Zweigroschenzauber (1929) User Reviews

Nothing magical about this film

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 27 July 2015]

"Zweigroschenzauber" or "Two Pence Magic" is a 2-minute film by German director Hans Richter from 1929. It's still an early career effort, even if Richter was already in his 40s when he made this. The film starts with a magic trick, but that's only the first seconds. Quickly afterward, we see all kinds of random scenes, some of them linked together. We see boxers, planes flying etc. In the end, we realize that this is actually a commercial. It's a silent black-and-white film, but it's absolutely inferior to American movies from that time. The quality is so low and the contents are so uninteresting and far too much for 2 minutes that I would even say there are 19th century American, British and French films that are already superior to Richter's work here. Not recommended.

"A Commercial in Picture Rhymes"

[theatrum-1 · 8/10 · 25 November 2006]

Twopence Magic is one of the most interesting German avant-garde shorts. Hans Richter shot this movie in the break of the twenties and thirties in the crucial time of film abstraction. The subtitle of movie sounds "a commercial in picture rhymes" and spectator can use this line as the key for the interpretation of movie. It works with the different concepts of advertisement and poem. In the quasi-record of a magician's show {or solicitor's dreaming} there is an associated zone of dramatic and flustering pictures what is near to surrealist imagination (association is meant as the visual rhyme). There are fragments of documentary notations of many human actions linked by the visual or semiotic similarity. Movie works with the expectation of lyrical or intellectual achievement and ironical frustration: forms of art could be used for a propagation of a magazine.

Film Collage

[Tornado_Sam · 6 March 2022]

While a certain amount of abstraction is to be expected in every film by German filmmaker Hans Richter, "Two Pence Magic" is somewhat of an exception. Instead of using photography to create unique effects and impressions on the audience, Richter's approach here is much more in the manner of the sort of compilation video you'd see on the Internet today, in that it is less about effect and more about blending unrelated clips together to create visual interest. The subtitle itself serves as an indication of what the filmmaker was going for - the phrase "A commercial in picture rhythm" suggests he was focused on creating a rhythm in the various clips of film edited together, and not nearly as much in the way of abstract effects.

"Two Pence Magic" is simply a very brief, two minute collage film that pieces together different segments of media, likely some of it found footage, through blending each clip with the next through the visual continuity they each share. This allows it to cycle through a series of completely unrelated topics while seeming whole and cohesive at the same time, a paradox that is best explained by watching the film itself. At the end, the commercial aspect becomes apparent and adds an extra layer to the movie, although the film is far from being a simple advertisement. Well done for what it's trying to accomplish, although not necessarily the classic type of Richter film most are used to.