554 - Berlin Alexanderplatz, Germany, 1931. Dir. Phil Jutzi.
Alfred Doblin published his epic novel Berlin Alexanderplatz in 1929.
Two years later he cowrote the screenplay of the film directed by Phil Jutzi.
The film was filmed on location in neighborhoods around Berlin. And because it was filmed in 1931, we have a picture of the setting made during the actual time period of the setting.
We began our film blog with People On Sunday, which was filmed in and around Berlin and released on February 4, 1930. Now we have another film that was filmed in and around Berlin during the same time period, and released on October 8, 1931.
A direct look at the Weimar Republic.
It is on its last legs. It lasted from 1919 to 1933.
1923 was the year of hyperinflation in Germany, the Belgian occupation of the Ruhr Valley, the ceasing of the coal workers from digging and sending coal to France, and the year of Hitler's failed coup attempt to take over Munich, Bavaria, in the Beer Hall Pusch. In 1924 Hitler had spent nine months in jail, where he wrote Mein Kampf.
The New York Stock Market crashed in October, 1929, and contributed to the worldwide Great Depression, which crushed Germany's ability to make war reparations payments.
Paul von Hindenberg was elected president in 1928, and Heinrich Bruning became chancellor in 1930. In the September, 1930, election the Nazis gained nearly one hundred seats in the Reichstag, making them the second largest party in power. In the April, 1932, election they became the largest party in power, and on January 30, 1933, Hindenberg named Hitler as the new chancellor. The politicians believed they could contain him, but by March 23, 1933, he had taken over the country.
Alfred Doblin published his novel and cowrote his screenplay in the midst of this political and economic instability and just before the Weimar Republic finally failed.
His novel and film version were produced before anyone knew what was to come. Fassbinder's 1980 version was looking back.
How do the two versions compare?
The 1931 versions holds up. It is engaging. It contains creative and innovative camera work. And it follows a similar though highly simplified plot as the Fassbinder version. It was Jutzi's first sound film.
After four years Franz Biberkopf is released from Tegel prison.
(Yes, this version spells Biberkopf without the initial e after i.)
We see a similar long brick wall as we saw in Fassbinder's version. Then we cut to the steel door and the guard releasing Biberkopf.
Biberkopf holds his head and swoons
He wants back in. The world outside is large and unstructured and overwhelming.
He sees trees, sky, the countryside, horses, a few walkers, and a streetcar. At first it seems considerably more rural than the 1980 version.
But then, as Biberkopf rides the streetcar into town, the traffic increases. The number of buildings increases. The number of people multiplies. He swoons some more.
When he steps off the streetcar, the camera rushes in the midst of traffic, cutting in multiple whip pans, showing Franz's point of view, with the cars whizzing by, disorienting the viewer.
He stops on the sidewalk and someone steals his box, a package containing everything he owns in the world. He responds with a smile, revealing the relaxed and charming side of his nature. Now that he owns nothing, he has nothing left to steal.
He goes to the bar and orders a beer.
He meets Cilly and buys her a drink. When she is done she leaves. He feels she just used him for a free drink.
The bartender tells Reinhold that Franz was in prison four years for killing his girlfriend. Reinhold is impressed. This is the kind of man he wants in his gang. He decides to recruit him.
Reinhold meets Franz on his way out the door.
Franz stops to see canaries in a cage. He observes, "They've never been in a cage, so they don't understand."
Reinhold also sends Karl to get him.
Karl runs into Franz. He makes him an offer. Franz tells Karl he wants to go straight. That he sells things.
What do you use to sell things?
Smash cut to:
My kisser!
Franz stands on the sidewalk in an extreme close-up and sells tie holders.
The rich wear ties. The workers do not. Why not? Because they cannot tie them. They use a tie holder but it breaks. This is a swindle, and it keeps Germany down.
Buy a tie holder. One for 20, three for 50.
Cilly arrives.
He is thrilled to see her. Maybe she likes him after all. He is easily swayed.
Franz follows Cilly back to the bar. He sees the canary. The men tease him. They make tremendous fun of him for selling tie holders on the street. They intend to humiliate him into quitting.
Franz demands Reinhold get off the table. Reinhold says, Says who? Franz throws him off the table buy turning over the table with one arm. Impressive. We see the first of his several sudden outbursts, which come out of nowhere and contrast greatly with his otherwise amenable demeanor.
And we realize that he is a complex individual.
They follow him out and engage in a fight. They break the window of the basement apartment. Inside the basement, the wife asks her husband to go out and do something. He declines. She verbally abuses him.
A dog barks. The dog is named Fido.
You swine! You picked the wrong guy.
The police truck pulls up to the street and stops. A group stand over by the building. Franz approaches the police and talks to them.
A high angle shot with the subjects in perspective. The police sits light large in the foreground. The police are seated in the mid-ground. Franz talks to them with two onlookers behind him. The group stands in the background. Shaped shadows.
The burglary.
They trick him into playing lookout.
A cat falls on an electrical box. Eyes look through a window. The rear of the getaway car look like eyes.
Reinhold pushes Franz out of the car. He lands on the street. There is at first no car behind them. Later, a young couple run over him. They never know what they hit.
Franz is laid up. In a body gauze, a head wrap. He remembers all the events that have transpired. They come back to him in superimposed flashbacks.
The nurse, Paula, says he was gone, meaning unconscious, for three weeks. Her character does not appear in the 1980 version.
Are you boiling some punch? That is the gauze for bandages.
