Picturegoer (1923)

DECEMBER 1923 Pict\jres an d Plct\jre p ^sr Made Top: Conrad I'cidt and Liaiir Haul "Iniquity." AboTC : Dagnx Scrvacs "Peter the Great." They aren't labelled " ]Made in Germany " when they appear in the kinemas. In fact, you'll know them chiefly because they aren't labelled anything at all. No producer as a rule, no cast, no " Art Titles by . . .," no " Scenario by . . ." etc. Just the title, and straight into the opening shot. That's not how the Germans make them; if you were .to see a copy as it first arrived from Germany you would have just as much reading to do as before any ordinary film, or more, because the Germans give credit to their costumier, their architect — always their architect, for he is an important man in German productions— musical director, designer, and a hundred and one other people. But all this is cut before the film comes to English screens, along with many hundreds of feet of film. There would be enough left over after the cutting of a German film to make a full-length feature ! When I first saw Dr Mabusc it took five hours to run through, and even then it was an abbreviated version of the original Berlin copy ! For the German producer, like the German musician and novelist, has such a tremendous lot to say, and he is never quite sure when to stop. He -would Leiber. run 01. lor hours if his audience would let him — and in Germany they do let \\\m. watching half his films one afternoon and half the next, as opera-goers watch Wagner's " Ring." Sometimes a long film is shewn in four different parts, each part equivalent to an ordinary English performance of a super film. No wonder these films take some cutting to reduce them to programme length in this country, and no wonder that, as a result, the continuity seems often a little jerky and the actions pell-mell on each other's heels ! It is like cramming the w-holc of Shakespeare into a one-act curtainraiser. If any film producer has an excuse for being long-w-inded it is the German. To begin with, the stories he has to tell are so w-ell worth the telling. They are thrilling stories, highly dramatic and packed with incident : they de\elop in an unexpected and mysterious uay, and the most faithful film-goer in the world could not take a safe bet once in ten on what is going to happen next. Then his techni(|ue is so finished, his Lee Parry, a favourite Continental star. cameramen so highly skilled. Nothingis too much trouble for the Germans. Every detail of photography, lighting and setting must be carefully considered, and nothing is too trivial to escape the producer's eagle eye. They are all for realism too. If the story demands a castle, a castle is forthwith built ; no canvas affair, but a moated, turreted castle of stone and iron, over whose drawbridge a hundred men-at-arms can ride with ease. For a certain scene in Siegfried, a twelve-foot forest was raised in a night, an honest Ernil Janninii-< and Cordx M illoieit.s-eh in "Peter the Great."