Essays & reviews about the classic (mostly black and white) era of film and TV. Especially Silents, Horror, Sci-Fi, Film Noirs, Cartoons, Dada & Experimental Films. Member of the Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA).
Hans Richter was the most important film maker to come out of the German Dada movement before it moved to France and evolved into Surrealism. The Dada movement started during World War One in Zurich, Switzerland amongst writers and artists, mostly Germans and a few Rumanians, hiding out from the war. The ideology of Dada was a rejection of any and all bourgeois values that they associated with a society that seemed to be completely falling apart in the carnage of the first mass industrial war. This rejection even extended to previous avant garde art movements like Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Symbolism and Art Nouveux. What was the point of painting pretty pictures or writing poems when millions had died the war and millions more in the influenza epidemic and famines that followed? Wasn't the art establishment just as corrupt as the rest of society? Then the only answer to produce art and literature that mocked the very idea of art itself. Dada exhibitions were considered a success if the audience stormed out, or even better started a mini riot. Such a movement was perfect for the early years of Wiemar Germany in the aftermath of the war.
Dada (the name was intentionally meaningless) was not soley, or even mostly a visual medium. Some of the original group were in fact not artists at all but poets with no artistic training at all. Early Dada art ranged from steam-of-consciousness poetry (later taken up by the Beats), randomly assembled plays and dances, performance art pieces and "ready-made sculpture" taken from "found objects". In it's visual look the most iconic visual representation was the "photo-montage" and collages made from newspaper clippings and advertisements. Later, as Dada spread it would attract the likes of skilled artists like Marcel Duchamp and the photographer Man Ray. The use of photography was particularly well suited for the Dada's style being both highly modern and not requiring years of training to use.
HANS RICHTER ~ "DADA HEAD";
Hans Richter was born in 1888 in Berlin and started out as a painter influenced by Cubism , he also wrote for the arts journal "Die Aktion". When World War 1 broke out and he was drafted and served in combat until he was wounded and sent home in 1916. After recovering he moved to Switzerland and joined the Dada movement originally as an abstract painter influenced by Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinski and Klee but he also developed an interest in film as an artistic medium. At this time film was still largely thought of a vulgar venue for cheap entertainment, however in Germany the Expressionist movement who had already been working with theater and dance had begun experimenting with film, as had the Futurists in Italy. Richter began writing about the possibilities of film and music in the Dutch journal "De Stijl". He also befriended the Swedish artist Vikking Eggeling who shared similar views and they co-founded the Association Of Revolutionary Artists in 1919. By then both had moved to Berlin and joined the Dadaist "November Group".
HANS RICHTER;
Richter made his first film in 1921 with "Rhythmus 21", followed by "Rhythmus 23" and "Rhyhums 25" in alternate years as indicated by the titles. Apparently only the first film survives. These short films used abstract shapes randomly floating in space like a Mondrian painting come to life and had no plot or even any visible human cast. As indicated by the titles Richter saw the films in musical terms. This was a theme shared by other contemporary German filmmakers such as Vikking Eggeling's "Diagonal Symphony" in the same year and Walter Ruttman's "Opus Number 1" and "Berlin; Symphony Of A Great City" and FW Murnau's "Nosferatu, A Symphony Of Terror" the following year.
"RHYTHMUS 21" ~ 1921;
Richter expanded on his musical theme in 1926 by collaborating with Darius Milhaud on the film "Filmstudie". This was another abstract themed movie but this time Richter expanded his palate to include swirling clouds, disembodied heads and floating eyeballs along with his Mondrian shapes.
"FILMSTUDIE" (new score added) ~ 1926;
In 1927 Richter was commissioned by the giant UFA studios to create an opening montage for a minor Expressionist social melodrama. The resulting film showed Richter breaking away from abstraction and making use of more emotional Expressionist themes to portray Germany's economic crises of the 1920's. Scenes of Marks and coins falling from the sky and piling up while worried faces swirl past and consumer goods hover out of reach still perfectly evoke the chaos of the Weimer roller-coaster. The film was later shown by itself entitled "Inflation" and has survived long after the larger film (which Richter had no other involvement with) has been forgotten. Oddly the film has been the Richter film most often seen, albeit in fragments and out of context when used in many documentaries about the 1929 stock-market crash, and even in docs about the Roaring Twenties in the USA which is not at all what he intended. The film's use of double exposure and inanimate objects to tell it's story has been much imitated even by those who may never have seen the original.
"INFLATION" ~ 1927;
The next year Richter followed up his success with an odd short called "Vormittagsspuk", which roughly translates as "Ghosts Before Breakfast" (trust the Germans to actually have a word for that), a meaningless title for a return to Dada themes. The film has no plot as befits the unstructured nature of Dada, instead it is a random series of scenes some which seem improvised but probably were not. Just because there is no plot or dialogue doesn't mean there is no theme though. The coming to life of inanimate objects like hats and bowties which take the opportunity to sail free is perfectly suited to DaDa's basic ideal of anarchy (in a personal sense), non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism and freedom from bourgeois values. Note that the objects once they break free do not attack our overwhelm their owners as a futurist film-maker might have done (think of Fritz Lang's Expressionist/Futurist classic "Metropolis"), they simply fly away joyously. Dada, for all it's eagerness to offend the calcified establishment always had a mischievousness sense of humour which this film shows. This is different from the dark moodiness of Expressionism, Germany's other great art movement of the era. Note also that at the end of film the escaped bowler hats return to their owners, which might seem to undercut the film's message of freedom..
"VORMITTAGSSPUK" (AKA "GHOSTS BEFORE BREAKFAST") ~ 1928;
Originally there was apparently some sort of soundtrack for this film, most likely some cacophonic music and sound effects, but that was lost when the film was banned by the Nazi's and most copies (there can't have been very many) destroyed. That reveals one of the big differences between Dada and the Expressionists; the Nazi's hated both but Dada could not be co-opted. As German film critics Freidrich Kracaur and Lotte Eisner have noted in their influential books, some of the more clever Nazi's, like Leni Reifenstal, Josef Goebles and Albert Speer admired Expressionism's visuals, it's sense of spectacle, it's emotionalism and successfully sought to appropriate this imagery for their own use. There was nothing in Dada that a totalitarian state could make use of. Even though the Nazi's banned most Expressionist works they also tried to recruit their directors and actors to make Nazi propaganda. Fortunately the best of the Expressionists such as Fritz Lang, FW Murnau, Robert Wiene, GW Pabst and actors Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre and Marlene Dietrich quickly fled but others like actors Emil Jannings, Werner Krause, Lil Dagover, actor/director Paul Wegener and writer Thea Von Harbou stayed and continued to work under the Nazi regime. There was no such ambiguity with the Dada's though, the Nazi's banned their works and they fled. Including Richter who the German film historian Fredrich Kracaur called "One of the few truly incorruptible artists of the left".
HANS RICHTER ~ "WORKERS";
By the mid twenties Dada had spread from Germany to France where it fell into feuding factions eventually leading to Surrealism. The Surrealists would include filmakers Bunuel and Dali's classic anti-films "Le Chien Andelu" and "L'Age D'or". However Dada doesn't have a real equivalent film in public stature, these fairly obscure German films are the closest thing the Dada's have. The differences between Dada and Surrealism are difficult to define, at least in film. In art the Surrealists felt the Dada's lacked depth and discipline, they wanted to go beyond merely shocking to a deeper exploration of dreams and the subconscious. The Dada's simply could not stomach such serious theorizing, they to mocked the very idea of art being used to "explain" anything at all. Dada, with it's cadre of writers, expressed itself as much through it's poetry and plays as through the visual arts, while Surrealism with such talented painters as Margite and Dali, developed it's distinctive visual style of hyper-realism dreamscapes that is distinct from Dada. On film however the difference between this film and Bunuel's "Un Chien Andulu" are not that great. Bunuel's film is clearly more nightmarish (that infamous sliced eyeball) and eager, if not over eager, to offend than the playful "Ghosts". Of course the comparison is not entirely fair, Bunuel became a serious and respected film-maker and "L'Age D'Or" was no doubt carefully planned out in advance while "Ghosts" looks like it was probably dashed of over a weekend.
