Adamo

September 16, 2014, 11:00 pm

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Italian-Belgian composer and singer Salvatore Adamo (1943) was a teen idol in the first half of the 1960s. Occasionally he also starred in films.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, Colour Serie no. 652.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. 607.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. 606.


French postcard by Ed. Lyna, Paris, offered by Corvisart, no. AX 2015. Photo: Pathé Marconi.

The Coalmines of Marcinelle

Salvatore Adamo, simply known as Adamo, was born in the small commune of Comiso in Sicily, Italy, in 1943. When he was 3 his family emigrated to Belgium, where his father Antonio worked in the coalmines of Marcinelle.

In 1950, Salvatore was bedridden for a year with meningitis. Salvatore's parents did not want their son to become a miner and made great sacrifices to give him a good education, in a strict Catholic school run by the Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes. Salvatore was a hard working, solitary student.

He started singing and composing his own songs from an early age. His debut was in a Radio Luxembourg competition in 1960. He participated as the singer and composer of the song Si j'osais/If I May and won the competition's final in Paris.

Shortly afterwards Adamo brought out his first single, without much success. Discouraged, he might have gone back to his studies if it hadn't been for the stubborn persistence of Antonio, who had his own ideas about his son's future. Together, they left for Paris, where they began doing the rounds of the music venues and record labels.

After four singles that went unnoticed Adamo had his first hit in 1963 with Sans toi, ma mie/Without You, My Sweet. It was a classical romantic number, completely different from the yéyé trend, the fusion of American rock and roll and French variety, that was all the rage at the time.

From then on, everything began to happen very quickly. On his twentieth birthday, he performed live at the Ancienne Belgique, the famous music hall in Brussels. He followed this up by doing a support act for Cliff Richard and the Shadows at another famous music venue, L'Olympia in Paris.

A series of hits followed, including Tombe la neige/Snow Falls, Vous permettez Monsieur/Allow Me, Sir and Les filles du bord de mer/The Girls at the Seashore.

Adamo has always remained faithful to the same style: this makes him known as the 'chanteur romantique par excellence'. With a characteristic, slightly broken voice Adamo sang his ballads mainly in French but also in other languages and he had commercial success in continental Europe, Japan and Latin America.

In 1964 he was the second biggest selling artist in the world, behind the Beatles. Reportedly he has now sold over 90 million albumsworldwide.

His popularity in Japan began spectacularly with the incredible success of Tombe la neige, which remained at the top of the charts for 72 weeks. Nowadays one of the most widely known karaoke classics is the song Youki Wa Furu, the Japanese version of Tombe La Neige (the local Dreaming of a White Christmas).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V. (SPARO), Rotterdam. Mailed in 1967. Publicity card for His Master's Voice for the single Dolce Paola/A vot'bon coeur.


Big Dutch photocard.


Dutch postcard by Uitgeverij Takken, no. AX 5461.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 5934, sent by mail in 1965. Photo: 't Sticht. Publicity card for R. Bylois / Benelux Theater, Bruxelles (Brussels).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam (ca. 1965). Photo: His Master’s Voice for the single Dolce Paola/A vot’bon coeur.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. 6829. Photo: Eddy Despretz.

Film Acting

Adamo attempted film acting in the crime dramas Les Arnaud/The Arnauds (Léo Joannon, 1967), starring Bourvil, and L’ardoise/The Comeuppance (Claude Bernard-Aubert, 1970).

He even wrote and directed a film himself, L’Île aux coquelicots/The Isle of Coquelicots (1970), but it was a flop.

At the end of the sixties, Adamo married his wife, Nicole. Their son, Anthony, was born in 1969.

In the 1980s Adamo's career faltered. His style of music was no longer fashionable. Since the 1990s however, on the crest of a nostalgia wave, he has successfully resumed composing, issuing records and touring, starting with a full season at the Casino de Paris venue in April 1990.

In 1993 Adamo got an extreme boost in popularity in Belgium thanks to a splendid adaptation singer Arno did of his song Les filles du bord de mer.

Since 1993, Adamo is a honorary Unicef ambassador from Belgium. In 2001 he was named a Chevalier by the Belgian king.

Adamo had a brain haemorrhage in 2004. For a time he had problems with talking, but he has recovered now completely.

His songs were featured on soundtracks of many films, including the camp musical 20 centímetros/20 Centimeters (Ramon Salazar, 2005) and the neo-noir Arrivederci amore, ciao/The Goodbye Kiss (Michele Soavi, 2006) starring Michele Placido.

Adamo himself appeared in another film Laisse tes mains sur mes hanches/Leave Your Hands On My Hips (Chantal Lauby, 2003) and composed the score of Mineurs/Miners (Fulvio Wetzl, 2007), a documentary about the children of Italian coalminers.

Nowadays Adamo lives in Belgium and is still touring. His most recent cd is Le bal des gens bien/The Dance of the Good People, containing duets with the stars of the French chanson. According to RFI Musique, the album received rave reviews from the critics and proved to be a big hit with record-buyers, too.


Dutch postcard, no. 1039.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. 6154. Photo: Benelux Theater, Bruxelles.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht / Uitgeverij Takken, no. AX 5826. Photo: NV Bovema.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht / Uitgeverij Takken, no. AX 5820. Photo: NV Bovema.


Adamo sings a multilingual version of Vous permettez Monsieur in this early Dutch videoclip (1964). Source: AdamoLuisPeru (YouTube).


Adamo sings Petit Bonheur in a vintage Scopitone film. Source: plotbox (YouTube).

Sources: Dirk Houbrechts (The Belgian Pop & Rock Archives), RFI Musique (French), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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Oliver Grimm

September 17, 2014, 11:00 pm

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Oliver Grimm (1948) was Germany's favourite child star for more than a decade. He made 17 films between 1952 and 1963.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden (Westf.), no. F 16. Photo: Constantin (Looschen). Publicity still for Kleiner Mann - ganz gross/Little Man on Top (Hans Grimm, 1957).


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 32. Photo: Niczky.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-29. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.

Handsome Boy Actor

Oliver Grimm was born in Munich, Germany, in 1948 as the son of film director Hans Grimm and Ufa-actress Hansi Wendler.

He already made his film debut in 1951 in the comedy Ich heiße Nicki/My name Is Nicki (Rudolf Jugert, 1952) starring Paul Hörbiger.

The following years more parts followed in Vater braucht eine Frau/Father Needs a Woman (Harald Braun, 1952) starring Dieter Borsche and Ruth Leuwerik, Moselfahrt aus Liebeskummer/A Boat Trip On the Mosel Because of Lovesickness (Kurt Hoffmann, 1953), Morgengrauen/Dawn (Viktor Tourjansky, 1954) and Frühlingslied/Springtime Song (Hans Albin, 1954).

It was his leading role in Wenn der Vater mit dem Sohne/Like father Like Son (Hans Quest, 1955) that made him one of the most famous child stars in Germany. In this film he co-starred as the son of a musical clown played by Heinz Rühmann.

Other family films with the handsome boy actor in the lead role soon followed as Griff nach den Sternen/Reaching for the Stars (Carl-Heinz Schroth, 1955), Mein Vater, der Schauspieler/May father, the Actor (Robert Siodmak, 1956) opposite O.W. Fischer, and Das schöne Abenteuer/Beautiful Adventure (Kurt Hoffmann, 1959) starring Liselotte Pulver.

He often appeared in films directed by his father, including Kleiner Mann: ganz groß/Little Man on Top (Hans Grimm, 1957) and Der schwarze Blitz/The Black Blitz (Hans Grimm, 1958) starring ski champion Toni Sailer.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 1220 Photo: NF / Lilo. Publicity still for Morgengrauen/Dawn (Viktor Tourjansky, 1954).


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. 1279. Photo: Albin-Film / Deutsche London / Roeder. Publicity still for Frühlingslied/Springtime Song (Hans Albin, 1954).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no. 2000. Photo: H. / Fü.

Walt Disney

Internationally, Oliver Grimm may be best remembered for the role of a blind boy in two episodes of the television show Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (Georg Tressler, 1962) opposite Karlheinz Böhm.

One of his best performances he gave in the British World War II drama Reach for Glory (Philip Leacock, 1962). A group of boys, evacuated from London to a coastal town, form a gang and play war games. Grimm played a jewish evacuee from Austria who runs off during a fight. The youths decide to give him a fake court-martial and he is killed by accident.

Grimm’s film career was over in 1963 when he was 14-years-of-age. He only provided the voice of Kimba the young lion in the German version of the Japanese animated series Janguru taitei/Kimba the White Lion (Eiichi Yamamoto, 1965-1967).

After leaving school Grimm studied three semesters with the intention to become a civil engineer. Then he decided for the acting profession, and took acting classes in Berlin.

As an adult he was not able to establish himself in the film business again, but since the 1970s he worked steadily as a voice actor and played at theatres in Berlin, Munich and Zurich. He also regularly works behind the camera.

