Valeska Gert Movies
1976's Coup de Grace (released in Germany as Der Fangschluss) was inspired by a Marguerite Yourcenar novel and directed by Volker Schlondorff. The story is set in Latvia in 1919, at the height of the Soviet Civil War. Margarethe von Trotta plays an aristocrat sympathetic to the Communist cause. Besides her ruinous habit of falling love with men who do not love her, Margarethe's tragic flaw is her refusal to acknowledge the cost of the revolution in terms of human lives. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margarethe von Trotta, Matthias Habich, (more)
Juliet of the Spirits is a fantastical showcase for Federico Fellini's vibrant imagery, starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, as the titular leading character. Juliet is a wealthy housewife who constantly fears her husband, Giorgio (Mario Pisu), is cheating on her. While she yearns for a peaceful intimate evening on the night of their 15th anniversary, the egotistical Giorgio has forgotten about it and instead arrives home with his eccentric friends. After a trip to a séance, Juliet is haunted by images from the spirit world, including obsessions from her past involving religion and her late relatives. With her sisters and mother prying into her life, Juliet seems to be seeking an inner peace amidst all the sexual temptations surrounding her. She meets her neighbor, Suzy (Sandra Milo), a showy pleasure-seeker who lives in a sensual playhouse. It appears that all of Juliet's family, friends, and fantasies demand that she loosen up and embrace sexual freedom, yet she remains chaste and dowdy, lamenting over her unfaithful husband. The reasons for Juliet's repression are not clearly defined by the narrative, despite glimpses into her supposed imagination. Forced to endure the constant bombardment of sexually charged imaginings, the demure Juliet retreats on her own. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Giulietta Masina, Mario Pisu, (more)
Filmmaker G.W. Pabst's adaptation of Bertoldt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera (Die Dreisgoschenoper) is every bit as good as the stage original, and sometimes even better. Filmed in both German and French versions with different casts (a planned English-language version was abandoned), Threepenny is most readily available today in its German incarnation. Rudolf Forster stars as robber captain MacHeath -- aka Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife -- who falls in love with Polly (Carola Neher), daughter of beggar king Peachum (Fritz Rasp). Despising MacHeath, Peachum plots the thief's downfall with his best friend, corrupt police official Tiger Brown (Reinhold Schunzel). The satirical "happy ending" of the original -- MacHeath, en route to the gallows, suddenly and without motivation promoted to knighthood! -- is altered somewhat by Pabst and his scenarists to accommodate a swipe against Depression-era bankers. Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife, brilliantly repeats her stage role as Pirate Jenny. Stylistically, Threepenny Opera is a Georg Grosz drawing come to life; despite its 1890s London setting, the film's calculatedly tawdry veneer is clearly meant to represent the wide-open Berlin of the 1930s. For the record: the French version of Threepenny Opera starred Albert Prejean as MacHeath. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rudolf Forster, Carola Neher, (more)
German filmmaker G.W. Pabst and Hollywood expatriate Louise Brooks re-team after the success of Pandora's Box for the silent film Diary of a Lost Girl. On the day of her confirmation, innocent young Thymiane Henning (Brooks) is given a lockable diary as a present. She's distraught because the housekeeper Elisabeth (Sibylle Schmitz) is leaving under curious circumstances and turns up presumably dead. Her duties are taken over by the conniving Meta (Franziska Kinz), who accepts the advances of Thymiane's pharmacist father (Josef Ravensky). Trying to understand Elisabeth's fate, Thymiane agrees to meet her father's assistant, Meinert (Fritz Rasp). She passes out, he carries her up to her room, and by the next scene she has borne a child by him. Meta snoops in Thymiane's diary and finds out it was Meinert's baby, so she suggests they get married. Thymiane refuses, so they throw her in a creepy reformatory for fallen women and leave her baby with a midwife. While in the reformatory, she meets Erika (Edith Meinhard), with whom she eventually escapes. To escape from poverty and homelessness, the girls then become nominal prostitutes in a brothel and are "sexually liberated." ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Louise Brooks, Fritz Rasp, (more)
- 1927
Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel Alraune has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his "mad doctor" roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions -- least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself. Alraune was remade in 1930, with Brigitte Helm repeating her role, and again in 1951, with Hildegarde Knef as the "heroine" and Erich von Stroheim as her misguided mentor. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1926
Jean Renoir's second film was this lavishly appointed adaptation of Emile Zola's novel Nana. Renoir does an admirable job retelling Zola's woeful tale of a covetous Parisian slum girl in purely visual terms. Hoping to escape her tawdry surroundings, Nana has an affair with high-ranking government official George Muffat. Instead of elevating herself to Muffat's level, however, Nana drags the poor man down to hers -- and in the end, both lives have been utterly destroyed. Catherine Hessling gives a stylized but effective performance in the title role. Taken to task for the over-elaborate set designs (by Claude Autant-Lara), which resulted in France's most expensive film to date, Jean Renoir merely explained that he was endeavoring to contrast the splendiferous lifestyle of Muffat and his friends to the shabby origins of the heroine. On an artistic level he succeeded, but Nana ended up costing way too much to ever post a profit, and it would be several years before Renoir would be entrusted with a big-budgeted film again. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Catherine Hessling, Werner Krauss, (more)
- 1925
G. W. Pabst's The Joyless Street (Die freudlose Gasse) is an unvarnished study of post-World War I Vienna. Plagued with skyrocketing inflation, the Austrian metropolis becomes the domain of every scurrilous form of profiteering. The central character is a crooked butcher, whose negative influence dominates the lives of virtually everyone on a single Viennese street. The supporting characters include a poverty-stricken professor, his beleaguered daughter, an idealistic American Red Cross worker and a slinky harlot. Each character is photographed in a symbolic manner underlining his or her basic personality: the domineering butcher is photographed from a low angle, emphasizing his corrupt power, while the professor is lensed in long shot, highlighting the bareness of his apartment-and by extension, his life. The stars of The Joyless Street include Asta Nielsen and Werner Krauss, but latter-day audiences will find more interest in the supporting part played by young Greta Garbo. Incidentally, despite the claims of many film historians, Marlene Dietrich does not appear as an extra. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Asta Nielsen, Greta Garbo, (more)
