Ressel Orla

Dark-haired and wide-eyed Ressel Orla (1889-1931) was a popular actress of the German silent cinema who peaked in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The now mostly forgotten star appeared in some of the early films by Ernst Lubitsch and Fritz Lang.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 395/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Balázs.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 481/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Balázs.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 481/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Balázs.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 481/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Balázs.

Madonna-like face

Ressel Orla was born Therese Ochs in Bozen (Bolzano) in Austria-Hungary (now Italy) in 1889. In 1907, she began her stage career at the Metropoltheater in Hannover, Germany, and continued to play there in other theatres. In 1910, she moved to Düsseldorf, in 1912 to Bad Nenndorf, and finally to Berlin, where she played at the Residenztheater.

Here, Walter Turszinsky discovered her and engaged her for the film comedy Die Firma heiratet / The Perfect Thirty-Six (Carl Wilhelm, 1914), for which Turszinsky had written the script. Her co-star was Ernst Lubitsch.

With no offers coming in for stage work, she continued film work with much success. Orla played in two other film comedies with Lubitsch, either as actor or director, Die Stolz der Firma / The Pride of the Firm (Carl Wilhelm, 1914) and Blindekuh / Blind Cow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1915).

With her dark hair, her wide eyes, and her Madonna-like face, Orla conquered German audiences and became a star in the late 1910s. In 1918, she impersonated her first dramatic film role in Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918). It was the first film of her own Ressel Orla film series for the Decla company of producer Erich Pommer.

Another of these films was Fritz Lang's first film direction, Halbblut / The Half-Caste (1919). Earlier, Lang had been the scriptwriter for Orla's film Die Frauen des Josias Grafenreuth / The Women of Josef Grafenreuth (Otto Rippert, 1918). Her most important role was that of the dangerous and deadly Lio Sha, leader of a secret society of criminals in Lang's two-part adventure Die Spinnen / Spiders (Fritz Lang, 1919-1920) starring Carl de Vogt as a brave explorer.


German postcard by Verlag W.J. Morlins / Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 9010/2. Photo: Karl Schenker.


German postcard by Verlag W.J. Morlins / Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 9010/3. Photo: Karl Schenker.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series, no. 92/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 7809. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Terrible illness

In the early 1920s, Ressel Orla made several films with director Carl Wilhelm, including Die Sippschaft / The Tribe (1920), Die Augen der Welt / The Eyes of the World (Carl Wilhelm, 1920) with Conrad Veidt, and Anständige Fraue / Decent Women (Carl Wilhelm, 1921).

After that, the expressive and beautiful Orla appeared in a whole series of films with director Leo Lasko such as Satansketten / Satan's chains (Leo Lasko, 1921), Pariserinnen / Parisians (Leo Lasko, 1921) with Xenia Desni, Lebenshunger / Lust for Life (Leo Lasko, 1921), and Die Lou vom Montmartre / Lou of Montmartre (Leo Lasko, 1921).

Other films in which she was the female protagonist were a.o. Monte Carlo (Fred Sauer, 1921), Die Wölfin / The She-Wolf (Rolf Brunner, 1921), Frau Schlange / Mrs. Snake (Eugen Holstein, 1923), and Frauen die den Weg verloren / Women Who Lost the Way (Bruno Rahn, 1926) with Oscar Marion.

Apart from these starring roles, Orla more and more had to share the female parts with such actresses as Carola Toelle, Lya Mara, Henny Porten, Aud Egede Nissen, Claire Rommer, and Grit Haid. All through the 1920s, Ressel Orla performed in many films, though less frequently in the second half of the decade.

