Jannings Speaks

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1028, 19 July 1930, Page 25

Jannings Speaks

FIRST GERMAN TALKIE

Screening of “The Blue Angel”

THE outstanding event of tlie season in the German cinema world was the appearance of the first Emil Jannings talkie, “The Blue Angel,” at the Gloria Palast Theatre, Berlin, recently. “The Blue Angel,” an Erich Pommer production of the U.P.A. Company, was accorded a hearty reception, and was the first effort at making a serious, artistic talking film in Germany. Another event of note was the appearance of Conrad Veidt in the sound-synchronised film, “The Last Company,” which is a war picture of a most unusual type.

Tlie story of “The Blue Angel” is based upon “Professor Unrat,” a novel by Heinrich Mann, brother of the author of “The Magic Mountain.” The motif of “The Blue Angel” recalls “The Way of All Flesh,” a previous notable .Jannings success. Professor Immanuel Rath, respected middle-aged teacher in a small German town, rules his class of high school boys with an iron hand. Learn ing that some of his students are pay ing surreptitious visits to the tavern, “The Blue Angel," where Lola Lola, a music-hall dancer, is appearing with a low-class travelling troupe, the pro fessnr goes to the manager to warn

him against allowing the hoys to tee the performinces. Rath, an jxtremely unsophisticated man, iacomes e n a inured of Lola and oon after marries ier. By this union he uts himself adrift from all the ties that have bound him to his routine

life. As the husband of a vulgar music-hall dancer of somewhat fragile virtue, he cau no longer retain ills position as a high school teacher. The one-time professor sinks lower and lower in the social scale. First he hawks postcard pictures of his wife in tights to bar room* habitues, and then he takes a sjnall part as a clown in the travelling company, serving as the butt of the magician’s jokes. One day tlie troupe returns to the

detailed to hold the French advance until the bulk of the Prussian Army has crossed the only remaining bridge over the Saaie River. Captain Burk’s tiny force takes possession of a little windmill that commands the only road leading through the marshy country. The miller and his family are driven away, hut his daughter remains to look after Burk. Apparently the producer thought that some love

slement had to be introduced, no mater how irrelevant. All night, long he devoted defenders maintain their vigil until the French vanguard ippears in the morning. The sumnons to surrender with the honours jf war is rejected. In the fighting that follows the last

company holds the fort until every man—and the girl, too —has been killed. This Prussian Thermopylae saved the German Army from destruction. Extraordinary are the sound reproductions in this film. Thus, the desolate scene of the battlefield with’ the bodies of men and horses aud the debris of wagons and caissons scattered around everywhere and the cawing of crows as they fly overhead livo long in the memory. Painfully vivid is the neighing of a horse which, driven from the narrow road into the morass, sinks out of sight in the mud. But what marks this film above Ihe ordinary is Veidt’s fine acting. Grim and relentless determination are stamped on his face, and the per sonality of the actor quite throws the rest of the cast into the shade. The genius of Veidt is as different from Jannings’s as night is from day, hut it is just as evident. “The Love Waltz” No film in Berlin this year has had a popular success equal to that attained by “The Love Waltz,” also a U.F.A. picture, produced by Erich Pommel’. This was the first attempt to make a Viennese musical comedy on the talkies and the success was Instantaneous.

The plot is slight. A Balkan prince ling, while touring Amerita, is re-