In 1975 he made a guest appearance on TV in the popular krimi-series Derrick. After 38 years Oliver Grimm returned to the big screen as a teacher in the German comedy Schule/No More School (Marco Petry, 2000) starring Daniel Brühl.

His most recent screen appearances were interviews in the documentaries René Deltgen: Der sanfte Rebell/René Deltgen: The Gentle Rebel (Michael Wenk, 2004) and Heinz Rühmann - Der Schauspieler/Heinz Rühmann – The Actor (Michael Strauven, 2007) in the TV series Hitlers nützliche Idole/Hitler’s Useful Idols (2007).


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 231. Photo: Berolina / Constantin-Film.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 152. Photo: Constantin / Bokelberg.


Italian postcard in the series 'Piccoli Uomini nel Cinema' by Ed. Villagio del Fanciullo, Bologna. Photo: Titanus. Publiity still for Wenn der Vater mit dem Sohne/If the Father and the Son (Hans Quest, 1955) with Waltraut Haas and Robert Freytag.


Scene from Vater braucht eine Frau/Father Needs a Woman (Harald Braun, 1952). Source: Liebhaberalterfilme (YouTube).


Scene from Wenn der Vater mit dem Sohne/Like father Like Son (Hans Quest, 1955). Source: Filmkiste (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line - German), Karl Williams (AllMovie), CVMC, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Raquel Meller

September 18, 2014, 11:00 pm

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Spanish diva Raquel Meller (1888-1962) was already a highly popular singer before debuting as a film actress in 1919. She performed not only in Spain but also in France and the USA.


French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine. Photo: P. Apers.


French postcard by Ed. Art de Comoedia, quotidien des théâtres. Concessionnaire: Editions Lafayette, Paris, no. 20.

Naughty Songs

Raquel Meller was born Francisca Marqués López in Tarazona, Spain, in 1888.

She studied in Tudela (Spain), and Montpellier (France), and started working as a dressmaker. It was a customer, Marta Oliver, a.k.a. the vaudeville star Mrs. Oliver, who introduced her to the music hall.

She began using her stage name Raquel Meller in 1907. She moved to Madrid and there she became famous as a cuplé (couplet) singer. These torch songs were considered 'naughty' and beneath the dignity (and morals) of a decent, serious singer.

Raquel, with her beauty and charismatic presence, raised the genre to high art and made it acceptable for the entire family (till then they were played in men-only bistros). Songs such as La Violetera, El Relicario, and Flor del Mal became standards - thanks to her interpretations.

She was the first Spanish popular singer to succeed in both Europe and the Americas, especially in the United States where her recordings enjoyed great popularity and her live concerts broke box office records. At one point she was under a exclusive contract with the famous Schuberts.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, in the series Les Vedettes de Cinéma, no. 51. Sent by mail in 1925. Photo: Sobol.


French postcard by Edition Paramount, Paris. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still from Les opprimés/The Oppressed (Henry Roussel, 1923).


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris , no. 371. Photo: publicity still for Carmen (Jacques Feyder, 1926).


French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinema series by A.N., Paris, no. 183. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

Spanish Flower Girl

Raquel Meller was also a hit on the big screen. She made her film debut in the Spanish film Los arlequines de seda y oro/The Harlequins of Silk and Gold (Ricardo de Baños, 1919).

In France she starred in such major films as Les opprimés/The Oppressed (Henry Roussel, 1923), Carmen (Jacques Feyder, 1926) opposite Austrian star Fred Louis Lerch, and Nocturne (Marcel Silver, 1927) again opposite Lerch.

Meller is best remembered for Violettes impériales/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924), a historical romantic drama set during the reign of Napoleon III of France.

Meller played a Spanish flower girl who saves an attack on the life of the French empress Eugenie de Montijo (played by Suzanne Blanchetti), by taking her place in her carriage. When the carriage is overthrown by the anarchist's bomb, the girl survives because of the masses of violets in the imperial carriage, the empress' favourite flowers.

In 1932, Henry Roussel made a sound version, again with Meller, and in 1948 an operetta version was made of the film. A tinted copy of the silent film was beautifully restored by the BFI some years ago and a clip of the film is visible in Kevin Brownlow's Cinema Europe series. However, we are still waiting for the DVD.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition. Photo: publicity still for Violettes impériales/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924) with André Roanne.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition. Photo: publicity still for Violettes impériales/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924) with Suzanne Blanchetti.


French postcard by Edition Cinémagazine. Photo: publicity still for Violettes impériales/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924).


French postcard by Edition Cinémagazine. Photo: publicity still for Violettes impériales/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924).


French postcard by Edition Cinémagazine. Photo: publicity still for Violettes impériales/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924).


French postcard by Edition Cinémagazine. Photo: publicity still for Violettes impériales/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924) with Suzanne Blanchetti.

Impossible Genius

Even if Sarah Bernhardtcalled her a 'genius', Raquel Meller could be impossible on the set.

When Jacques Feyder directed her in Carmen (1926), based on the oft-filmed Prosper Merimée novel, and Meller refused a kissing scene, he shouted that this was just how writer Prosper Merimée had intended it. At which Meller shouted back: I don't care about this Mr. Merimee. Where does he live? I'll call him by the phone!

Hal Erickson writes at AllMovie: "Director Feyder manages to transform this timeworn story into a feast for the eyes, especially during the climactic bullfighting sequence. When released in America in 1928, Carmen did surprisingly well, considering that Fox Pictures had recently produced its own version of the same story, with Dolores Del Rio as the ill-fated heroine."

Charles Chaplin, a big Meller fan, used her song La Violetera for the score of his classic City Lights (1931). She filmed in Hollywood several musical shorts for Fox at the advent of talkies and was a big draw in the vaudeville circuits for many years.


French postcard. Photo: Sobol, Paris. Collection: Didier Hanson.


French postcard. Raquel Meller in Violettes impériales by Henry Roussel.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 165. Photo: J. Kruger. Publicity still for La terre promise (Henry Roussel, 1925).


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 172. Photo: publicity still for Nocturne (Marcel Silver, 1927).

Imperious, Lovable, and Totally Egomaniac

The Spanish Civil War and the Second World War put an abrupt end to Raquel Meller's career.

She first left for Argentina and later retired in Barcelona. She only surfaced again in 1957 in the wake of Sara Montiel's enormous success in the films El Ultimo Cuple/The Last Torch Song (Juan de Orduña, 1957) and La Violetera (Luis César Amadori, 1958) in which Montiel revived Raquel's greatest hits.

Meller hated it and threatened legal action but couldn't do anything. She attempted several big come backs, like in the vaudeville show Ha Salido Blanco y Negro! (1958), which were all both critical and commercial failures.

Bitterly, she retired in Barcelona and died there in 1962.

Meller's private life was always followed with great interest by the media and the public. She was imperious, ruthless (especially with the competition), lovable, funny, temperamental, witty and totally egomaniac. Her love life was described as 'healthy-plus' and among her many lovers there were royalty, heads of state and assorted VIPs.

Raquel Meller was married to Gomez Carillo and the French impresario Edmond Salac. She could never bear children so she adopted a boy and a girl. After her death in 1962 a book was published in France in which the author claimed that Raquel was instrumental in turning over Mata Hari to the French authorities since the famous spy-dancer was fooling around with one of her lovers.

The whole Raquel Meller-Mata Hari publicity was exploited in the film La Reina del chantecler/The Queen of Chantecler (Rafael Gil, 1962), starring Sara Montiel.

Most of Raquel Meller's recordings were considered lost for years, but lately they have been showing up on CD.


French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma Series by A.N., Paris , no. 63. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.


French postcard by Cinémagazine Edition, no. 339. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.


Original version of La Violetera. Raquel Meller sung it for the first time in 1907 at the Teatro Arnau in Barcelona. Source: Yoyama2 (YouTube).

Sources: M.O. Martinez (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Spanish) and IMDb.

Happy 80, Sophia Loren!

September 19, 2014, 11:00 pm

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Today it's the 80th birthday of bellissima Sophia Loren! Sofia Villani Scicolone was born at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on 20 September 1934. La Loren rose to fame in post-war Italy as a voluptuous sex goddess. Soon after she became one of the most successful international stars of the 20th Century. As a salute, a post with 20 of our favourite postcards of this Academy Award-winning and super European film star!


Belgian postcard by Bromophoto, Brussels.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 328. Photo: Ponti-De Laurentiis. Publicity still for La donna del fiume/Woman of the River (Mario Soldati, 1954).


German postcard printed by Krüger, no. 902/304. Photo: Georg Michalke. Publicity still for La donna del fiume/Woman of the River (Mario Soldati, 1954).


German postcard by UFA, no. 1007. Photo: UFA. Publicity still for La Bella Mugnaia/The Miller's Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/446. Photo: Ufa.


French postcard by Editions du Globe (EDUG), Paris, no. 373. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Edition du Globe, Paris, no. 374. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 946. Photo: Paramount Pictures, 1957.


German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 1631. Photo: Dial / Unitalia Film, Rome.