Her last film role was a small part in Lockendes Gift / Tempting Poison (Fred Sauer, 1929) with Paul Richter. In 1929, a terrible illness prevented her from continuing to perform, and eventually, the illness killed her in Berlin in 1931. At the time of her death, she had fallen on hard times, was no longer acting, and was barely forty.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 502/1. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla and Alwin Neuss in Die Faust des Schicksals/Fist of Doom (Alwin Neuss, 1917).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 502/3. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla and Alwin Neuss in Die Faust des Schicksals/Fist of Doom (Alwin Neuss, 1917).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/3. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate / The happiness of Mrs. Beate (Alwin Neuß, Otto Rippert, 1918). Plot: Though Beate's husband has become rich because of her, he repudiates her when he suspects her of adultery. Ressel Orla played the title role, Emil Birron her husband, and Max Ruhbeck the suitor. The film, scripted by Max Jungk and produced by Decla, had its first screening in 1918 at the Berlin cinema Marmorhaus.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 548/4, 1919-1924. Photo: Decla. Publicity still for Das Glück der Frau Beate / The Luck of Mrs. Beate (Alwin Neuss, Otto Rippert, 1918).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 549/1. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Die Sünde / The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 549/5. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Die Sünde / The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918). The man she holds must be the actor Emil Birron.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmhistoriker.de, Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 19 January 2026.

Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918)

Little is known about the German silent film Das Glück der Frau Beate/The happiness of Mrs. Beate (Alwin Neuß, Otto Rippert, 1918) starring Ressel Orla. With her dark hair, her wide eyes, and her Madonna-like face, Orla conquered German audiences and became a star in the late 1910s. She got her own Ressel Orla film series for the company Decla of producer Erich Pommer. One of these films was Das Glück der Frau Beate/The happiness of Mrs. Beate (Alwin Neuß, Otto Rippert, 1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/1. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate/The happiness of Mrs. Beate (Alwin Neuß, Otto Rippert, 1918). The man could be Emil Birron.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/2. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918). The man on the right with the white tie could be Emil Birron.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/3. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918).

The Sherlock Holmes of the silent era

What do we know about Das Glück der Frau Beate/The happiness of Mrs. Beate (1918)? The film is considered lost and the plot is unclear. Das Glück der Frau Beate was produced by Decla Film (originally Deutsche Eclair), a German film production and distribution company of the silent era.

Decla was formed in 1911 as the German subsidiary of the French company Eclair, it was taken into German ownership in 1915 during the First World War. Under the leadership of Erich Pommer, Decla emerged as one of the leading German film companies of the early Weimar era.

The film was directed by a tandem, Alwin Neuß, and Otto Rippert, according to IMDb and Wikipedia. However, Filmportal.de claims that only Neuß was the director. Neuß was a well-known actor/director, noted for playing Sherlock Holmes in a series of silent films during the 1910s. Rippert was a noted film director during the silent era. In 1912 he started to work as a director for Continental-Kunstfilm of Berlin and made some ten films between 1912 and 1914. However, his reputation as one of the pioneers of German silent film rests on some of his later achievements,

Otto Rippert directed the classic silent film Homunculus (1916), produced by Deutsche Bioskop in 1916. Homunculus is a six-part serial science fiction film involving mad scientists, superhuman androids, and sinister technology. The film foreshadows various elements of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), as well as serving as a model for later adaptations of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'.

Das Glück der Frau Beate/The luck of Mrs. Beate (1918) was the only film Otto Rippert and Alwin Neuss directed together. In 1924, Rippert stopped directing films and began to work as a film editor. The fame of Alwin Neuss began to fade in the 1920s, and he only appeared in few more films. The sound film ended his film career.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/4. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918). The man left may be Emil Birron, while the man in the back is Max Ruhbeck.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/5. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918). 

A ravishing, elementary force

From her film debut in 1914 on, Ressel Orla mostly worked in comedies. Walter Turszinsky had discovered her and engaged her for Ernst Lubitsch's film Die Firma heiratet (1914), for which he wrote the script. After that, Orla played in two other films with Lubitsch as actor or director, Die Stolz der Firma (1914) and Blindekuh (1915). She became very successful.

