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112 CELLULOID
wharves, it is built on three levels, the roof reaching to a considerable height. From a door at the top, an incredibly steep and very long flight of narrow wooden steps descends to the middle level, from which the inimitable Mackie Messer dictates his questionable correspondence to his secretary, who is seated at least twenty feet below him on the lower level. What a delightful touch of humour is this ! On all sides of the set rise up great barrels, ridiculous barrels of absurd height and girth, yet how admirably original. Mackie's dressing-room consists of smaller barrels placed slightly apart, behind each of which he vanishes in turn to complete his toilet. Outside there is a salubrious erection of piles and arches and small bridges, a perfect ideological world for the Apaches of London, hung about with slanting masts and drooping rigging. The most delightful part of it all is that when the gang emerge from their huge cellar by the door in the ceiling, they arrive on the normal level of the streets outside.
Quite different but equally amusing is the lateVictorian brothel, with its paper-patterned windows and antimacassars, its multitude of useless ornaments and its giant negress statues standing about the room. Every detail in these sets is placed there with a definite purpose — to create the mood for the scene. In the twisted streets, in the prison, in the angular office of Peachum, in the underground cafe, this same striving for atmosphere is apparent and is tremendously successful. No other films in the world can create such an architectural environment so well as those of Germany.
This intimacy between the director and the architect