German postcard by ISV, no. A 93. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for the British film The Millionairess (Anthony Asquith, 1960).


German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. A 102. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for The Millionairess (Anthony Asquith, 1960).


Dutch postcard. Photo: publicity still for El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).


Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 4894. Photo: Hafbo. Publicity still for El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).


German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. 5096. Photo: publicity still for Boccaccio '70 (Vittorio De Sica, 1962).


East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2372, 1965. Photo: publicity still for Boccaccio '70 (Vittorio De Sica a.o., 1962).


Vintage photo.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 236.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/147. Photo: UFA.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. 4212, 1975. This postcard was printed in an edition of 300.000 cards. The price was 5 kop.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1097. Photo: Anders.

And our favorite quote of her: After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

Ms. Loren, tanti auguri! Cento di questi giorni!

Voyna i mir (1967)

September 20, 2014, 11:00 pm

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This film special is about the longest films I ever saw, Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966). The original version even took 431 minutes. I saw a bit shorter version in the 1980s at a Dutch student festival called 'De lange zit' (The long sitting), which I helped organizing. And it was a long sitting! There were no intervals (we had simply no time for it), but plenty of free and very long films. These included Bernardo Bertolucci's Novecento/1900 (1976) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather: Part 1 and II (1972-1974). But the epic film version of Tolstoy's War and Peace beat them all - in length. A happy memory.


Russian postcard by Sovexportfilm. Publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966). Caption: "VOINA I MIR, WAR AND PEACE, GUERRE ET PAIX, GUERRA Y PAZ". Collection: Amsterdam EYE Filmmuseum.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin no. 2744, 1966. Retail price was 0,20 MDN. Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966) with Lyudmila Savelyevaas Natacha Rostova, Irina Skobtseva as Hélène Kuragin, and Vasili Lanovoiy as Anatol Kuragin.

The most expensive film ever made in the Soviet Union

Voyna i mir (Война́ и мир) is a Soviet film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, released in four parts during 1966 and 1967.

Sergei Bondarchuk directed the film series, co-wrote the script and starred in the leading role of Pierre Bezukhov, alongside Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Lyudmila Savelyeva, who depicted Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova.

Voyna i mir was produced by the Mosfilm studios between 1961 and 1967, with considerable support from the authorities. At a cost of 8,291,712 Soviet ruble – equal to 9,213,013 U.S. dollar in 1967 rates, or $67 million in 2011, accounting for ruble inflation – it was the most expensive film ever made in the Soviet Union.

Upon its release, it became a success with the audiences, selling approximately 135 million tickets in its native country. Voyna i mir/War and Peace also won the Grand Prix in the Moscow International Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 08343, 1969. This postcard was printed in an edition of 500,000 cards. Retail price was 6 kop. Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966) with Lyudmila Savelyeva.


Soviet postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 08341, 1969. This postcard was printed in an edition of 500.000 cards. Retail price: 6 Kop.Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966) with Sergei Bondarchuk as Pierre Bezukhov.

A counter strike to King Vidor

The nearing 150th anniversary of the 1812 French Invasion, as well the worldwide success of War and Peace (1959), King Vidor's American-Italian adaptation of the Russian national epic – at a time when the USSR and the United States were struggling for prestige – motivated the Soviet Minister of Culture Yekaterina Furtseva to begin planning a local picture based on Leo Tolstoy's novel.

An open letter which appeared in the Soviet press, signed by many of the country's filmmakers, declared: "it is a matter of honour for the Soviet cinema industry, to produce a picture which will surpass the American-Italian one in its artistic merit and authenticity." According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the film was to serve as a 'counter strike' to King Vidor.

During 1960, several leading Soviet directors proposed themselves to head the project, but the Ministry of Culture offered it to forty-year-old Sergei Bondarchuk, who had completed his directorial debut, Destiny of a Man, in 1959.

Bondarchuk had not sought out the position and did not know of the proposal until a letter from the Ministry reached him, but he chose to accept it. He represented a generation of young directors promoted by Nikita Khruschev's Kremlin to replace the old filmmakers from the Stalin era.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 08352, 1969. This postcard was printed in an edition of 500,000 cards. Retail price was 6 kop. Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966) with Vyacheslav Tikhonov as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Tikhonov is the first from the right, not to be confused with the man in foreground.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 08359, 1969. This postcard was printed in an edition of 500.000 cards. Retail price: 6 Kop. Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966) with Boris Zakhava as General Kutuzov.

An authentic impression of the early 19th-century Russia

On 5 May 1961, the work on Voyna i mir/War and Peace (1967) began at the Mosfilm studios. Bondarchuk hired playwright Vasily Solovyov as his assistant for composing the script. They chose to seclude several of Tolstoy's plotlines and themes, in order not to make the film too cumbersome: the episodes concerning Nikolai Rostov and Maria Bolkonskaya were almost completely ignored, and Anatol Kuragin received an only slightly better treatment. The author's views on philosophy and history were barely mentioned at all.

On 20 March 1962, Minister Furtseva approved the scenario and requested all relevant agencies to assist the producers, including the Ministry of Defence, which was deemed central in providing support for the project.

More than forty museums contributed historical artefacts, such as chandeliers, furniture and cutlery, to create an authentic impression of the early 19th-century Russia. Thousands of costumes were sewn, mainly military uniform of the sorts worn in the Napoleonic Wars.

Anticipating the need for cavalry, line producer Nikolai Ivanov and General Osilkovsky began seeking appropriate horses. While the cavalry formations of the Army were long abolished, several units in the Transcaucasian Military District and the Turkestan Military District retained horse drawn mountain artillery. In addition to those, the Ministry of Agriculture gave away nine hundred horses and the Moscow City Police organized a detachment from its mounted regiment.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 08356, 1969. This postcard was printed in an edition of 500,000 cards. Retail price was 6 kop. Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966) with Lyudmila Savelyevaand Vasili Lanovoiy.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 08339, 1969. This postcard was printed in an edition of 500,000 cards. Retail price was 6 kop. Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1967) with Lyudmila Savelyeva.

The first Soviet picture to win the Oscar

Part I, Andrei Bolkonsky was screened in two consecutive parts, released in a total of 2,805 copies in March 1966. In the fifteen months afterwards, the first sold 58.3 million tickets in the USSR, and 58 million of the viewers remained through the intermission. Thus, Andrei Bolkonsky became the most successful film of the year.

Part II, Natasha Rostova, which opened in July with 1,405 copies disseminated, performed less well and attracted 36.2 million viewers in the same time period, reaching the third place in the 1966 box office, although it would have been ninth if counted in 1967.

The two final parts have deteriorated further: Part III, The Year 1812, with 1,407 copies released, had 21 million admissions and Part IV, Pierre Bezukhov, sold 'merely' 19.8 million tickets. They made it to the 13th and 14th place at the 1967 box office.

With a total of some 135 million tickets sold, Voyna i mir/War and Peace was considered a resounding commercial success at the time.

The series was screened in 117 countries around the world. In East Germany, the state-owned DEFA studio produced a slightly shorter edition of the series, dubbed to German, which ran 409 minutes and maintained the four-part order of the original. Among others, it featured Angelica Domröse, who voiced Lisa Bolkonskaya. It attracted more than 2 million viewers in the German Democratic Republic. In the People's Republic of Poland, it sold over 5 million tickets in 1967, and in France more than 1.2 million tickets

Walter Reade Jr.'s company Continental Distributors purchased the US rights of Voyna i mir/War and Peace for $1.5 million. The distributor shortened the American version by an hour, and added English-language dubbing.

In July 1965, Voyna i mir/War and Peace was awarded the Grand Prix at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival together with the Hungarian entry Húsz óra Twenty Hours (Zoltán Fábri, 1965). In 1967, Voyna i mir was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, outside of the competition.

In the United States, it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the 26th Golden Globe Awards. The picture was the Soviet entry to the 41st Academy Awards. It received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. Voyna i mir/War and Peace was the first Soviet picture to win the Oscar for best foreign film, and also the longest film ever to receive an Academy Award.

In 1986, Sergei Bondarchuk was requested to prepare Voyna i mir/War and Peace for a broadcast in television. A 35-mm. copy of the series, which was filmed in parallel to the main version and had a 4:3 aspect ratio, rather than the 70-mm. 2.20:1, was submitted, after being adapted by a team headed by Petritsky.

In 1999, as part of an initiative to restore its old classics, Mosfilm resolved to restore Voyna i mir/War and Peace. As the original 70-mm. reels were damaged beyond repair, the studio used the 1988 4:3 version and the original soundtrack to make a DVD edition.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 08351, 1969. This postcard was printed in an edition of 500,000 cards. Retail price was 6 kop. Photo: publicity still for Voyna i mir/War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1965-1966) with Lyudmila Savelyeva.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Colin Clive

September 21, 2014, 11:00 pm

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British actor Colin Clive (1900-1937) was the original Dr. Frankenstein. He made film history with his scream "It's Alive! It's Alive!" after his success at animating the Monster in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 482, by Long Acre, London.