HANS RICHTER ~ "COLOURFUL CITY WITH ZEPPELIN";
"Two Pence Magic" is another short made around the same time which shows Richter adding some influences from the Futurists. The film starts with a street magician preparing a trick which then leads to a series of seemingly random images. However on a closer look the images show the the Futurist obsession with action, speed and movement; note the runners, cyclists and boxers. The film also has a political subtext that modern viewers might miss; the sequence showing men in suits shaking hands then cutting to a scene of two men boxing. Those men in suits are in fact Woodrow Wilson and other allied statesmen at the end of World War negotiations , an image any German of the era would have recognized instantly. Also recognizable is a quick shot of a hunched over man creeping up the stairs in silhouette which is clearly a tribute to a similar shot in "Nosferatu".
"TWO PENCE MAGIC" ~ 1929;
Once the Nazi's seized power Richter fled back to Switzerland and then in 1940 to America where he taught film studies at the Institute of Film Techniques at City College in New York. In 1947 he directed a colour feature film "Dreams That Money Can Buy" in which a man discovers that he has the power to envision people's dreams and project them. He therefore opens an office an sets up a business reading people's dreams. This premise is used to string together a series of increasingly odd dream sequences. These are separate collaborations with various artists ranging from old Dada friends like Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Darius Milhaud, Fernand Leger and Richard Huelsenbeck to newer ones like John Cage, Alexander Calder, blues singer Josh White and notorious torch singer (and black widow murder suspect) Libby Holman. The various sequences have nothing in common with each other and are unconnected. With it's obvious focus on dreams rather than the randomness of Dada the film has more in common with Surrealism than Dada. There is a great jazzy/lounge musical soundtrack through the entire film which is surprisingly modern.
"DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY" ~ 1947;
Richter remained a loyal Dada long after the movement had faded away, writing a definitive account "Dada; Art And Anti-Art" in 1965. His final two movies were Dada studies that reunited Richter with his old Dada companions. "8x8; A Chess Sonata In Eight Movements" in 1957 which included appearences by Marcel Duchamp, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, Alexander Calder and others. The title also suggested a return to his 1920's theme of musical composition. His last film was "Dadascope' in 1961 which included poetry by Dada founders Marchel Duchamp, Jean Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck and Kurt Switters. After leaving film-work Richter returned to painting until he died, one of the last surviving Dada's in 1976 aged 87.
Classic Television Shows ~ "Man Against Crime" (AKA "Follow That Man");
"FOLLOW THAT MAN";
Ralph Bellamy is best remembered as one of the plutocrat Duke Brothers from the 1983 Eddie Murphy/Dan Akroyd comedy "Trading Places along side Don Ameche. Bellamy was the larger, jovial grandfatherly one. It might come as a it of a surprise to discover that he was once known as one of the most hardboiled detectives of the early television era.
In "Man Against Crime" Bellamy was Mike Barnett, a private detective of the Mike Hammer school who acted as a lone wolf solving cases through dogged persistence and his fists rather than through any flashy insights or witty byplay. The young Bellamy was an impressive presence, physically large with a beetle-browed glower, a lip-curling snarl and a chain-smoking voice of gravel, Bellamy was no pretty boy and he looked like he was quiet capable of taking care of himself.
"FOLLOW THAT MAN";
The show was quite violent by the standards of the early TV era with plenty of brawls, gunplay and car chases. The opening set the scene; a man runs desperately down a deserted city street street, chased by unknown pursuers, he darts into a building and up to an office when he is gunned down in hail of bullets. Turns out it's Bellamy's office, he pops up to see the unknown man drop dead, then Bellamy has to dodge another fusillade, then Bellamy draws a gun and runs after the unseen gunman. The opening also shows some differences from many of the low-budget TV shows of the era like "Rocky King, Detective". The camerawork is more kinetic than normal and the are some outside shots rather than being bound to a studio set. The actual show didn't quite live up to the opening of course but it was still more hardboiled than was than the relatively easy going "Rocky King" or dry procedurals like "Dragnet", "Racket Squad" and "Decoy".
The show was originally shot live until 1953 when it became pretaped. Originally run on CBS but when it was cancelled in 1953 it became the first show to jump to another network, first Dumont then NBC as well as being syndicated to local stations, although not always under the same title. Originally run as "Man Against Crime" after 1953 it was also later shown under the title "Follow That Man". It is under this name that most surviving episodes can be found. Cancelled once again in 1954 it was then brought back once more in 1956 as a live show without Bellamy who was replaced by Frank Lovejoy, that version lasted only a year. The series ran in total from 1949 to 1956.
This is an odd little film. I haven't been able to find any info about it at all, including who made it, or were, or when. It's not even listed on IMDB and they usually have even the most obscure films. Judging by the look it probably dates to the mid twenties at the latest. The rest is a guess though.
The film is a straight forward exploration of the solar system as it was known in the twenties, that is before Pluto was discovered. There are quick explanations of the planets and moons, there is also a quick rundown of the Zodiac. What makes the film standout are the cutaways to a fantasy spaceship as it journeys through the universe, along with a stunning shot of a futuristic city that is obviously inspired by Fritz Lang's 1927 classic "Metropolis". The city has all the skyscrapers, domes and elevated trains as flashy as any seen in any bigger budget film for the next twenty years. The spaceship cabin looks more like the cabin of a Zeppelin. This makes me assume the film was made after films like Lang's "Metropolis" (1927) and "The Woman In The Moon" (1929) the Russian film "Aelita, Queen Of Mars" (1924) and the American "Mysterious Island" (1929). The spaceship and space city footage are alone worth seeing for any sci-fi fan. In these sequences the film has some of the look of classic Futurist Expressionism but not obviously it's themes.
In fact these shots seem so out of place in such a bare bones educational doc that I wonder if they were in fact lifted from another sci-fi movie, or movies, that have since been lost and forgotten. It is actually quite possible that this film was edited together in such a fashion by taking a few scenes from an earlier sci-fi film and splicing in the basic footage of the planets which do appear to have been filmed separately. For further evidence of this note the differences in the title cards between the straight forward exploration of the planets and the more mystical visit through the Zodiac. This film might have been assembled using footage from different countries, the fantasy footage may have indeed come from a forgotten European film (it does look German) while the other footage is probably American since the planets are obviously labeled in English. The footage of the cockpit/bridge actually bears a strong resemblance to an illustration from an obscure 1911 German sci-fi novel called "Wunderwelton" by F.W. Maler with illustrations by D. Herrfurth. Unfortunately this book is so obscure (at least in English) that I can't find anymore info about it aside from a brief mention in a book on Sci-Fi so I don't know how popular it was in 1920's Germany and Austria.
In the silent film days these sort of editing jobs were not that difficult since the lack of sound and the episodic nature of silent film story telling made it possible to to completely rearrange a film into a completely different plot. Given the rather lackadaisical attitude towards copyright in those days, especially international, there was little to stop an unscrupulous American distributors from taking some European footage and making a new film. In fact "Metropolis" was seriously re-edited for it's American release, not only shortening it but also removing some characters and subplots that some Americans might object to. Other characters were seriously changed, including the mad scientist who creates the female robot, to make him less evil. This also explains why some films of the era exist with wildly varied running times for different copies of the same title including DW Griffith's "Birth Of A Nation" and "Intolerance".
