Change Your Image
Kevin Clarke
Reviews
Pennies from Heaven (1981)
Anglo-American Benefit
What really got to me, while watching this great retro-musical, was this thought: why is it that the Anglo-American film-world manages to recycle the old musical classics again and again (right up to DANCER IN THE DARK and MOULIN ROUGE) while in Germany, for example, no self-respecting modern film maker would EVER dream of referring to any old German music film operetta? Sad. It explains why all those fantastic Hollywood musicals are alive and well, and present with the general audience. And why German operetta is all but forgotten. Sad indeed. - Perhaps one day German filmmakers will come up with something as wonderful as PENNIES FROM HEAVEN... it made me smile all the way through those Busby Berkely inspired numbers. And think of Sondheim's ASSASSINS at the very end.
The Son of the Sheik (1926)
Visually stunning
It amazes me, that Valentino-as-the-sheik was able to start such a fashion in the 1920s. Watching this sequel of THE SHEIK I keep seeing everything that had already been recycled in the Broadway operetta DESERT SONG - also filmed as an early talkie, shortly after SONG OF THE SHEIK. Valentino far outclasses everyone I've ever seen play "The Red Shadow" - and visually the SON OF THE SHEIK is much better than any DESERT SONG film version (even the later, color one). Considering the intense interest in 'Arab Matters' today, it's sad that no one revives DESERT SONG done Valentino-style. Because even after all those years - his 'hypnotic gaze' in the film remains hypnotic.
The Emperor Waltz (1948)
Re-vamping the "White Horse Inn" for Hollywood?
I find it amazing, that Wilder - 12 years after the Broadway success of Erik Charell's WHITE HORSE INN, and 18 years after the Berlin premiere of the show by the same creative team (a version Wilder certainly saw, since it was the talk of the town he lived in at the time) - re-uses many of the elements that made that revue-operetta such a smash hit: those pop art Tirolean costumes and villages, the lake, the jodels, the dancers in Lederhosen and Dirndl... some of the village scenes and costumes actually look, as if Wilder was using the original operetta-designs by Ernst Stern. He even quotes original operetta music (by Lehár, instead of Ralph Benatzky, just to mislead the viewer - and maybe avoid copyright problems.) Also, the basic idea of the Charell/Hans Müller operetta is re-used here: a man from a different culture ends up in the Alps and has to cope with a totally different 'Austrian' way of life. In the original it's the Berlin industrialist Giesecke, in the movie it's Bing Crosby as the American salesman. In both cases, the clash of cultures is delightful to watch and makes for some hilariously comic scenes. Perhaps, in the movie, Crosby is not the ideal 'ironic' actor needed for a story of this kind... (he plays the story rather 'straight'). Still, Wilder makes sure the viewer understands that it is all a gigantic joke. (Actually, he even shows the Austrian Kaiser as a silly old fool, exactly like in the operetta.) It would be interesting to analyze show and film. Even though theater historians prefer to ignore films, and film historians prefer to ignore theater productions. But, as Richard Norton pointed out in his essay on the career of WHITE HORSE INN in the English speaking world, Warner Brothers bought the rights for a film version of the operetta and thought of casting Al Jolson, Maurice Chevalier, Eddie Cantor or Jack Okie in the movie. Just imagine what a movie it would/could have been with Bing Crosby as the suave lead, and with Billy Wilder directing. Perhaps WHITE HORSE INN never made it to Hollywood, but this film is the closest the operetta ever got to being turned into a big, splashy, wonderful, colorful and very, very funny film. Definitely worth watching - and copying, for anyone who wants to put on WHITE HORSE INN on stage. Wilder know how to make these kind of stories sparkle and shine. Visually and musically.