In 1918, she was offered a dramatic role in the film Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918) by producer Erich Pommer of the Decla Film Gesellschaft. The critics were positive. The Berlin trade journal Lichtbild-Bühne (Bd. 11, Nr. 28, 13.07.1918, S. 72) raved about her: "Ressel Orla appears as the well-bred woman who knows to curb her temper, which yet explodes at moments and dominated everything around her. (...) In these scenes full of fervour and passion Ressel Orla was a ravishing, elementary force."

Erich Pommer offered Ressel Orla her own film series for the Decla company. One of these Decla dramas was Das Glück der Frau Beate/The happiness of Mrs. Beate (Alwin Neuß, Otto Rippert, 1918), based on a screenplay by Max Jungk. Though Beate's husband has become rich because of her, he repudiates her when suspecting her of adultery. Ressel Orla starred as Beate. Her husband was played by Emil Birron and her admirer by Max Ruhbeck.

IMDb suggests that Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918) may have been withheld from release. However, Filmportal.de mentions that the film premiered on 2 August 1918 at the movie palace Marmorhaus in the centre of Berlin. Orla's most important film role followed a year after Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918), that of the villain Lio Sha opposite Carl de Vogt in Fritz Lang's two-part adventure film Die Spinnen/The Spiders (1919). She also played the title role in Lang's Halbblut/Half-blood (Fritz Lang, 1919), again opposite Carl de Vogt. The film is presumed to be lost.

German actor Emil Bir(r)on made 29 films between 1917 and 1935, including Die Weber/The Weavers (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927) in which he played King Frederick William IV. Max Ruhbeck was a German actor who appeared in more than ninety films from 1915 to 1923, including Homunculus (Otto Rippert, 1916).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/6. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/7. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 548/8. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Das Glück der Frau Beate (1918).

Tomorrow EFSP has a post on another film by director Otto Rippert from the same year, the 'Sittenfilm' Der Weg, der zur Verdammnis führt, I. Das Schicksal der Änne Wolter/The Road to Damnation, 1. The Fate of Anne Wolter (Otto Rippert, 1918), with Charlotte Böcklin.

Sources: Early German Film Database, Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal, Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

Die Sünde (1918)

German silent film star Ressel Orla (1889-1931) peaked in the late 1910s and early 1920s in early films by Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch. With the drama Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918) the Decla-Film-Gesellschaft, run by producer Erich Pommer, offered Orla her own series. The popular comedienne proved she also could handle dramatic roles.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 549/1. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 549/2. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 549/3. Photo: Decla. Emil Birron and Ressel Orla in Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918).

A ravishing, elementary force

Die Sünde/The Sin (1918) is directed by actor Alwin Neuss and produced by famous producer Erich Pommer for the Decla-Film-Gesellschaft, which he ran at the time.

It was the first of Ressel Orla's own series, in which she was protagonist and which focused on highly dramatic plots. Before Die Sünde she had become popular as a comedienne. Her co-stars in Die Sünde were Emil Birron, Paul Rehkopf and Alwin Neuss.

The Berlin trade journal Lichtbild-Bühne (Bd. 11, Nr. 28, 13.07.1918, S. 72) raved about her: "Ressel Orla appears as the well-bred woman who knows to curb her temper, which yet explodes at moments and dominated everything around her. Here the fire of enthusiasm kindles which inspires.

Moreover, Ressel Orla brings along all external assets to awaken sympathy at her first appearance. Indeed, it seems possible that this sympathy towards such a thoroughbred talent maintains, even if the character to be represented is little sympathetic.

In Sünde Ressel Orla has first to play the young thing, who becomes an artist's model under the force of circumstances, in order to save her dying father. When she later stands alone in the world, she rises to happiness without suffering from her past.

But then the pride of the woman awakens in her, to whom only the right of her own ego applies. In these scenes full of fervour and passion Ressel Orla was of ravishing, elementary force."


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 549/4. Photo: Decla. Ressel Orla in Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 549/6. Photo: Decla. Paul Rehkopf and Ressel Orla in Die Sünde/The Sin (Alwin Neuss, 1918).


Ressel Orla. German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 92/3. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin.

Sources: Stephanie d'Heil (Steffi-Line - German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmhistoriker.de, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.