One wonders what the audience for this film was. It's obviously not designed for theatrical release but I don't know what kind of venue there would have been for such a doc.
October 2021 Update; At the time I wrote this article in 2013 I didn't know the history of this film or where it came from and couldn't find any info anywhere but recently someone contacted me with some correct info (thanks BTW) and then I did a little more digging so I'm doing an update/correction although I will leave the original article above here in the interest of transparency.
It turns out that some of my original semi-educated guesses were correct; I assumed this was an edited version of an European, most likely German film for release in America and it was. The original film was called "Wunder der Schopfung" (literally "Wonders Of Creation") also known under the more prosaic title as "Heavenly Bodies" made in Germany in 1925. This film was actually a full-length documentary as part of genre referred to in Germany as "Kulturefilmen" made in the early to mid twenties in the belief that film could be used to only for art and entertainment but also to educate. Most of these films covered topics such as health and fitness (always a German preoccupation), and exploring exotic cultures and locales. Unlike later educational films which were made for classrooms and lecture halls, these films were actually meant to be shown to the general public and were feature length with proper budgets made by major studios like the giant UFA. Several such films were released starting from about 1924 until the end of the silent era so they must have had at least some success although they have been largely forgotten about and ignored by film historians. In his classic work on Weimar Era films "From Caligari To Hitler" (1947) Siegfried Kracauer spends a couple pages discussing the genre and does mention this film but in a way that suggests he had only read about the film rather than actually seeing it while in the other classic work about the era, "The Haunted Screen" (1952) Lotte Eisner doesn't mention the film, or indeed the entire genre at all. Not surprisingly the original German film was considered lost until a copy was discovered in Finland and restored in 2008 with public showings (including in the UK in 2016) although it took a couple years for it to make its way online.
This film was written and directed by Hanns Walter Kornblum for the giant UFA studios which in this case at least gave him a big enough budget and access to the best in their set designers which he clearly made excellent use of. As I mentioned earlier the futuristic spaceship sets and scenes of the planets are spectacular and compare nicely with those of the Fritz Lang classics "Metropolis" (1927) and "The Woman In The Moon" (1929) as well as the Russian sci-fi film "Aelita, Queen Of Mars"and the American 'Mysterious Island" (1929). Although I was correct in my guess about the basic origins of this film I was wrong about one notable thing; I assumed the sets of this film were influenced by these better known sci-fi films when in fact it is actually a few years older than all of them except the Russian "Aelita" and may therefore have instead in fact influenced Lang who must have seen it especially as it seems to have been fairly widely seen in Germany and got good reviews.
The full film is broken down into seven acts in which the opening ones explain the basics of astronomy in a fairly straight-forward way. These scenes have some simple animation along with some recreations of scenes with actors playing scientists like Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. Some of the animation of twinkling stars and spinning planets and moons are dazzlingly effective even today. Scientific concepts like gravity and the rotation of the planets are discussed.
In act four the film leaves the world of dry facts and historical scenes and heads out into space with the spectacular scenes of space flight and a quick shot of a futuristic city including a Tower Of Babel ziggurat launching pad that looks suspiciously like the more elaborate sets later used by Fritz Lang and some starkly beautiful moonscapes. The moonscapes are realistic enough but as our space travellers move further away they become more fantastical. Kornblum's Mars looks more like the deserts of Egypt and somewhat inhabitable, as would the later moonscape of Fritz Lang's "Woman In The Moon". By the time we get to Saturn we encounter a race of desert-dwelling Lilliputians while Jupiter has a race of primitive (but friendly) giants. While these scenes are delightful by this point the film ignores some basic science in portraying these planets as equally habitable. While the film does focus on the different effects of gravity, including scenes of weightlessness, it completely ignores the different atmospheres, some extremely toxic, which make life impossible although scientists by this point understood or at least suspected this. None of our space travelers are required to wear space suits or breathing gear. The film can however be excused to not understanding that such craft would have to be powered through atomic power as this was a new concept understood by only a few scientists and instead has them run by some sort of extra powerful electric generator. This is at least more realistic than the giant cannon used by Jules Verne and George Melies.
While the film is broadly factual it does have a more mystical theme as implied by the title (every act opens with quotes from philosophers like Goethe and Kant) which becomes more obvious as by the final act we are discussing the end of life on planet earth either through a global ice age (showing our travelers stranded in an Arctic wasteland) or an asteroid crashing into the earth in a sequence apparently inspired by Italian films like "The Last Days Of Pompeii" (1908 & 1913) and various Biblical epics. Viewing the full version of this film reminds one less of the later dry documentaries we are familiar with than the notorious "Haxan, Witchcraft Through The Ages", a 1922 Danish film which Kornblum was almost certainly aware of. Both films are structured in the same way with the early scenes being straight-forward, even dry descriptions of facts and historical recreations before giving rein in later scenes to dramatic fantasy scenes with spectacular special effects.
As for the shorter film "A Trip To The Planets" I originally posted and wrote about; much of it's still a mystery as to exactly who was responsible or exactly when it was done but it seems my original assumptions were correct, it was probably an edited version made in America for educational purposes some time in the late twenties. The English intertitles make it obvious it was done in America and the different typefaces used in some them suggests it may have passed through a few hands. The greatly reduced run time not only cuts out the historical recreations from the early part of the film which slow things down (most educational films were only about twenty minutes long) but also eliminates everything after the visit to Mars, much of which is more speculative and fantastical then the early parts of the film and perhaps not really appropriate for a purely educational film anyway. While the American version takes out the philosophical elements from the original German film it does add in some of it's own as it takes pains to insist that it's science is compatible with the Bible and the Book Of Genesis. It must be remembered that the 1920's was the era of the Scopes Trial in 1925 and laws banning the teaching of evolution in many states so equating science with Christianity would avoid getting the film banned in parts of America.
Since my original 2013 article more research has been done on this intriguing little film which seems to fascinate people. The only known copy has been held by the fine folks at Prelinger Archives who included it in a 2012 DVD of "Orphan Films" meaning films about which little or nothing is known about their creators. By this time the original German film had been found and restored and had been shown in Germany although this news had apparently not yet reached Prelinger in America. By this year (2021) Prelinger had been informed about the existence of the original film and likely relationship to the short in their archives and presented this with some further research in a February panel discussion and blog article.
The original German film was produced by the giant UFA film studios who exported films world wide however this one does not seem to have been shown much outside the German speaking world although since the surviving copy was found in Finland it must have been exported at least to Scandinavia. Films of the Weimar often made their way there as well to Russia and Holland where copies sometimes turn up. UFA also had an export office in America and USA distribution contracts with MGM and Paramount and a search through UFA records (which being German still exist thankfully) do not show any copies being shown in America nor have any press reviews surfaced. However in 1927 MGM does indeed list a one reel "UFA oddity" named "Heavenly Bodies" which is also an alternative title the German original was sometimes known by. As this is a one reel short however it can not be the original so the assumption Prelinger makes is that it's the short version we now have which had been edited down to be used as an educational short which may be true but it might also be another related short I will mention below. Some of these films, if well made and attractive, which this one was, were actually shown as opening shorts to feature films and weekend matinees along with the usual comedy shorts and cartoons before being sold or rented to schools, universities, libraries, church groups etc depending on the subject matter. These rentals were not done by a major studio like MGM however, once MGM was done showing the film in theaters they then sold the rights to smaller distributors who specialized in educational shorts in this case the rights to a company called the Mogull Brothers who probably redited it and made some changes. It's possible that some of the still footage of the surface of the moon was was actually lifted from an American short "If We Lived On The Moon" which we will explore shortly. At this point the title card was changed to "A Trip To The Planets". This would explain the obviously different typefaces used in the film, they may also have added the Bible references to make the film sellable in the Bible Belt. This particular one is listed in school and library rental catalogues until 1945 after which it disappears. Such films often sat in dusty shelves and cabinets in schools and libraries for decades forgotten by film historians before getting purged in the 1980's when schools moved to VCRs. Prelinger Archives, working with the Library of Congress bought the surviving copy of this film along with hundreds of others from the Mogull Bros collection in 2009 but at the time nobody was aware of the film's complicated past.
