 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap. / 78 min. / Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt / Street Date June 8, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Uno Henning, Fritz Kortner, Frida Richard, Oskar Sima, Karl Etlinger, Bruno Ziener, Edith Edwards.

Cinematography: Curt Courant, Hans Scheib

Art direction:...

A Look Back: Murnau’s ‘Faust’A fun evening with friends including my friend Christa Lang Fuller, who introduced me to the 96 year old former actress Noreen Nash, (see blog) not too long ago. Christa hosted an evening with Justin from the Academy Museum, from next door and French American producer Martine Melloul and me to watch the vintage film ‘Faust’.

Christa is my age, German born, and was a young actress in Paris when she met the director Sam Fuller. At 23 she married him and eventually they left Paris for the U.S. They had a daughter, Samantha and she has a daughter, Samia. Sam died in 1997 and so the three women live in a beautiful warm and welcoming home on Woodrow Wilson Drive.

Christa has a sort of salon and along with her stories she feeds us food in abundance. This time Justin from the Academy Museum brought...

Teutonic art writ large and loud: Arnolf Fanck’s first big ‘mountain’ classic wow’ed them back in 1926, with its massive vistas and death-defying feats of mountaineering, all sworn to be authentic. More importantly, Fanck and his diva Leni Riefenstahl invest their images with the sense of mythic, spiritual kitsch grandeur that became an aesthetic blueprint for the coming Nazi regime.

The Holy Mountain

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1926 / B&W with tints / 1:33 Silent Aperture / 105 min. / Der Heilige Berg / Street Date April 24, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker, Ernst Petersen, Frida Richard, Friedrich Schneider.

Cinematography: Sepp Allgeier, Albert Benitz, Helmar Lerski, Hans Schneeberger

Production Design: Leopold Blonder

Original Music: Edmund Meisel, Edmund Reisch / 2002 score Alijoscha Zimmermann

Produced by Henry R. Sokal

Written, Edited and Directed by Arnold Fanck

The Weimar-era ‘mountain’ films from Germany are often excerpted but seldom shown intact. Great documentaries like Kevin Brownlow’s Cinema Europe:...

The latest restoration of a German silent classic is F.W. Murnau's lavishly mounted version of the Goethe tale, starring Emil Jannings as Mephisto. It's an impressive drama but also has a sense of (Teutonic) humor here and there. Most every shot is a fantastic visuals, and the bigger scenes use visual designs worthy of fine art. Faust Blu-ray + DVD Kino Classics 1926 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 106, 116 min / Street Date November 17, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.96 Starring Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Frida Richard, William Dieterle, Yvette Guilbert, Eric Barclay, Hanna Ralph, Werner Fuetterer. Cinematography Carl Hoffman Production Design Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig Film Editor Elfi Böttrich Written by Gerhart Hauptmann, Hans Kyser from plays by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Christopher Marlowe Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by F.W. Murnau

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back in film school, lecturers on cinema art of the 1920s claimed that Germany had an edge over Hollywood.