James Whale

Colin Clive was born in Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, in 1900. He was the son of an English colonel on assignment in France at the time of Colin's birth.

Clive was a direct descendant of Baron Robert Clive, founder of the British Indian Empire. In 1935 he would appear in a featured role in Clive of India, a film biography of his relative.

He attended Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. A knee injury disqualified him from military service and contributed to his becoming a stage actor. One of his stage roles was Steve Baker, the white husband of racially mixed Julie LaVerne, in the first London production of Show Boat. This production also featured Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and Paul Robeson.

He then replaced Laurence Olivier as the lead in the R.C. Sherriff play Journey's End (1928). The success of Journey's End gave director James Whale the break to move to Broadway and to direct what would be the first British-American co-produced sound film, the film version of Journey's End (James Whale, 1930).

Whale got Colin Clive back as the laconic, alcoholic Captain Stanhope and Clive showed a measured intensity to his character, bolstered by his unique cracked baritone voice - seemingly always on the edge of irritation. This led to opportunities and he spent the rest of his career hopscotching between England and America, his most significant films emanating from Hollywood.

British postcard in the Filmshots series by British Weekly. Photo: Radio. Publicity still for Christopher Strong (Dorothy Arzner, 1933) with Katharine Hepburn.

British postcard in the Filmshots series by British Weekly. Photo: Radio. Publicity still for Christopher Strong (Dorothy Arzner, 1933) with Katharine Hepburn.

Dr. Henry Frankenstein

James Whale was contracted by Universal for a follow up of the huge hit Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931), an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He wanted Colin Clive as Dr. Henry Frankenstein, and it all came together.

As Hal Erickson states at AllMovie: "Clive has earned a niche in cinematic valhalla for his feverish, driven performance as Dr. Frankenstein". Although Clive would make only three horror films - the others were Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935) and Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) - he is now widely regarded as one of the essential stars of the genre.

The following few years Clive played both B leading and A supporting roles such as the married title character in Christopher Strong (Dorothy Arzner, 1933) who falls for aviator Katherine Hepburn, the brutal husband of Diana Wynyard in One More River (James Whale, 1934), Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre (Christy Cabanne, 1934), and a British officer in Clive of India (Richard Boleslawski, 1935) in which Ronald Colman played his illustrious ancestor.

Then Clive returned to Universal for Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) with Valerie Hobson in which his Dr. Henry was somewhat more subdued. This was mostly to do with a broken leg suffered from a horseback riding accident.

He followed Bride with Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935), a chilling reinterpretation of The Hands of Orlac. In the remainder of his films he played disturbed supporting characters.

Privately, Clive suffered from tuberculosis, which was furthered along by severe alcoholism. His last film was The Woman I Love (Anatole Litvak, 1937) starring Miriam Hopkins.

In 1937, he died from complications of tuberculosis in Los Angeles, at age 37. From 1929 until his death, Colin Clive was married to actress Jeanne de Casalis. There has been speculation that de Casalis was a lesbian and Clive either gay or bisexual, and their marriage was one of convenience. However, producer David Lewis, the long-time companion of James Whale, flatly stated that Clive was not gay.

Scene from Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931). Source: pzmyers (YouTube).

Trailer of Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935). Source: IMACACI2 (YouTube).

Source: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

I.M. Peter von Bagh (1943-2014)

September 22, 2014, 10:00 pm

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Yesterday, I heard that Finnish film historian and director Peter von Bagh passed away on 17 September. He was 71. Although I never saw one of his films, I loved his work as the artistic director of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna. Followers of this blog know that I am a fan of this festival full of recovered film treasures and try to visit and post about it every year. Peter von Bagh introduced many of the films in Bologna. With his passionate, inspiring and informative speeches, he turned every screening into a special event. As a tribute, a post with 10 programme cards of Il Cinema Rotrovate.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2007. Photo: publicity still for Blind Husbands (Erich von Stroheim, 1919) with Erich von Stroheim.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2003. Photo: publicity still for Körkarlen/The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1921).


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2011. Photo: publicity still for Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) with Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin.

More than Il Cinema Ritrovato

Since 2001 Peter von Bagh worked as the Artistic Director of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy. The Festival specializes in 'recovered' films, previously believed lost or unknown, silent films and restored prints.

The screen annually erected in Piazza Maggiore in Bologna at the turn of June/July attracts an audience of thousands of spectators. The Festival audience is a mix of local and international cinephiles and specialists of the field.

But outside of Bologna, Von Bagh also had an impressive résumé. Kari Peter Conrad von Bagh (1943-2014) produced approximately 40 non-fiction books, mostly on cinema, and some 60 films for both cinema and television.

The connecting thought in his own films is the history of everyday Finnish life: images of details conveying something of what the life of the Finns has been like.

The films Vuosi 1952/The Year 1952 (1980), Viimeinen kesä 1944/The Last Summer 1944 (1992), and Splinters – A Century Of An Artistic Family (2011) provide a magnifying glass for peeking at history, defined by a certain moment in time, location, or an artistic family.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2008. Photo: publicity still for Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932) with Marlene Dietrich.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2012. Photo: publicity still for La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937) with Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2011. Photo: publicity still for The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, William Cameron Menzies, 1940) with June Deprez and Conrad Veidt.

And as always witty - very, very witty

Peter von Bagh also compiled a textbook on cinema, Salainen muisti (2009), to be used in schools. He taught and lectured at several schools and universities, e.g. as Professor of Film History at Aalto University since 2001, and he worked as the head of the Finnish Film Archive.

Other principal works of Von Bagh's production include his international breakthrough films Helsinki, Forever (2008) and Sodankylä, Forever (2010–2011).

His television series and book Song of Finland (2003/2007), the story of art in Finland during the era of independence, was awarded a Finlandia Prize for nonfiction. Another book, Aki Kaurismäki, has been translated into French, Italian, Swedish, Japanese and German.

Von Bagh was the editor-in-chief of Filmihullu magazine and in 1986, he was the co-founder of the Midnight Sun Festival in Sodankylä, with the famous Finnish filmmaking brothers Aki and Mika Kaurismäki. The festival, known for its no-VIP stance, brought directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Terry Gilliam to Lapland for the event.

In 2004, he was a member of the jury of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. His own films were also screened at prestigious international festivals, including the Rotterdam International Film Festival and Festival Internacional de Cine Idependente in Buenos Aires in 2012, and at the Tromsø International Film Festival in 2013.

In July, I last saw and heard Peter van Bagh when he interviewed Richard Lester on the stage at the Piazza Maggoiore. It was an introduction to the screening of the final film of the festival, A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester, 1964) with The Beatles. Although he looked frail, Von Bagh was in excellent form and his interview with Lester was refreshingly compact and passionate, inspiring and informative. And as always witty - very, very witty.

Mr. van Bagh, we will miss you.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2011. Photo: publicity still for Gentlemen prefer blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953) with Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn and Jane Russell.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2003. Photo: publicity still for The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955) with Robert Mitchum.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2005. Photo: publicity still for Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957) with George Macready, Joe Turkel and Ralph Meeker.


Italian programme card for Il Cinema Ritrovata 2011. Photo: publicity still for Il Conformista (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970) with Jean-Louis Trintignant.

Source: Yle News and Wikipedia.

Ernst Winar

September 23, 2014, 11:00 pm

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Today starts the 2014 edition of the Nederlands Film Festival (24 September - 3 October 2014) in Utrecht. During the festival, EFSP presents again the unofficial Dutch Film Star Postcards Festival! We start with little known Dutch actor Ernst Winar (1894-1978), who appeared in 34 films between 1916 and 1955, in The Netherlands and as well in Germany. He was also a film director and made 14 films between 1922 and 1955. Later he was the editor of the first, short films of Paul Verhoeven.


Vintage postcard, no. 988/1.

Jack Of All Trades

Ernst Winar was born as Joseph Wilhelm Carl von Eichhof-Winar from a German family in Leiden, The Netherlands, in 1894.

After finishing school he began an engineering study in Germany, but World War I forced him to break off this studies.

Temporarily exempted from military service, he was employed by the Filmfabriek Hollandia (Film factory Hollandia) in Haarlem as a real Jack of all trades.

At Hollandia, he started as an actor in a small role in the silent film Majoor Frans/Major Francis (Maurits Binger, 1916) with Dutch diva Annie Bos in the lead.

Other silent Dutch films in which he appeared were La renzoni (Maurits Binger, 1916) again starring Annie Bos - the only star of the Dutch silent cinema, the opera film Gloria transita (Johan Gildemeijer, 1917), Ulbo Garvema (Maurits Binger, 1917), De kroon der schande/The Crown of Shame (Maurits Binger, 1917) with Annie Bos and Adelqui Migliar, Toen 't licht verdween/Blind (Maurits Binger, 1918), and Pro domo (Theo Frenkel Sr., 1918) starring the legendary Dutch stage actor Louis Bouwmeester.

In these films, Winar usually appeared in a supporting role or even as an extra.