It turned out that once Prelinger found out the history of this film they discovered there were not one but at least two educational shorts made from the original and they actually had both in their archives the whole time. The other short was billed as "Heavenly Bodies" and must have been assembled around the same time and may be the film mentioned in the above MGM press release although this film seems a little too dry to be worth plugging for a general release compared to "A Trip To The Planets" if that film had been renamed at some point. At any rate this edit discusses gravity by taking the Issac Newton scene from the original along with the comedy scene with a man grabbing a tree to avoid being shot into space. The second half of the film deals with astronomy. This short is fine for it's purpose and is actually more coherent than "A Trip To The Planets" which is more jumbled but lacks entirely it's sense of style and wonder. It's also a poor quality print.
"HEAVENLY BODIES";
The genre of Kulturefilmen petered out with the coming of sound and a desire of audiences for more escapist entertainment meant a big studio like UFA would have little interest in big budget docs and film houses even less interest on showing them. At any rate with the Nazis coming to power such high-minded educational fare would give way to an entirely different and far more sinister type of film as propaganda. There is not much information on director Hanns Kornblum who died in Germany in 1970. He could have continued to make obscure educational or industrial film shorts which have been long forgotten and not listed on IMDB or worked on other films as an editor but we do know he would make at least one more film a year later about Einstein's new Theory Of Relativity which did not survive (the Nazis would have definitely banned it) but once again it would make its way to America where another edited version would be cut.
"THE EINSTEIN THEORY OF RELATIVITY" (1923);
While we don't have much info on who adapted "A Trip To The Planets" we do have know who is responsible for this film as it was assembled by none other than famed animators Dave and Max Fleischer, later creators of the iconic Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman cartoons. Brothers Max and Dave Fleischer had been working as ground breaking animators since 1918 having previously worked as film editors for Pathe Films and making educational short films for the US Army in World War One and afterwards for a company named Bray Pictures who made educational shorts. By 1922 they had established their own studio. They were given the assignment of adapting Kornblum's original film for America to explain Einstein's new, controversial and complicated theory. Since we don't have the original we don't know how they much they changed or cut out or how long the original was but reportedly they did add a few animated sequences themselves and at least some of the filmed footage since the city shown is clearly New York. Possibly they only used a small part of the original Kornblum film now lost. Compared to the previous film with it's spectacular futuristic sets and dramatic recreations this film is very dry and no-nonsense with plenty of title cards and doesn't really compare with the dreamy charm of Kornblum's previous film or for that matter the well known cartoons that make up the huge and beloved library of the Fleischer Bros Studios for which this merely an odd curio.
Bray Studios was founded by John Bray in 1912 and would make a name for itself as a producer of early cartoons employing some later famous animators like the Fleischer Bros, Walter Lanz ("Woody Woodpecker") and Paul Terry ("Terrytunes"). John Bray himself had been an early animator and was heavily influenced by the brilliant pioneer animator Winsor McCay and his groundbreaking shorts of the 1910's like "Gertie The Dinosaur" with McCay himself teaching him some of his methods only to have Bray go behind his back and try to patent them (which McCay had at first generously chosen not to do being happy to encourage other cartoonists) and then had the nerve to sue McCay for violating the patents on his own inventions! McCay would end up winning those suits but it set a patern of Bray's hard driving, not to mention greedy business attitudes. Besides cartoon Bray also tried his hand at making comedy shorts and branched out into the lower profile but lucrative genre of educational, promotional and industrial films including for clients like the auto industry and the US Army. Bray would spend less time on animation to focus on running the business including cutting a deal with Sam Goldwyn in 1920 which gained Bray Studios more money and major distribution but also a heavier workload which along with Bray's penny-pinching would lead his best animators, the Fleischers, Lantz and Terry to leave and found their own studios. Bray's lucrative ad contracts including those for the automotive industry were managed by producer and former Olympic swimmer Jam Handy would eventually leave as well in the 1930's to start his own studios as well taking most of his clients.
While working at Bray Pictures the Fleischer Bros also worked on another educational space short around 1920 to 21, since by 1922 they had their own studios, called "If We Lived On The Moon" which exists in two seperate but obviously related shorts, one uses mostly animated footage and minatures while the other uses live action and painted stills, there are a few shots that are the same in both shorts (namely a sequence using miniatures to show the difference in temperature between night and day on a lake) and given the brief length of both (three and a half minutes for one and four minutes for the other) it's likely they were originally edited as together as one longer film but it's hard to see why they were cut into two.
"IF WE LIVED ON THE MOON" pt.1 (crica 1921);
Another clue that the two shorter films must have been part of a longer one is a promo poster put out by Bray Studios that shows a striking illustration of New York City inside a giant moon crater which does not appear in either of the two fragments we have left so given the usual length of such films there must be at least ten minutes of lost footage. Although as we shall see while the full length version of this film may have been lost for some reason this tiny part of it would find itself recycled.
"IF WE LIVED ON THE MOON" pt.2 (animated);
The animated version shows the Fleischer Bros fine draughtmanship, attention to detail and Art Deco influence that would later be seen in their iconic "Superman" cartoons of the 1940's. This is also the only one of these films to aknowledge that there is no atmosphere in space and man can not breathe although their solution of a heavy fur coat, hat and World War One gasmask is more appropriate to a high flying Zeppelin on an Arctic journey than space travel.
"TIDES & THE MOON";
Little is known about this short including when it was made although it appears to be of the same vintage judging by the Bray logos used so it may have been done at the same time as the other Bray space shorts however the workmanlike animation has none of the stylishness of the Fleischer Bros though so it's impossible to know who worked on it. As the title suggests it's not about space travel itself although it does have some sequences showing the orbits of the Earth and the Moon.
Bray Studios shut down it's commercial animation and it's not terribly successful comedy series with the advent of sound in 1928 to focus on documentary and educational films into the 1960's when they scaled back continuing to distribute into the 1980's. Bray himself died in 1978 aged 99.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By comparison to these films here we have two contemporary American educational films dealing with some of the same subjects in a more straight-forward and far less artistic way showing again the difference between the German feature, which was made for a general audience by craftsmen who had some sort of artistic vision and even the playful Fleischer Bros short to the more workmanlike films made for purely educational purposes. Unfortunately no names of any actual people involved in these films such as directors are listed.
"THE SKY" (1928);
This film was made by DeVry School Films who were a major producer of educational films in the twenties, a look at 1926 guide book for educators listing films available for schools and libraries from numorous companies (including US government departments) has dozens of films from DeVry on various subjects. Founder Herman DeVry was a German immigrant and an inventor and friend of fellow inventor the notorious Lee Deforest who claimed to have invented radio and television (he did not). He was one of the pioneers of educational films and later went on to found the well known DeVry Universities as a chain of private technical colleges across the country which still exist. He died in 1941.
This one has some good photography including some nicely moody shots of a youth looking at the stars, shots of an observatory and the usual fine shots of stars and planets, including a spacey shot of a window shade opening itself to reveal the stars. A more interesting thing I noticed is a shot of New York City sitting in a crater that is clearly the same as the one on the poster from the Bray Studios "If We Lived On The Moon" a half dozen years earlier so DeVry must have bought the now lost footage from Bray Studios and recycled it as the shots of the moon's surface are also the same. Also interesting is that some of the intertitles seem to be identical to some of those from "A Trip To The Planets" and since we know that film is a few years older that confirms the impression given by the rather choppy nature of that film and the wildly different typefaces used throughout that it must have been redited more than once over the years. Perhaps by Mogull Bros when the bought the rights from MGM. As for "The Sky"; it may not have the artistic and philosophical ambitions of the German films or even the Fleischer Bros but it is more consistantly coherant in telling its narrative and quite watchable.