Franz meets Mieze singing on the street. She has a partner playing the concertina. He wears dark glasses and carries a sign saying he is blind. Yet he openly watches Franz above his glasses. He confronts Franz when Franz picks her up. Franz calls him out for his stunt. Teases him.
Franz wants back in.
Cilly comes to meet Mieze. She tells her to take care of him. She knows that crowd. They are not good for him.
Franz and Reinhold are at the apartment when Mieze comes by unexpectedly. Franz hides Reinhold. It is not premeditated but a spontaneous thought. Not in the bed but behind the curtain.
Franz makes Mieze promise she will not look behind the curtain. She believes he has a new present back there. He is rich now. Living in luxury from the goods they have stolen.
She begs him to let them go back to wearing their old clothes and work for their money. Yet she has on a new fur given to her by a man she met on the street.
He grows enraged. Reinhold comes out and saves her life as Franz is about to come down on her with a chair.
Reinhold comes to the apartment the next day "to patch things up" from last night. He convinces her to go with him to the country. Karl drives them.
Out in the woods she asks him to let Franz go free. He asks her for a kiss. She resists. He ups it. It escalates. She screams.
Back at the car, Karl waits. A boy and girl troop marches by singing.
Reinhold returns and gets in the car.
Where is Mieze? I heard her screaming?
She is not screaming now.
Karl accepts Reinhold's answer. It is what they do.
Franz has a picnic with Cilly. He is sad. He believes Mieze has run off, because he hit her. Cilly says it was just one time. He thinks she went with the man who gave her the fur and that she knew him before.
Cilly reveals to Franz that she gave Mieze the fur.
The little minx!
The minx with the mink. The mink minx.
Cilly offers to search for her. Franz claims he is not going looking for a woman.
Cilly goes to Reinhold, in a room behind the bar, wearing a hat with a veil, and demands that he tell her where Mieze is. She is tough and fearless. I brought Franz to work for you.
At Police Headquarters, the forensics man looks at a slide in the microscope.
Blond hair. That's all I can tell. It was in the young woman's left fist.
Franz comes to the bar. The police are there. They arrest him.
In this version Reinhold gets fifteen years in prison but Biberkopf is let free. They realize that he was not involved, and he is found not guilty.
Franz is back on his feet, training new people to sell on the street.
* * * *
These things still go on.
So they stole that too. Now I have nothing left. Oh well. At least you can't lose anything.
I really don't care that much about the cash. I just like it and I enjoy doing it.
Killed his girlfriend Ida while on the booze.
Not bad for a beginner.
Matches, newspapers, suspenders.
You can't make money that way.
The main thing is to go straight.
You used to be my gal, Cilly. Maybe we can be friends again. Get the fat guy for us. Maybe we can use him.
Storm troopers.
I want Biberkopf, and that's that.
Peep peep peep
Do you know where the dickey bird sings?
In its cage
Where?
On the wall.
Don't ask such stupid questions.
"I Once Knew a Comrade"
I once knew a comrade.
You couldn't find a better man.
But now it's all over and I've paid my dues
And now I'm starting all over again
There'll be sweat and hard work
The new Biberkopf holds his own.
The old Biberkopf no longer exists.
The old Biberkopf is dead, dead, dead.
Break every bone in his body; he won't change.
But you're a clever girl.
Listen, I'll get you ten other guys.
I need him, and he'll do as I say.
Forget about Franz!
You love him, huh?
You are my friend.
I'll be forever loyal.
And you are my destiny.
Berliner Kino.
Stella-Pate
Greta Garbo, Anna Christie
Where is Franz?
The police got him.
Henshke--the name of the bartender rather than Maxie.
Run over on May 12 on the Eberswalderstrasse.
The perfect rubber band for a gentleman!
It won't snap, split, or break.
It won't bounce back like a bad check.
Your skull was fractured. We weren't able to save your arm.
Love comes, love goes.
No government can forbid it.
A blonde today, a brunette tomorrow.
Who wants to commit his heart?
Take your luck as it comes.
It's no shame to enjoy life.
Love comes, love goes.
NO BEGGING OR MUSIC PLAYING ALOUD
It wafts in on the breeze and then it's gone.
No one makes a big fuss over love these days.
You get along or you slug it out.
A day is like a year
Love comes, love goes. . . .
Meet me at 5:00 at the fountain in Fiedrichshain Park.
My left hand, straight from the heart.
Put 'em up!
I only got one arm.
I thought I could take the respectable route, but I was a real dope. So here I am.
Organ grinder.
Three prize-winning beauties from Pankow.
I heard her screaming.
She is not screaming now.
Baden
Dreieckiger Badehose
Nicht gestattet!
Pretty as a painted rocking horse.
Suspect has fine blond hair.
Chief. Room 62.
Cilly comes to Franz and shows him the poster.
It's not my fault. Don't start yelling right away.
Murder in Freienwalde.
It's Mieze, isn't it? Our little Mieze. It's all over now.
Blond hair has to mean Reinhold.
I will drag him down to Hell with me with drums and trumpets. The world can go to the dogs, every single man and woman. We are all going to Hell with drums and trumpets! We are all going to Hell!
Kriminalgeric.
Berlin-Moabit.
Fifteen years prison for Reinhold. And they let Franz go.
The lawyer argued for fifteen minutes that Reinhold was marginally retarded.
Chrlorodon!
Kurse
The Berolina Statue, the old symbol of Berlin--high above the Alexanderplatz.
They tore it down.
Why?
It was metal on the outside but hollow on the inside.
Metal where it counts.
You get knocked over, you get back on your feet.
What he's got in here.
Ende.
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