After the war he tried to gain a foothold as an actor. He played on stage under the name of W. Eikhof at the Casino ensemble in The Hague. He also translated plays by Ferenc Molnar into Dutch, and he continued to appear in films.

Een Carmen van het Noorden/A Carmen of the North (Maurits Binger, 1919) based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée, was a highlight among the films of the Filmfabriek Hollandia. This film featured again the stars Annie Bos and Adelqui Migliar, and was a moderate international success.

Other films in which Winar appeared were De duivel in Amsterdam/The Devil in Amsterdam (Theo Frenkel Sr., 1919) based on Winar's translation of a Molnar play and starring Eduard Verkade as the devil and Louis Bouwmeester as a banker, and Verborgen levens/Fate's Plaything (Maurits Binger, B.E. Doxat-Pratt, 1920).


Publicity still for Een Carmen van het Noorden/A Carmen of the North (Maurits Binger, 1919) with Annie Bos and Adelqui Migliar. Source: Immagine. Nuova Serie N. 16, 1990-1991.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Coret, Den Haag. Picture of Eduard Verkade as the Devil in the stage play De duivel (Az Ördög/The Devil) by Ferenc Molnár.


Adolphe Engers. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3186/1, 1928-1929. Collection: Egbert Barten.

Sought-after Actor

In the 1920s Ernst Winar ventured into Germany as an actor but he also took the opportunity to direct several films.

As an actor, he got his first major role in Die Benefizvorstellung der Vier Teufel/The benefit performance of the four devils (1920) by Danish director Anders Wilhelm Sandberg. The film was a success and numerous films followed.

The now sought-after actor appeared in such films as Der Liebling der Frauen/The favorite of the women (Carl Wilhelm, 1921) with the then largely unknown Maly Delschaft in the lead role, Der unsichtbare Gast/The invisible guest (Friedrich Zelnik, 1921), and Wettlauf ums Glück/Race to happiness (Bruno Ziener, 1923). In this love story located in Tibet, Winar starred alongside his future wife and frequent film partner, British actress Colette Brettel.

From 1921 on, Winar was also active as a director. First he was responsible for three episodes of the Terra series Flappy with Adolphe Engersin the lead role.

In 1922, he directed his first feature film, the crime film Der Mann im Hintergrund/The man in the background, but the film was released only after several changes in October 1924.

In the following four years Winar mainly worked as an actor. He played supporting roles in the comedy Komödie des Herzens/The Comedy of the Heart (Rochus Gliese, 1924) with Lil Dagover, in Die Millionenkompagnie/The Millions Company (Fred Sauer, 1925) with Olga Tschechova, and the successful comedy Die Kleine vom Bummel/The little girl from Bummel (Richard Eichberg, 1925) starring Lilian Harvey.

In 1923, he also taught directing at the Terra film school in Berlin.

His later German films as a director included Wochenend wider Willen/Weekend Against Sake (1927) starring Ossi Oswalda, Das Haus am Krögel/The House on Krögel (1927), Der Neffe aus Amerika/The Cousin From America (1927), Wochendbraut/Weekend Bride (1928) starring Anny Ondra, and Der Hafenbaron/The Port Baron (1928).

Most of these films featured Colette Brettel. With his film § 182 minderjährig/Paragraph 182 – Minor of Age (1927) he got three times in conflict with the censors.

With the advent of the sound film era his acting period in Germany ended. In 1930, he appeared for the last time in a German production, the Luis Trenker film Die heiligen drei Brunnen/The three holy wells (Mario Bonnard, 1930).


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Nationaal Film. Publicity still for Op stap/On the Move (Ernst Winar, 1935) with Frits van Dongen and Fien de la Mar.


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Nationaal Film. Publicity still of Fien(tje) de la Mar in Op stap/On the Move (Ernst Winar, 1935).

On the Road

In 1932 Ernst Winar returned to the Netherlands. He made the short sound film Hollandsch Hollywood/Dutch Hollywood (1933) for which revue star Fien de la Mar sang the title song, announcing a new Dutch film industry.

In 1935 Winar and Fien de la Mar worked together again on the musical Op Stap/On the Road (Ernst Winar, 1935) which also featured revue stars Louis and Heintje Davids and Adolphe Engers, who was also back from Berlin.

For the Cinetone studios Winar co-directed the film De Kribbebijter/The Double-Patch (1935) with German émigré director Hermann Kosterlitz aka Henry Koster as his co-director. This successful comedy starred Cor Ruys and Frits van Dongen, who later became a well known film actor in Berlin and Hollywood under the name of Philip Dorn.

Winar was one of the few Dutch directors who had mastered the trade of film directing and he would have a major impact in the 1940s and 1950s, when the appearance of a Dutch feature film was rare.

During the war he presented De laatste dagen van een eiland/The Last days of an island (Ernst Winar, 1942) with Max Croiset, based on a story of Klaas Norel. The film was already recorded in 1938 and privately screened later that year, but only in 1942 publicly, probably because only a few films were approved by the German occupiers. It was the second film produced by the Dutch Christian Film Centre, but during the war this organization was already shut down.

After the Second World War, Winar’s interest shifted to children's films, such as Dik Trom en zijn dorpsgenoten/Dik Trom and his fellow villagers (Ernst Winar, 1947) with his former director Theo Frenkel Sr. in one of the supporting roles, and Vier jongens en een jeep/Four guys and a jeep (Ernst Winar, 1955) with Sylvain Poons.

The latter film was his last feature as a director and he also made his final film appearance in it.

During the 1960s, Winar escorted the young filmmaker Paul Verhoeven as the editor of the short films Een Hagedis teveel/A Lizard Too Much (Paul Verhoeven, 1960), De Lifters/The Hitchhikers (Paul Verhoeven, 1962), Feest!/Party! (Paul Verhoeven, 1963) and Het Korps Mariniers/The Royal Dutch Marine Corps (Paul Verhoeven, 1965).

He also worked for the Foundation Film en Wetenschap (Film and Science) in Utrecht. In 1976 he finally appeared one more time in a small role in the TV film Volk en vaderliefde/People and Father Love (Wim T. Schippers, 1976) based on the story by Herodotus.

Ernst Winar died in 1978 in Leiden, aged 83.


Final scene from Op Stap/On the Road (Ernst Winar, 1935) with Fien de la Mar and a dozen pianos. Source: Captainvontrapp (YouTube).

Sources: Fred van Doorn/Peter van Bueren (Filmbijlage VN 1975), Deutsches Filminstitut (German), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Ery Bos

September 24, 2014, 11:00 pm

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Today is the second day of the Nederlands Film Festival (24 September - 3 October 2014) and EFSP presents another post in the unofficial Dutch Film Star Postcards Festival. Sweet and elegant Ery Bos (1908-2005) was a Dutch-German actress, who had a short but productive film career in the early German sound film. In only three years, from 1932 till 1934, she took part in a dozen films.


German collectors card by Salem Zigaretten in the series Bunte Filmbilder, no. 269 (in a series of 275). Photo: Dührkoop / Ross Verlag.

Solo Dancer

Erika Bos was born in Berlin, Germany in 1908 (some sources say 1910). She was the daughter of Dutch composer and pianist Coenraad V. Bos.

At the age of 10, she already had dance classes. She first attended public attention as a solo dancer in the 1920s and at 17 she was already a solo dancer in the city of Dortmund.

The beautiful dancer also followed speaking lessons by Ilka Grüning and soon she was spotted by the major German film studio Ufa.

Ery made her film début with Peter Lorrein the crime film Schuß im Morgengrauen/Shot at Dawn (Alfred Zeisler, 1932).

To her other films that year belong Liebe in Uniform/Love in Uniform (Georg Jacoby, 1932) and Unmögliche Liebe/Crown of Thorns (Ery Grünfeld, 1932) in which she appeared as a daughter of Asta Nielsen.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7919/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Yva, Berlin.


Dutch postcard by JosPe, no. 529.

Escaping the holocaust

In 1933, Ery Bos played parts in Roman einer Nacht/Story of a Night (Carl Boese, 1933) and Der Zarewitsch/The Czarevitch (Victor Janson, 1933) starring Márta Eggerth.

After the Nazis had gained power in 1933, the Jewish actress soon fled the country, escaping the holocaust.

In 1934, her final films Mit dir durch dick und dünn/With you through thick and thin (Frans Seitz, 1934), Du bist entzückend, Rosmarie!/You are adorable, Rosmarie! (Hans von Wolzogen, 1934), Jede Frau hat ein Geheimnis/Every Woman Has a Secret (Max Obal, 1934) with Karin Hardt, and Grüß' mir die Lore noch einmal/Greet Lore again for me (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1934), could be seen in the German cinemas.

Ery Bos married Herbert Grünfeld (1908-1977) and lived as Ery Grünfeld in the US. She would never make another film.