"THE EARTH" (1928)
Our next one was made in 1928 by a studio named the Neighborhood Motion Picture Service who specialized in educational short films. At least one more of their films survives and it's a bland film about nutrition made for public schools and a listing I found of film copyrights for 1927 shows them as a New York based studio with four other nature and gardening documentaries. The guide book for educators lists a few more on from this company on citizenship and American history although no more on science (at least at that time) making them a respectable but minor player in the business. Only the first half of this film is actually about space although it does have some nice shots of a solar eclipse. Once again the shot of New York City sitting in a crater from Bray Studios is back. The rest of the film is normal live action and illustrations about the earth's surface along with a scene showing how to view an eclipse by looking at the sun from behind a grapefruit (note; Do Not Try This) and footage of what appears to be the grand canyon. While this film is low budget and much of it was probably patched together from existing footage it is once again efficient and on topic with some good visuals.
"A TRIP TO THE MOON" (circa 1926);
We know even less about this film. The company, Service Pictures, has such an anodyne name that trying to track down any info seems pointless as does any attempts to chase down the equally bland title. Given the fly-by-night nature of some of these tiny studios it's possible it operated under other equally forgettable names. Nonetheless this film does have it's charms as it's story gives some fanciful history of some pre-modern claims of space travel. This animation is very crude consisting of merely sliding paper spaceships across a backdrop and barely qualifies as animation at all but they do have a childlike sense of fun. The drawing of a futuristic spacecraft (in the year 1999) actually looks more realistic than the better drawn Fleischer rocket and was probably based on a diving bell. The shot of the spacecraft leaving a futuristic city and floating in space shows a likely infuence from the 1925 German film albeit done on a much smaller budget and looks almost like an amateur Kubrick with the cratered moonscape looking more gritty and harsh than the other films although it does not explain the moon's lack of atmosphere. This film also makes no attempt to explain how the spacecraft might work and seems quite unaware about the rock experiments Robert Goddard was even then working on. A sequence showing the passing of time starts in 1926 suggesting that was when it was made but that's just a guess although it's clearly not made after that date. While this film actually has precious little actual scientific information it is quite watchable unfortunately we know nothing about those who made it.
"A SOLAR ECLIPSE OVER NEW YORK" (circa 1920's)
Our last film is a fragment from an unknown longer film showing a solar eclipse over New York state as we track it from Buffalo to Poughkeepsie to New York City. The eclipse is shown using a combination of actual footage and simple animation over skyline footage and looks fairly effective. We also see footage of an early observatory telescope outside Buffalo. There's no other inforation about this film including exactly who made it, when, or how long the entire film was. This fragment was found in Holland so the intertitles are in Dutch but's almost certainally an American film and says Universal across the bottom on the intertitles.
Note that by this point talkie films were starting to be made in Hollywood although that would have had no effect on the targeted audience for films for schools and libraries which would have still have been using silent projectors for several more years especially once the Great Depression hit and school budgets got cut. Some of these films were likely still in use into the 1960's.
"Caligari" is one of the most important films of all time, codifying Expressionism as a visual style of claustrophobia and nightmares. The most film's most distinctive effect was the use of elaborate and bizarre sets, backdrops and costumes which were entirely constructed on an indoor stage set by set designers from the Bauhaus theatre design school which included jagged and elongated walls and furniture. Windows were out of symmetry, doors hung jaggedly out of kilter, people perched precariously on chairs which leaned mantis-like over cramped desks. Stairways and causeways sprang out of nowhere stretching haphazardly into the shadows. Trees and lamp-posts made out of plywood loomed jaggedly overhead like spiderwebs. Harsh shadows were painted on the floor at random. The film was simply full of iconic horror imagry. The rickety merry-go-round at the fair, the arrogant town clerk perched at his desk like a decrepit vulture, the somnambulist Cesare (the great Conrad Viedt) sleeping in his coffin aboard Dr. Caligari's (Werner Krause) jack-in-the-box caravan, and Cesare's oddly elegant spider-like stalk across the maze of rooftop gables carrying the damsel in distress (Lil Dagover), Dagover's ghostly walk through the gardens. Caligari was one of the few films of which it can truely be said that there was never anything quite like it. Hugely influential on later Gothic horror, fantasy and film noir, not to mention music videos and perfume commercials. And yet for such an iconic film one has to wonder why there was no followup. Turns out that there was.
Much like Kubrick's "2001", "Caligari" was not only a ground breaker but a cul-de-sac. It's visual style was just too distinctive to imitate without looking like a carbon copy and the great German Expressionists like FW Murnau, Fritz Lang and Paul Wegener soon found other ways to achieve the nightmare effect they wanted, although echos can be found in Lang's versions of "Faust", Murnau's "Nosferatu" and Wegener's "Der Golem". The challenge of how to answer Caligari fell heaviest on it's director Robert Wiene. Actually Weine was thought of as a talented journeyman director who came from a theatre family rather than a full-fledged expressionist like Murnau, Lang or Wegener, or even his actors Veidt and Krause. His previous work from romantic melodramas to domestic comedies with no noteworthy style or flair. In fact many of the visual trademarks of "Caligari" were partly forced on Wiene by the low budget and short shooting schedule that he was saddled with in the economic crisis of post WW1 Germany. This meant he he had no choice but to shoot the entire film indoors in a converted warehouse using plywood stage sets. This made him open to experiment with the expressionists from the Bauhaus school which he might not have otherwise done. Wiene has come into some criticism from those who said that he did not really understand the genre he helped to launch and who resented the changes he was forced add to give the film a happy ending. He is most often dismissed as "over-rated". But it must be said that while he may have been a late convert he dove in with both feet. After "Caligari" his first followup was "Genuine; "Story Of A Vampire".
In 1921 the "vampire" in question was not a bloodsucking undead that we expect but a "vamp", a mysterious and exotic woman who seduces men and destroys men for the sheer joy of doing so. Genuine was the name of the vamp in question, a native girl in some Mid-Eastern slave market who is bought by a European tourist who keeps her captive in a glass birdcage until she lures another young man to kill the older man and release her. Upon which she proceeds to seduce and destroy various men until she meets her demise. And that's about it. The film was a collaboration between Carl Meyer, a respected Expressionist screen writer and painter and Bauhaus set designer Cesare Klein. Meyer would have many important films to his credit notably his later work with Murnau on "The Last Laugh" but the simplistic and plot of "Genuine" was not his best work, especially to modern eyes.
"GENUINE" (full film);
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PLOT (SPOILER ALERT);
Cast;
Fern Andra ~ "Genuine"
Hans Heinz Von Twardowski ~ "Florian"
John Gottowt ~ "Guyard"
Harald Paulsen, Ernst Gronau ~ Roles unknown, presumably "Percy" and "Henry" or "The Barber"
Percy, a painter is dreaming of an exotic girl named Genuine whose life-size painting is on his library wall. As he sleeps the girl comes to life and steps out of the painting.
Genuine is a High Priestess of a tribe in the Mid-East who is captured when her tribe is attacked by a rival tribe and she is taken to a slave market. She is bought by Guyard, an bald old rich European wearing a long black jacket, white gloves and spats. He is warned that she is savage and dangerous. He buys her anyway and takes her to his mansion where he lives with an intimidating black manservant who wears a turban, Turkish pantaloons and a curved dagger. Guyard's mansion is decorated with sinister artwork including a skeleton grandfather clock. Guyard keeps Genuine captive in a giant glass birdcage where she longs for freedom.
