Ihmeellinen valhe / Den underbara lögnen. DE 1929. PC: Erich Pommer-Produktion der Ufa. P: Erich Pommer. D: Hanns Schwarz. SC: Hans Szekely. DP: Carl Hoffmann. PD: Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig. Costumes: René Hubert. M for cinema orchestra: Maurice Jaubert.
Starring Brigitte Helm (Nina Petrovna), Franz Lederer (Lt. Michael Rostov), Warwick Ward (Colonel).
3018 m /24 fps/ 109 min.
The brilliant 1999 Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung / Bundesarchiv restoration at L'Immagine Ritrovata commissioned by ARTE with the Maurice Jaubert score.
A dazzling print from FWMS, e-subtitles in Finnish by Antti Alanen operated by Mickael Suominen. Viewed at Orion, Helsinki, 12 April 2005.
I knew this film from the magnificent Erich Pommer retrospective in Berlin 1989. Now the restoration from the original negative and the impressive Maurice Jaubert score greatly enhance the experience.
The film can be compared with Mizoguchi, Stroheim and Ophuls. It is a story of love with a tough sense of money. Liebe als Ware: love as merchandise. She saves her lover's life and sacrifices her own. A tough yet not cynical story: she wins the moral victory over the brutal colonel and the innocent lieutenant.
Interestingly, the two great German stars Brigitte Helm and Marlene Dietrich both had their breakthrough in an Erich Pommer production, and both left Germany, refusing to work under the Hitler regime.
Most memorably, this is a feat of cinematography, brilliantly realized by Carl Hoffmann: the mobile camera, the long tracking shots, the powerful close-ups and inserts, the smooth superimpositions and transitions, the judicious effects. There are several ca 5 minutes long sequences without words.
The objects are significant: clocks, shoes, flowers, playing cards, jewels. One important line is that of electric light (shut off), fire (lit and extinguished), and candles (burnt out at the end).
The excellent Maurice Jaubert score includes a waltz love theme, a military theme, and a motif of time.
There is some over-acting acceptable as pantomime. ****
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