In 2005, Erika Grünfeld died in Chappaqua (some sources say New Castle) in the state of New York at the age of 96.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8282/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Gnom-Tonfilm. Publicity still for Das Lied vom Glück/The Song of Happiness (Carl Boese, 1933). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Rate Your Music, Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

Trude Berliner

September 5, 2014, 11:00 pm

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German actress Trude Berliner (1903-1977) was one of many Jewish actors and actresses that were forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power in 1933.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6483/2, 1931-1932. Photo: Splendid-Film.

Perky, and bubbly

Gertrude Berliner was born in Berlin, Germany in 1903. She attended ballet and acting lessons. Her first stage role was in the play Der fidele Bauer (The jolly farmer) and at 13, she already played her first film part as a child in Adamants letztes Rennen/Adamants last race (Max Mack, 1916) with Maria Orska.

After WWI, Trude became a famous cabaret performer in Berlin, who performed in music halls and at the Scala. She also played on stage in operettas and comedies.

In 1924, she appeared in her next silent film, Der geheime Agent/The secret agent (Erich Schönfelder, 1924), starring Eva May. It was followed by Krieg im Frieden/War in Peace (Carl Boese, 1925).

Berliner had to wait four more years before her film career really would take off. In 1929, she appeared in Dich hab ich geliebt/It's You I Have Loved (Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1929), starring Mady Christiansand Hans Stüwe. It would become the first German talkie released in the United States.

That same year, she was the leading lady opposite Karl Ludwig Diehl as detective Stuart Webb in the silent film Masken/Masks (Rudolf Meinert, 1929). She played typical Berlin girls: perky, and bubbly.

Berliner appeared in a number of well known German films during the 1930s. These included Ich heirate meinen Mann/Her Wedding Night (E.W. Emo, 1931), Der Hochtourist/The high tourist (Alfred Zeisler, 1931), Die unsichtbare Front/The Invisible Front (Richard Eichberg, 1932), Grossstadtnacht/Big city night (Fedor Ozep, 1932) and Kaiserwalzer/The Emperor's Waltz (Friedrich Zelnik, 1932).

She had a small part in the Heinz Rühmann comedy Der Stolz der 3. Kompanie/The Pride of Company Three (Fred Sauer, 1932). Interesting was also the drama Nachtkolonne/Night Watch (James Bauer, 1932) with Vladimir Gajdarov and Olga Tschechowa.

Es war einmal ein Musikus/There was once a musician (Friedrich Zelnik, 1933) was her last film in Germany. It also featured S.Z. Sakall and was the fourth German film that Berliner and Sakall appeared together in.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5708/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Felsom Film. Publicity still for Drei Tage Liebe/Three Days of Love (Heinz Hilpert, 1931).


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 6211. Photo: Viktoria-Film / Kiba Verleih.

Casablanca

Being Jewish, Trude Berliner left Germany when Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. In 1933 she travelled over Prague, Vienna and Paris to the Netherlands. Here she worked among other things in Willy Rosen's cabaret Das Theater der Prominenten (Theatre of celebrities).

In 1939 Berliner married the Swiss-born painter Max Schoop. In 1940 the Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands and Trude fled with her husband over Lisbon to the United States.

She worked in a cabaret in New York, but in Hollywood Berliner was not able to continue her film career. She received only bit roles in four movies.

In 1942, Berliner received her first American film part in the legendary romantic drama Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Berliner portrayed a woman playing baccarat with a Dutch banker (played by Torben Meyer). In her one line in movie, she says to the waiter Carl (played S.Z. Sakall), "Will you ask Rick if he will have a drink with us?", to which Carl responds, "Madame, he never drinks with customers. Never. I have never seen it."

Later that year, she had another bit part in the World War II romance Reunion in France (Jules Dassin, 1942) starring John Wayne, Joan Crawford and Philip Dorn (a.k.a. Frits van Dongen).

The following year, Berliner played Frau Reitler in The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler (James P. Hogan, 1943). The film follows a man who plans to murder Adolf Hitler and steal his identity.

Her last film appearance was a small uncredited role as a German actress in the Technicolor musical The Dolly Sisters (Irving, 1945) starring Betty Grable, June Haver and S.Z. Sakall. This is a biographical film about the Dolly Sisters, identical twins who became famous as entertainers on Broadway and in Europe in the early years of the twentieth century.

In order to earn a living Berliner worked among others in the pottery of the also emigrated actor Ernst Verebes and administrated a date farm.

In 1955, she returned to Berlin and was seen again in the German film Vor Gott und den Menschen/Before God and man (Erich Engel, 1955) with Antje Weisgerber and Hans Söhnker.

After that Berliner lived quietly in California until she died in 1977 in San Diego, just two days shy of her 74th birthday.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7077/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Schneider, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8722/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Pierre Saaf, Amsterdam.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos.ch), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Linda van Dyck

September 25, 2014, 11:00 pm

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Today is the third day of the Nederlands Film Festival, and EFSP presents you another post in the unofficial Dutch film star postcards festival. Dutch stage actress Linda van Dyck (1948) appeared in a dozen Dutch and Belgian films, which were sometimes very successful in the low countries. She started as a pop singer and songwriter in the sixties. Van Dyck also worked for television both in the Netherlands and in Sweden, where she lived for some years in the late 1960s and early 1970s.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Funckler Grammofoonplaten.

Boo and the Booboo's

Linda van Dyck (sometimes written as Dijck) was born as Linda Marianne de Hartogh in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 1948. She was the daughter of the actors Leo de Hartogh and Teddy Schaank.

Her stepfather was the legendary Dutch stage actor Ko van Dijk, with whom she made her stage debut in 1959 in De vader (The Father) by August Strindberg.

In 1966 she appeared in two Dutch feature films: the murder mystery 10:32/10:32 in the Morning (Arthur Dreifuss, 1966) starring Linda Christian, and Het Gangstermeisje/A Gangstergirl (Frans Weisz, 1966) with Paolo Graziosi, Kitty Courbois and Gian Maria Volonté.

In the 1960s she was best known as the singer of the band Boo and the Booboo's, for which she also wrote song texts. Her last single as a (solo) singer and also her biggest hit was Seduction Song (1969).

She decided to become an actress and moved to Sweden where she worked for television for a period of five years.


The Dutch beat band Boo and the Booboo's featuring Linda van Dyck play Stengun (1966). Source: Funnyfreakparade (YouTube).


The second solo single by Linda van Dyck, Baby, What Am I Doing (1967). Source: Erikavburen (YouTube).

A Sensual Aunt

Linda van Dyck returned to the Netherlands in 1973 and appeared in several popular TV series and stage productions.

In 1979 she played a small part in the film Tiro (Jacob Bijl, 1979) with Kitty Courbois.

A huge success was her role as the sensual aunt Coleta in the coming of age drama Twee vorstinnen en een vorst/Two Queens and a King (Otto Jongerius, 1981) with Eric Clerckx as the young protagonist and Kitty Courbois as his mother.

Another success was her part in the drama Ademloos/Breathless (Mady Saks, 1982) with Monique van de Ven. For these two roles Linda van Dyck was proclaimed Best Dutch film actress in 1982.

Another popular local hit was Ciske de Rat/Ciske the Rat (Guido Pieters, 1984) featuring child star Danny de Munk and Willeke van Ammelrooy as his nasty mother. Van Dyck played again the aunt of the protagonist.

In between these films she appeared on stage and in such prestigious TV dramas as Willem van Oranje/William of Orange (Walter van der Kamp, 1984) starring Jeroen Krabbé.

Other films in which she appeared were the thriller De Grens/The Border (Leon de Winter, 1984) with Johan Leysen and Angela Winkler, and the war film In de schaduw van de overwinning/In the Shadow of the Victory (1986) starring Jeroen Krabbé.


Dutch postcard. Promocard by International Artists, Hilversum.

Knight

During the 1990s, Linda van Dyck only incidentally appeared in films. She played a supporting part in the Belgian-French-Dutch production Daens/Priest Daens (Stijn Conincx, 1994), based on the novel by Louis Paul Boon and featuring Jan Decleir.

A surprise was the award winning TV film Suzy Q (Martin Koolhoven, 1999), about a weekend in the life of a bizarre family in the sixties. Van Dyck played the mother and her children were played by the upcoming stars Carice van Houten, Roeland Fernhout and Michiel Huisman.

Her later films included Magonia (Ineke Smits, 2001) with Ramsey Nasr, the swashbuckler Floris (Jean van de Velde, 2004) featuring Michiel Huisman, and the multicultural comedy Het schnitzelparadijs/Schnitzel Paradise (Martin Koolhoven, 2005).

Her greatest successes were in the Dutch theatre where she starred in such popular and acclaimed productions as De dood en het meisje (Death and the Maiden) (2003), Herfstsonate (Autumn Sonata) (2005-2006), Nacht, Moeder (Night, Mother) (2006-2007) and Una Giornata Particolare (2007-2008).

In 2010 Linda van Dyck received a Royal order: Ridder in de orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw (Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion).

Linda van Dyck is married to Jaap Nolst Trenité, with whom she has a son, Jamie Maxim Nolst Trenité (1990).