Guyard has a barber visit him each day at noon to give him a shave while he dozes in his chair. The other villagers are suspicious of Guyard and ask The Judge to summon the Barber to explain what Guyard is up to in his mansion. The Barber must therefore send his nephew Percy to substitute for him at Guyard's the next day. Guyard gets a letter from his grandson, Percy, announcing that he will coming for a visit. The next day Florian arrives. he is a pale nervous youth wearing kneepants and effeminate clothes and hair. While he is giving Guyard a shave and Guyard dozes Genuine escapes and creeps into the room. She lures Percy into killing Guyard with his straight-razor. Guyard's manservant bursts in and draws his knife to attack Percy. However Genuine has already told Percy that Guyard had been controlling the Manservent with his magic ring. Percy puts on the ring and orders the Manservent to exit the room, which he does.
Genuine and Percy are in bed, she is asleep while he moons over her. He is smitten but he is also racked with guilt over Guyard's death. Genuine awakes and orders Percy to prove his loyalty by killing himself. Percy is distraught and flees, Genuine orders the Manservent to kill him.
Percy arrives and is seduced by Genuine. He falls in love and writes a letter to his friend Henry asking him to visit and bring gifts for his upcoming wedding.
Genuine is enjoying her control over Percy and urges him to kill himself.
Meanwhile Florian, who has not been killed by the Manservant, runs to his father the Barber and confesses to the murder of Guyard. The Barber runs to The Judge and demands that Guyard's mansion be searched.
When Henry arrives Percy tells him that Genuine has cast a spell on him and wants him dead. Henry confronts Genuine and tells him that Percy is dead, Genuine is upset and says she really loves Percy. Henry then reveals that he had lied and that Percy is in fact still alive. Genuine is overjoyed. Henry reunites Genuine and Percy, they decide to run away together.
The Barber has incited an angry mob of villagers armed with pichforks, scythes and flails to attack Guyard's mansion. The Manservant tries to stop the mob but is killed. On his own Florian has also run to the mansion. Genuine tries to hide but is confronted by Florian, she suddenly dies in his arms as the Barber as the mob bursts in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One problem with the film as it exists today is that it is incomplete. Like most films of that era some of it has been lost, perhaps a full reel. All that remains is approximately forty minutes worth, enough for a reasonably coherant plot line and certainly enough to get a feel for the film's sense of style but the film is obviously truncated and full of loose ends. For example why does the Manservant fail to kill Percy? Did Percy escape somehow or did he use the ring to ward him off? Or did The Manservant refuse the order since she did not have the ring? If so why does he remain and risk his life to protect her? For another matter who exactly is Henry? He is the only character strong enough to take charge and resist Genuine's charms and he looks imposing when he confronts her but we know nothing about him. He also disappears without explanation. For that matter so does Percy, which is strange considering the whole film is supposed to be his dream. Speaking of which the film just stops without returning from Percy's dream to the real world at the beginning. Actually considering that the story is supposed to be Percy's dream why do so many events have nothing to do with him and in fact cover events he could not possibly know? The additional fifteen or twenty minutes that are missing might explain all of this, or at least some of it, but there is no way of knowing.
Even without this there are problems with the story that expressionist writers noted even then, let alone now. The character of Genuine is supposed to be a villian who destroys men just for the Hell of it. But considering that she starts as a slave girl who was being passed back and forth and held captive in a cage by the creepy old Guyard she seems more of a victim. Modern audiences should understand that the "Vamp" character was actually a popular stock villain of the 1910's film era. The Vamp was a common character in the early years of film, often played by the likes of Theda Bara, Alla Nazimova or Pola Negri, usually dark haired and wearing elaborate "Eastern" gowns and robes, bejeweled and feathered, chain smoking long filters and fixing her prey with a cold disdainful glare through dark ringed eyes and fluttering lashes. The Vamp characters, so popular to audiences, perhaps showed the hangover of the prudish post-Victorian era and their fear of liberated women and sex in general, particularly amongst poorly educated working class, small town and immigrant audiences. Today however the Vamps seem at best naive and silly and at worst sexist and even misogynistic. Actually some of the more sophisticated artists and intellectuals of the day thought much the same thing and the Vamp character was already going out of style. It would seem that Wiene and Mayer intended the character of Genuine to be a female version of the evil, manipulative Dr. Caligari from the previous film, however since she spends the first part of the film as a victim and the last part professing her guilt she is not much a villain. Unless we are to believe that her repentance at the end was not sincere. Is that why Percy disappears at the end? Did she send him away? Did he sacrifice himself to the mob as The Manservant did? Or did he burst in at the end after her death in a part that has been lost? Does he awaken at the end and did that part also get lost? At any rate the central theme of "Caligari" was one of the danger of a manipulative leader who leads his followers to their doom is muted if that leader is not really evil.
Other Expressionistic writers also complained that the film lacked the basic themes of the genre; alienation, confronting emotional depth through dreams and the very German conflicts of obedience to authority and self expression. The question of Percy's dream is actually important here, especially in the light of what happened in the previous film "The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari". As anyone who has seen "Caligari" will know the entire film is presented as a dream had by the narrator. This was not in the original screenplay written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz but was added by Fritz Lang who was originally supposed to direct the film until he dropped out and was replaced by Robert Wiene. Wiene continued on with Lang's notes over Mayer and Janowitz's objections. Lang and Wiene's assumptions were at least partly the belief that the film would not be accepted by the studio or the public without an ending that was more upbeat. Many writers then and now have criticized for this as undermines the message of the film as being a warning about the evils of authority figures who demand unquestioning obedience from their followers. This was certainly Mayer's main complaint. However some writers have noted that the framing sequences in "Caligari" actually use the same bizarre sets and makeup as the rest of the film's nightmare sequences which in turn undermines the entire "It was all a dream" concept. Was it a dream after all? It's one of the many enigmas of "Caligari". On the other hand in "Genuine" the framing sequence at the start uses a realistic set and makeup that is distinctly at odds with the rest of the film and states up front that the story is a dream which further confuses whatever message the film has, especially since the surviving print seems to end so abruptly.
Those writers (including Mayer) who criticized "Caligari" and "Genuine" for muting the message by making it into a dream inevitably blame Wiene for not understanding the purpose of expressionism. Even setting aside fact that he was working from Fritz Lang's notes with "Caligari" we should consider the fact that after even complaining about the changes made to "Caligari" Mayer quickly worked with Wiene again and he not only wrote this film but once again made it into yet another dream fantasy.
The film would not be remembered for it's plot anyway but for it's look. Weine and set designer Cesare Klein clearly decided to take the nightmare world of "Caligari" to further levels and this time they had the time and budget to do so. However this time the effects were judged by many as not a success. The more elaborate sets of "Genuine" seemed to overwhelm the cast and the exotic costumes were simply a distraction. Where "Caligari" was stark and moody, "Genuine" was too busy for it's own good. Conversely many felt that the flat plywood and canvas sets also lacked lacked depth. The same was also true of "Caligari" but the sheer novelty of the first film had caught the imagination of most viewers, somehow the second time around a similar style now seemed a cliche. Most of the actors fade into the wild backgrounds and they suffer even more from the frequently ridiculous costumes and hairstyles they wear. Fern Andra as Genuine wears a typical "exotic" Vamp costume of the time which contemporary audiences probably felt was not too over-the-top more or less, ditto for the black Manservant's Turkish costume. However Percy's Buster Brown kneepants and schoolboy outfit just look silly and the absurd hairstyles that he and The Barber wear make them look like they wandered over from a Flock Of Seagulls video. I doubt that 1920 audiences felt much different. They have better luck with Guyard; his hunched shoulders, bald head, long tight black jacket, white gloves with black lines on the back and spats over Cuban heeled shoes, he looks like a combination of Dr Caligari and Nosferatu. Similarly Henry, looming tall and dressed in black from head to foot looks imposing enough to standout immediately.