Die - oder keine (1932)
Priceless
This may be a rather 'simple' German filmoperetta (actually, the titles call it "A Gitta Alpar Tonfilmoperette"!), and there isn't much polish to the found in the direction, let alone the acting - or plot. But the film allows us to see two of the greatest operetta stars of the era, Gitta Alpar and Max Hansen (who was the original headwaiter Leopold in "The White Horse Inn"). Watching these two totally different performers is quite a treat, each singing excellently. Alone and together. But the moment-of-moments is when Hansen dresses up as Alpar and does a parody of her. That scene-in-drag is priceless (and can be found on youtube). It shows everything that was fun and marvellous about 1920s operetta. Everything the Nazis erased - and that never came back. Because who, after Hansen, ever pulled off such a scene in a later operetta? And who, after Alpar, ever sang operetta in this mad, over the top way again? It's a shame the film has not been released commercially on DVD yet. As a document of a forgotten era.
The Desert Song (1929)
Historical marvel
Okay, as a film this isn't the greatest achievement: it's static beyond belief. And I imagine back in 1929 it wasn't a huge success. But seen today, it allows us to witness a performance tradition that is lost. This "Desert Song" looks (and sounds) like a filmed stage performance of one of the most popular Broadway-operettas of the 1920s. All the melodramatic acting is there, the exaggerated comic stuff... and all the cross-gender jokes that would be politically incorrect today. (About Pierre being "like a sister" to Margot and Benny not being "a real man".) Put together, you can imagine how such a way of performing operetta worked on stage back then. And it's a shame no one does it like this any more - because the (homosexual) jokes (among others) are really funny. Also, you get to hear the entire score nearly intact, as played on Broadway. The singing isn't great throughout. But combined with the acting and good looks (especially of the Red Shadow) and combined with the phenomenal orchestra the music impresses. Hopefully someone will issue a soundtrack one day. And hopefully someone will release the film on commercial DVD, as a historic document of a great show done 'historically correct.' Compared with the later 'heroic' versions of "Desert Song" on film, this one is pure fun. And still touching at the same time. A mad romance in Marocco...
The Three Musketeers (1921)
Not looking his best...
After admiring Douglas Fairbank's smashing looks in the later THIEF OF BAGDAD, I have to say he looks extremely unattractive in these pseudo-historical French costumes and a wig you wonder where he got it from. And not only does he as the star attraction look bad - the French queen (for one) is just as terrible with an equally terrible wig. Not to mention the Three Musketeers: stout, unsporty, unfunny. I wonder if in 1921 this was considered 'attractive'? (I very much doubt it.) Still, some of the scenes are fun to watch, even at epic length (more than two hours running time.) I guess with the right symphonic live music it must have been impressive back then. With cheap (and thin sounding) computer music as a soundtrack on DVD today, it is... a bit dreary. (Sadly.)
Interstingly, there is a 1929 stage operetta of the same title by Benatzky/Charell created for Berlin (and recently revived in Nordhausen, Germany), that makes interesing comparison with this film - whole scenes have been taken 1:1 from it. Only with better music attached to it.
It would be fun to see the film with a Benatzky-based soundtrack!
Im weißen Rößl am Wolfgangssee (1994)
The true version... and the only watchable one!
After decades of seeing this funny Berlin Operetta from 1930 in embarrassing "Heimatfilm" version, it is good to finally have a production that shows the piece as the madcap play-with-music that is is, and that has nothing to do with sickeningly sweet nostalgia but all to do with hilarious fun. Later filmversions with Johannes Heesters (1952) and Peter Alexander (1960) totally ignored this aspect of the operetta,and turned into what all operettas looked like at the time (and most still do today): sentimental toss!
This filmed live-performance of a Berlin off-scene production at the trendy "Bar jeder Vernunft" gathered a handpicked group of cabaret actors (Geschwister Pfister, Meret Becker) and nostalgia singers (Max Raabe) plus some famous German actors (Otto Sander), to produce a small scale version, that is simply irresistible. It started a revival of operetta as an intelligent genre for intelligent people in Germany.
Sadly, there have been no other productions like this one at the "Bar jeder Vernunft" (though they had thought about Paul Linckes "Frau Luna" in 1999/2000). The Geschister Pfister, who direct and star, have since become National Treasures as a dancing and singing trio of ultra camp style... which can be said of this "Roessl"-version as well.
But that's what makes it so perfect and so much fun!