Linda Van Dyck sings You Don't Love Me (1968). Source: Oldies1 (YouTube).


Trailer of Het schnitzelparadijs/Schnitzel Paradise (2005). Source: KnipFilm (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.

Herbert Joeks

September 26, 2014, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Happy 80, Brigitte Bardot!

≪ Previous: Linda van Dyck

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It is already the fourth day of the 2014 Nederlands Film Festival. In the unofficial Dutch film star postcards festival, the floor is for Herbert Joeks (1915-1993), who appeared in several Dutch films and TV series. For generations of Dutch kids, the frail singer and character actor became an icon in his role as the fearful Indian Klukkluk in the TV series Pipo de Clown (1958-1980).


Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Sent by mail in 1969. Photo: Herbert Joeks in Pipo de clown.

A sexton in love

Herbert Joeks was born as Herman Jozef van Hugten in Amsterdam in 1915.

He started his career in amateur theatre. In 1943 he could avoid to have to go to Germany for the Arbeitzeinsatz (forced labour) by working as a professional singer and actor for the Trianon Cabaret.

After the war he performed for Canadian soldiers and they accidentally gave him his stage name. They pronounced his surname Hugten as ‘Hughes’. In Dutch this is phonetically written as ‘Joeks’. So as Herbert Joeks he went to work for several cabaret companies and often performed for the radio.

During the 1950s he also appeared in a number of Dutch films. He played supporting parts in the comedies Sterren stralen overal/Stars Twinkle Everywhere (Gerard Rutten, 1953) as a sexton in love, and Het wonderlijke leven van Willem Parel/The Wondrous Life of Willem Parel (Gerard Rutten, 1955) as a hard-of-hearing radio director.

A huge success was the comedy Fanfare (Bert Haanstra, 1958) about two competing brass-bands in the fictional village of Brederwiede. Joeks appeared also in Haanstra’s next film, De Zaak MP/The M.P. Case (Bert Haanstra, 1960), but this comedy proved to be a huge flop.

From 1955 till 1958, Joeks was a permanent member of the acting company of the upcoming Dutch television. The first years he appeared in several TV adaptations of famous books and plays, such as Charles Dickens’ De geest van kerstmis/A Christmas Carol (1958) in which he played an acclaimed Scrooge.

With his small, frail figure, his early balding head and close mouth, and his shrill, slightly narrowed voice he usually performed the same kind of characters: a priest, a notary, a shopkeeper or just a little frightened bourgeois.


Dutch postcard by Uitgeverij Takken, Utrecht, 3793. Photo: Jutka Mol, Rome. Publicity still for Fanfare (Bert Haanstra, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 3. Photo: Herbert Joeks in Pipo de clown.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Sent by mail in 1968. Photo: Herbert Joeks in Pipo de clown.

The Indian Who Always Shot Wrong

Herbert Joeks’ biggest TV success was the children’s series Pipo de clown/Pipo the Clown (Henk Barnard a.o., 1958-1980). It was an exciting, fairy-tale like adventure about Pipo the clown (Cor Witschge) and his wife Mamalou.

Pipo and Mamalou were travelling around in a 19th century circus wagon, pulled by a single mule called Nononono. They and their friends were faced with all sorts of problems and dangers.

Their best friend was the fearful Indian Klukkluk, who always shot wrong. As Klukkluk he conquered the hearts of many generations of children. He spoke a self-made language and introduced new words to the Dutch language.

In 1975 Joeks also appeared as Klukkluk in the cinema in the feature film Pipo en de piraten van toen/Pipo and the Pirates of the Past (Kees van Eyk, 1975), filmed on the Caribbean island of Aruba.

The last episode (number 118) of the series was shown in 1980. Meanwhile Joeks appeared in several other TV films and series. During the 1960s he played supporting parts in such children’s series as Bas Boterbloem/Bas Butterflower (Gerrit den Brabander a.o., 1960) and De Avonturen van Okkie Trooy/The Adventures of Okkie Trooy (Bram van Erkel, 1962).

Joeks also appeared in comedy series like Herrie om Harrie/Here’s Harry (Willy van Hemert, 1963) and Tot de dood on scheidt/Till Death Do Us Part (1970), and in the popular drama series Joop ter Heul (1968), Klaverweide/Clover Meadow (1973) and Hollands Glorie/Dutch Glory (Walter van der Kamp, 1975) based on the 1940 novel by Jan de Hartog.

However he is best remembered for his work in children’s series. Later series were Kunt u mij de weg naar Hamelen vertellen, meneer?/Could You Tell Me the Road to Hamelin, Sir? (1972), and Familie Oudenrijn/The Oudenrijn Family (Bob Spiers, Wouter Stips, 1985).

His last film role was as a patient in the comedy De Boezemvriend/The Bossom Buddy (Dimitri Frenkel Frank, 1982) starring Dutch comedian André van Duin, and his final TV role was also as a patient in the soap Medisch Centrum West/Medical Centre West (1991).

Sadly, he became in private a patient too. In 1993, Herbert Joeks died in Amsterdam of complications of cancer, at the age of 77. He was married to Fransje van Balkom and they had a daughter, Madeleine.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Sent by mail in 1969. Photo: Herbert Joeks in Pipo de clown.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Herbert Joeks in Pipo de clown.

Sources: A.J.C.M. Gabriëls (Huygens ING), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

Happy 80, Brigitte Bardot!

September 27, 2014, 3:00 pm

≫ Next: Bleeke Bet (1934)

≪ Previous: Herbert Joeks

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We interrupt our Dutch Film Star Postcard Festival for breaking news.Today is BB's 80th birthday!  Yes, gorgeous Brigitte Bardot was born on 28 September 1934, at 5 Place Violet in the 15th district of Paris, France. We salute her with 28 of our favourite BB postcards - without any order - we love them all. Félicitations, Mme. Bardot. Joyeux anniversaire!


1. Dutch postcard printed by gebr. Spanjersberg N.V. Rotterdam. The first postcard I ever bought of BB.


2. German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 998.


3. German postcard by ISV, no. H 60. Over 14,000 views at Flickr and 63 favourites.


4. French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 356. Photo: Sam Lévin.


5. French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 599. Photo: Sam Lévin.


6. French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 601. Photo: Sam Lévin.


7. German postcard by ISV, Sort. IV/6. See also the same picture on this big card.


8. French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 597. Photo: Sam Lévin. I love these long shots Lévin made of BB. She was Lévin's favourite model. This card shows why: the picture accentuates her petite figure and also shows that she knew how to pose - a bit naughty and with class.


9. French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 598. Photo: Sam Lévin.


10. Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam (licency holder for the Netherlands of Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof), nr. 4640. Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1962. Photo: Sam Lévin/Ufa.


11. German postcard by ISV, no. H 11. ISV also produced this card with a photograph that must be taken at the same session, or is it even the same photo, mirrored and coloured?


12. German postcard by Krüger, 902/166. Photo: Fried Agency.


13. German postcard by Krüger, nr. 902/142. Photo: Ufa.


14. German postcard by Kruger.


15. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 261. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa.


16. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1016. Photo: Sam Lévin.


17. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/36. Photo: Sam Lévin.


18. German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, nr. CK 346. Photo: Sam Lévin/Ufa.


19. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1018. Photo: Sam Lévin.


20. European postcard, no. 1154. Photo: Sam Lévin.


21. French postcard by Editions d'Art Yvon, Paris, no. 209. Photo: Sam Lévin.


22. Big German card by ISV, no. HX 102. This is our most popular postcard at Flickr. More than 100,000 views and 129 faves.


23. German postcard by UFA (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhoff), no. CK 142. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Georg Michalke / UFA. Sam Lévin is for me the best photographer of BB, but Georg Michalke comes in second. What a sensual picture!


24. French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 504. Photo: Sam Lévin.


25. French postcard by Editions Lyna, Paris, no. 2085. Photo: Sam Lévin.


26. German postcard by Krüger / Ufa, no. 902/86. Photo: Sam Levin.


27. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/95, ca. 1961. Photo Sam Levin. Publicity photo for Amours célèbres (Michel Boisrond, 1961). Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot starred in the segment Agnès Bernauer.

And no. 28? Our header of course!

Oh yes, check out the new Brigitte Bardot group at Flickr! You'll love it.

Bleeke Bet (1934)

September 27, 2014, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Jan Musch

≪ Previous: Happy 80, Brigitte Bardot!

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On the fourth day of the 2014 Nederlands Film Festival, it's time for a film special in our unofficial Dutch film star postcards festival. The tragi-comedy Bleeke Bet/Pale Betty (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934) was one of the first Dutch sound films, and the distributor Monopole Film ordered a series of postcards with pictures by photographer Dick van Maarseveen to promote the film. It probably worked, the film was a success in the Dutch cinemas.


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Monopole Film. Publicity still of Aaf Bouber in Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still of Jopie Koopman in Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still of Fien de la Mar and Jopie Koopman in Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934).


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Monopole Film/Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still of Fien(tje) de la Mar in Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934).