This brings us to the other quality lacking in "Genuine", the acting. In "Caligari" Wiene was blessed to have some of the finest German actors of the age. The brilliant Conrad Veidt was haunting as Cesare and Wener Krause as Dr.Caligari made an iconic villain while Lil Dagover was a definitive Gothic damsel in distress. Besides the leads each of the other players (who also included Rudolph Klein-Rogge, who would go on to appear in classics like "Dr Mabuse", "Spies", "Die Nibelungen" and "Metropolis") gave sharply etched characters that easily overcame the limitations of silence and stood out from as rather than fading into the weird sets and costumes. In Genuine the only holdover from "Caligari" was Hans Heinz Von Twardowski, who had played the doomed Alan in the earlier film and now played the hapless Florian. This time he seemed simply callow and pathetic and he was given more room to overact in ways that seem more blatant to modern eyes than perhaps at the time. Similarly there is Fern Andra as Genuine, she was reportedly a dancer rather than a trained actor with much film experience and she also tends to overact, at any rate she lacks the Vampish menace of a Pola Negri, Alla Nazimova or Theda Bara who had a better understanding of their roles. It is simply never clear exactly why men are supposed to find her so seductive when she merely looks basically attractive but not especially charismatic. Nor does she make a very compelling victim, which given all the terrible things that happen to her is a problem. Although given the contradictions of her character that's may not be entirely her fault. She is simply a stock "Vamp" plot device audiences were expected to accept as irresistible to all men by definition, something they were less likely to do than would have been the case a few years before when Teda Bara was in her heyday.
There are a few good performances though; John Gottowt as "Guyard" is creepy enough, although he lacks the menacing presence of Werner Krause stalking through the narrow streets in "Caligari". By contrast Guyard's hunched shoulders and mincing steps would make him a better henchmen and in fact FW Murnau would use him to good effect as the Renfield character in "Nosferatu" two years later. He had already appeared in another classic horror film, the 1913 version of "The Student Of Prague" (with Paul Wegener) and he would later appear in "Waxworks" in 1924 with Conrad Veidt. Gottowt was Jewish and had to flee Germany after the Nazis took power in 1933, he fled first to Denmark but then moved to Poland (where there was a thriving Yiddish theatre and film scene) where he was captured and murdered by the SS in 1942.The unknown actor playing "Henry" has enough stage presence to stand out from the busy sets and dominate Andra in their scene together and he would actually have made an excellent villain. It's too bad he gets so little screen time and we know nothing about him. We also know nothing about the black actor playing the Manservant although he is has the presence to be serviceable enough in the role. As an aside it is worth noting the irony that European films of the 1920's usually used actual black actors on the rare times they were called for rather than white actors in blackface as in most American films and while they were invariably stock characters and extras they were not used in the sort of demeaning "Sambo" roles either.
Despite it's flaws "Genuine" is still worth seeing for any fan of Expressionism as pure example of the genre, and the sets, while at times a little too busy for their own good, are still eye-catching, especially to modern eyes which rarely if ever see such a riot of out of control design. The current film's short forty minute run time, while leading to all sorts of plotting problems as stated above, does at least have the bonus of making it easy to sit through, always a consideration with silent films for some.
After "Genuine" Carl Mayer would go on to a respected career as an Expressionist screenwriter with several well regarded films to his credit, including collaborating with FW Murnau on the classic "The Last Laugh" in 1924. Ironically that film had yet another dream sequence tacked on to the end, this time apparently by Murnau himself at the orders of the studio. Cesare Klein would continue his career as a painter and theatre designer. Of the cast only John Gottowt seems to have gone on to any note appearing as stated above in Murnau's "Nosferatu".
As for Robert Wiene; after the relative failure of "Genuine" he did not give up on Expressionism as a genre. In 1923 he traveled to the USSR, where his work was highly regarded, to do an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's "Crime And Punishment" (sometimes found under the alternative title "Rashkolinov") using an all Russian cast. He was still wedded to the pure Expressionist style he had laid down in "Caligari" but he had listened to the criticism of "Genuine" and taken note of Paul Wegener's film "Der Golem". This time he made the sets more three dimensional which gave them more depth while toning down the outlandish costumes. The result was a better balance of fantasy and reality which got the film better reviews, especially in Russia. Although the film is not well known today and rarely seen, copies can still be occasionally found on DVD. In 1924 he reunited with "Caligari's" Conrad Veidt for "The Hands Of Orlock" (AKA "Orlock's Hands") an influential horror classic which was later remade in an inferior sound version. "Orlock" is currently available on DVD from Criterion and is highly recommended. After that he settled back into mainstream work like "The Duchess Of The Folies Bergeres". For this he has been roundly dismissed as little more than a hack, although few people criticism Fritz Lang for his similar mercenary films and lapses in taste. After Hitler came to power the Nazi's banned Wiene's three Expressionist films and he quickly fled the country to the USA where he was considering a sound remake of "Caligari" when he died in 1938. There would in fact be a B Movie quickee remake of Caligari in 1962 which has been richly forgotten. There would also be an interesting shot by shot sound American remake in 2005 which is currently available on DVD and is worth checking out.
Classic TV Shows From The DuMont Network 1946 to 1955;
VARIOUS DUMONT ID'S;
In the early years of TV there were four networks, CBS, NBC, ABC and the long lost DuMont Network. DuMont was actually one of the first to go on air (along with NBC) but they were chronically underfunded and unlucky, eventually going out of business in 1955. Although the network was short lived and lacking in funds they managed to discover some important talent like Ernie Kovaks, Jackie Gleason, Morey Amsterdam, Mike Douglas, Arthur Murray, Art Carney, Wally Cox, Arnold Stang, Bishop Fulton Sheen and Ted Mack's Amateur Hour, unfortunately they inevitably saw such stars get hired away by the deeper pockets of CBS or NBC as soon as they got famous. DuMont had better luck with some of the ultra-low budget shows they created themselves including the earliest crime and sci-fi shows including the classic Captain Video, along with the first soap opera, sitcoms and game shows. Although remembered today, if at all, as a failure, DuMont managed to create some ground breaking TV programming with bare-bones resources, often by more or less by accident.
CAPTAIN VIDEO AND HIS VIDEO RANGERS;
Captain Video was the first really major hit of the TV era. Unlike later space operas like Star Trek, which had fairly sophisticated stories and aimed at an audience that included young adults, Captain Video, was purely a kids show inspired by earlier serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon with simple story lines and cartoonish villains. Like most early TV shows Captain Video had a cast of unknowns and extremely low budgets with non-existent special effects and static camera work. Captain Video (the character) was a space ranger who was constantly fighting various criminals in outer space. With DuMont's micro-budgets the action in Captain Video was mostly confined to indoor studios and showed little actual space travel. The command center control boards rivaled such classics as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "Robot Monster" for ramshackle jerry-rigged crudity. Consisting of a few random lights and dials, some of which seemed to be painted on, the whole space ship looked like it would fall apart in a stiff breeze let alone the cosmic winds of space. Also due to the low budgets, the villains, alien or not, always looked just like us (assuming you were a white male of course, or possibly an Asian), no elaborate makeup or masks for DuMont! In fact the budgets were so absurdly low that for the first few seasons the already short fifteen minute shows were actually padded out to half hour length by showing footage of old westerns that DuMont had gotten the rights to and which of course had no relationship to the rest of the story.
CAPTAIN VIDEO:
That story concerned the Captain himself, the self appointed leader of his own inter-stellar private law enforcement agency dedicated to fighting for Truth and Justice in the cosmos. The Captain was played by two different actors during the show's run, Richard Coogan and Al Hodges, neither of whom were well known names. Facing off against various space villains like Mook The Moonman, Kul of Eos, Heng Foo Seeng, Dr. Clysmock and that Dr. Moriatry of Space, the evil Dr. Pauli and his Astrodital Society. The good Captain was a pilot, detective and scientist who had a secret mountain base sometime in the 21st or 22nd century, whichever, it was never clear which. Besides the Captain was his troop of young Video Rangers who were outfitted with the latest in low tech gadgetry from their Atomic Rifles to his Cosmic Ray Vibrator (which sounds kinkier than it was) to his communicators like the Radio Scillometer and the Discotron Video Screen. All these doo-dads were up to the usual Dumont standards, ie they looked like they were slapped together by a high school shop class.
CAPTAIN VIDEO:
In spite of all these drawbacks Captain Video show was wildly popular spawning a whole collection of merchandise from lunchboxes to ray guns, decoder rings and buttons to bubblegum trading cards and was one of DuMont's few real hits, lasting until the network fell apart in 1955. The success of the show soon led to numerous other similar 1950's sci-fi shows such as "Tom Corbet, Space Cadet", "Space Patrol", Captain Z-Ro" and "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger" as well as a remade "Flash Gordon" series. These shows had better budgets, production values and better scripts and some were quite popular but somehow none rivaled the iconic stature of Captain Video. By 1951 DuMont, already desperate for cash, optioned out the rights to one of it's few money makers and Captain Video was resurrected as one of the last movie serials by Columbia Studios with a completely different cast (starring Judd Holdren as the Capt.) and considerably bigger budget, meaning it went from Z grade to merely B level. Movie serials shown in theaters were going out of style by then however and that was the end of Captain Video's adventures. After DuMont's collapse captain Video did not return to TV or films and sci-fi moved on to more sophisticated fare like Star Trek leaving the Captain behind with his Video Rangers.
AD FOR CAPTAIN VIDEO DECODER RING;
ROCKY KING, DETECTIVE;
DuMont scored another hit with one of the first police procedurals, a genre that would later include the likes of Dragnet, The FBI, Adam 12 and Law & Order. Rocky King was a police detective in a big city who solved cases by patient police work rather than flashy brilliance or repartee. Since like most dramas of the day, especially those on cash strapped DuMont, the filming was all done on studio backdrops there was no room for car chases or elaborate gun battles, although fist fights were common.
ROCKY KING, DETECTIVE;
What earned Rocky King such a devoted audience was not it's rather pedestrian stories but the down-to-earth style of leading man Roscoe Karns, a veteran film character actor with an easy going manner. The stories took advantage of this by adding in light hearted family drama and banter with King's wife and son which viewers identified with. In addition Rocky was not a larger than life character like Bogart, Philo Vance or Nick and Nora Charles but a regular working guy who took his lunch to work and worried about the bills, just like the viewers. One unique feature of the show was that King's wife and son were never actually seen but only heard as voices chatting with King off screen, occasionally Mrs. King's hand would be seen tossing Rocky his hat and coat, or his lunch. This was not originally planned but was actually one of DuMont's budget savers since it allowed the actress playing Mrs King to double in other roles, however the audiences loved the gimmick and it became a permanent feature with the faceless Mrs King getting actually getting fan mail. Like Captain Video Rocky King stayed on DuMont until the network went off the air.
ROCKY KING, DETECTIVE;
Other DuMont crime shows were "The Adventures Of Ellery Queen", the first TV version of the popular detective novels, it only lasted one season on DuMont however before it's star Richard Hart died and the show moved to ABC, besides being constantly broke DuMont was also remarkably unlucky. An ill-fated attempt at luring a big name to DuMont led to "The Gallery Of Mme. Lui-Tsong" starring the well known film star Anna May Wong which also only lasted one season as Anna May was unhappy doing live TV, as all shows were in those days. Unfortunately none of these shows seem to have survived. They had better luck with crime and mystery anthologies such as "Chicagoland Mystery Players", "Famous Jury Trials" (another radio carryover), "They Stand Accused" and "Hands Of Mystery". An oddity was "The Plainclothesman" a unique show in which the entire show was shown from the point of view of it's never seen main character, in other words the camera only showed what the character saw as if the audience were seeing through his eyes. "Trial By Jury" featured actual trials staged for the camera in more elaborate version of the later "People's Court". DuMont also carried some popular syndicated detective shows like "Man Against Crime" (with Ralph Bellamy) and "Front Page Detective" which had higher production values and better known stars, but these shows were independently produced and not unique to the network. DuMont did however produce the first network soap opera with "Far Away Hills" an early sitcoms "The Growing Paynes" and "The Goldbergs" (yet another radio show) and game shows "Twenty Questions" and "Dollar A Second".
THE ADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN;
Luckily one area where DuMont's chronic budgetary constraints did not matter was children's programming. Other noteworthy DuMont kids shows included children's shows like the highly popular "Small Fry Club", which was carried over from a long time radio show, "The Adventures of Oky Doky", a puppet show, and "Johnny Jupiter", a space show with puppets.
JOHNNY JUPITER;
Sometimes Dumont's no-frills approach led to some critical successes like The Johns Hopkins Science Review, a show featuring discussions about various scientific topics that Dumont threw on to fill time against the powerhouse shows of other networks such as Dragnet, Arthur Godfrey, and Milton Berle. Since DuMont had no hope of competing with such ratings behemoths they tossed on this academic exercise to kill time. It tanked in the ratings of course but was well regarded by it's small audience of educators, scientists and intellectuals and it won DuMont's only Peabody Award. It would be a prototype for the kind of public affairs shows that would arrive along with PBS a generation later. Similar public affairs shows were "The Georgetown University Forum", which DuMont put up against powerhouse "Red Skelton" and "Gene Autry", and "Washington Exclusive" up against Jack Benny and Mr. Peepers. All with similar results. Still DuMont persisted in airing cheap cultural programming such as operas and symphonies and discussions with authors and artists. DuMont was also the first network to air the Senate Hearings of Joe McCarthy vs. The U.S. Army.
"THE JOHNS HOPKINS SCIENCE REVIEW";
DuMont's one truly popular public affairs type show were religious sermons by Bishop Fulton J Sheen, from whom the young actor Martin Estevez would take his stage name, Martin Sheen. Bishop Sheen, a moderate Catholic priest, became a popular figure for his inspirational sermons, he won DuMont's only Emmy Award.
"LIFE IS WORTH LIVING"
Not all DuMont's programming was so enlightened of course as they also relied on a lot of wrestling, roller derby, boxing, basketball and football. In the early days of TV when many people didn't have TV's at home but watched in bars, pool-halls and greasy spoons this sort of programming always had an audience in the evening.
ROLLER DERBY ~ 1949;
Music shows on DuMont included the influential "Old American Barn Dance"; a country music show that gave national coverage to some notable C&W stars like Patsy Montana and Pee Wee King, shows hosted by bandleader Vincent Lopez, pop singer Al Morgan, and "The Arthur Miller Dance Party" which was produced by the Millers themselves as promo for their dance studios and would survive on other networks after DuMont was gone. Another independently produced show which would survive DuMont was the well regarded "Art Ford's Dance Party" which attracted some major Jazz figures like Coleman Hawkins, Buster Bailey and Stuff Smith to make what would be in some cases their only TV appearances. Another notable show was "The Hazel Scott Show"; the first network show hosted by a black person, a title usually given to Nat King Cole who did hosted a show over a decade later.
THE ARTHUR MILLER DANCE PARTY (W/JOHNNY RAY);
VINCENT LOPEZ ORCH;
Unfortunately most of DuMont's programming was lost back in the 1970's when ABC, who by then owned it, melted most of it down for it's silver nitrate content and dumped the rest into the East River.