A greengrocer in the Jordaan

The directors of Bleeke Bet/Pale Betty (1934) were Alex Benno, who had already directed several silent Dutch films and the Austrian director, producer, and screenwriter Richard Oswald.

From 1914 on, Oswald had already made dozens of films in Weimar Germany, including the comedy Der Hauptmann von Köpenick/The Captain from Köpenick (1931) and the horror-comedy Unheimliche Geschichten/Uncanny stories (1932) starring Paul Wegener.

Being Jewish, Oswald was forced to flee Nazi Germany, first for occupied France and later emigrating to the United States.

Alex Benno had also written the screenplay for Bleeke Bet. It was based on a popular stage melodrama, written by Herman Bouber in 1917.
Benno and Bouber had already made a silent version of Bleeke Bet in 1923 with Alida van Gijtenbeek as Bet.

After the amazing box office success of the sound film De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1933), also based on a play by Bouber, Benno got the green light for a sound version of Bleeke Bet.

In the new sound version, Bouber's wife, Aaf Bouber, played the title role of Bleeke Bet, a greengrocer in the Jordaan, the old neighbourhood in the heart of Amsterdam.

Bet wants her daughter Jans (Jopie Koopman) to marry to the son of a dodgy businessman, but Jans loves sailor Ko (the young Johannes Heesters).

Bet's attempts to drive them apart come to nothing but when Ko is reported lost at sea, a desperate Jans gives in to her mother's wishes. On the day of the wedding Ko turns out to be alive and just in time to take his rightful place at the altar next to Jans.

The still on the last postcard of this post by shows the happy ending with in the centre Fien de la Mar as Ka.


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Monopole Film. Publicity still of Fien(tje) de la Mar in Bleeke Bet (1934, Alex Benno, Richard Oswald). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Monopole Film, Rotterdam / Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still of Johannes Heesters in Bleeke Bet (1934).


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Monopole Film / Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still of Corrie Vonk in Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934).


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Monopole Film. Publicity still of Johan Elsensohn in Bleeke Bet (1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch Postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Publicity card of Fien de la Mar in Bleeke Bet (1934). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen.

Nazi Censors

Bleeke Bet was a commercial success and would be re-issued in 1941 and 1961.

In 1941 the Jewish actors like Sylvain Poons were cut out of the picture by the Nazi censors.

Poons as the icecream salesman Sally sings an evergreen in the film, IJslied (Icecream Song).

The music was composed by emigrant Hans May and the lyrics were written by the later collaborator, Jacques van Tol.

There are more wonderful songs in the film, including Fien de la Mar's torch song Ik wil gelukkig zijn (I want to be happy).

Fien de la Mar, Sylvain Poons and Johan Elsensohn as Bet's husband got positive reviews in the Dutch newspapers for their performances. The voice of Johannes Heesters was also complimented.

However, the reviews about the film were mixed, but it did not matter to the producer: the public loved it.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still of a set built for Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934), a street in the old neighbourhood De Jordaan in Amsterdam. Set designer was Hans Ledersteger. The set would be used again for several other films.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still of Fien(tje) de la Mar and Jopie Koopman in the tragicomedy Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Johan Elsensohn, Jopie Koopman, Clara Vischer-Blaaser, Corry Vonk, Fien de la Mar and Jan van Ees in Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Clara Vischer-Blaaser, Aaf Bouber, Sylvain Poons, Corry Vonk, Fien de la Mar and Jopie Koopman in Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934).


Dutch Postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag (The Hague). Publicity still for Bleeke Bet (1934) with the main cast for the happy ending.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

Jan Musch

September 28, 2014, 11:00 pm

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≪ Previous: Bleeke Bet (1934)

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On the sixth day of the 2014 Nederlands Film Festival in Utrecht, we present you in the unofficial Dutch film star postcards festival Jan Musch (1875-1960). He was one of the great stars of the Dutch theatre during the first decades of the 20th Century. In the 1930s he also starred in a few Dutch films, including the award winning drama Dood water/Dead Water (1934).


Dutch postcard by REB in the series Portrettengalerij, no. 105.

A Quiet Charm

Jan Musch was born as Johannes Petrus Musch in 1875 in De Jordaan, the heart of old Amsterdam. His father, a café owner, was offered theatre tickets for showing posters in his café. So young Jan saw a lot of stage plays and soon wanted to become an actor too.

Musch also showed talent for drawing and music. He performed as a magician, together with his friend Johan Buziau, who would later become one of the great clowns of the Dutch theatre.

Jan started his stage career in the choir of the revue De Doofpot (The Extinguisher) in the Salon des Variétés in Amsterdam. The following years he worked as an extra, singer or dresser, and also played the piano in harbour bars.

At 17, he got his first paid stage job as a servant in the classic Dutch play Spiegel der vaderlandse kooplieden (Mirror of the National Merchants). He was influenced by the naturalistic, romantic acting style of the great actor Louis Bouwmeester.

Actress Esther de Boer-Van Rijknoticed him and took care that he got an engagement at the Nederlandsche Toneelvereeniging in 1899. Under the direction of Herman Heyermans he became one of the great Dutch actors of the early 20th century in plays like Allerzielen (All Souls’ Day). His acting style changed into a quiet charm, simple and withdrawn.


Dutch postcard in the series Hollandsche Kunstenaars (Dutch Artists). no. 1. Photo: Bernard Eilers.


Dutch postcard. Collection: Britta K @ Flickr.

Grand Character Actor

From 1909 till 1915 Jan Musch was one of the main actors in the company of Willem Royaards, which would prove to be another main period of his stage career.

He became a grand character actor in the classic plays of Joost van den Vondel like Lucifer and Gijsbreght, and of William Shakespeare like The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In 1916 he returned to Heyermans and his Nieuwe Nederl. Tooneel-Vereeniging, which performed in the Grand Théâtre in Amsterdam. Musch became the co-director.

He played the title roles in two classic Dutch plays Bredero's Spaanse Brabander (The Spanish Man of Brabant) and Pieter Langendijk’s Krelis Louwen, which he would perform again and again during the next decades.

With his great comic talent he was also an ideal interpreter of the plays by Molière, such as the miser Harpagon in L’avare (The Miser).

In the following decades Musch stayed the vital star and attraction of the different companies he worked for. In 1928 he made a successful tour in the Dutch West Indies. Privately he was reserved and never gave interviews.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Cohnen Jr. Publicity still for the stage play De paradijsvloek (1919) by Alphons Laudy. The original production by het Schouwtooneel with Musch as Adam was a huge success in both The Netherlands and Flanders.

Underground

During the 1930s Jan Musch often worked together with the actress Else Mauhs. With her and with actor Ko Arnoldi he formed in 1933 the theatre company Het Masker (The Mask), which existed till 1936.

During this period he also appeared in a few films. He starred as a doomed fisherman of the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea) in the drama Dood water/Dead Water (Gerard Rutten, 1934) with Max Croiset. The film won an award at the Venice Film festival.

Musch also appeared in De Man zonder hart/The Man Without a Heart (Leo Joannon, 1937), and as a signal man in the thriller De spooktrein/The Ghost Train (Carl Lamac, 1939) with Fien de la Mar and Adolphe Engers.

In 1939 he retired because of ill health. In the first year of the war the Vlaamse schouwburg in Antwerpen (Antwerp), Belgium, asked him to reprise his role in Molière’s L’avare, which he did to great acclaim.

When the Nazis introduced the fascist Kulturkammer in The Netherlands, Musch refused to join. His first wife, the violinist Ans Benavente, had tried to escape through France, but was killed by the Nazis.

Musch started to perform underground, and with his second wife, actress Mary Smithuyzen, he helped the Dutch resistance. Therefore he had to flee in 1943.

After the war he started a political cabaret and performed many of his old roles on the radio. After a successful tour through Surinam in 1949 and his last film role in Myrte en de Demonen/Myrte of the Demons (Paul Bruno Schreiber, 1950) he decided to make a farewell theatre tour with L’avare in 1952.

The 77-year old Jan Musch had shone magically on the stage for more than six decades. Recovering after a stroke, he died in 1960 in his hometown Blaricum, Netherlands.


Dutch postcard, no. 38993. Photo: Nederlandse Filmgemeenschap, Holland. Publicity still for Dood water/Dead water (Gerard Rutten, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard, no. 38996. Photo: Nederlandse Filmgemeenschap, Holland. Publicity still for Dood water/Dead water (Gerard Rutten, 1934) with Max Croiset and Arnold Marlé. Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch poster for the film Dood water/Dead Water (Gerard Rutten, 1934) starring Jan Musch.

Sources: Theun de Vries (DBNL) (Dutch), Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.

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Fien de la Mar

September 29, 2014, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Willeke Alberti

≪ Previous: Jan Musch

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These days, Utrecht is the Dutch film city, because of the 2014 Nederlands Film Festival. EFSP presents you the unofficial Dutch film star postcards festival, with today one of the few real film stars of the Netherlands, Fien de la Mar (1898-1965). This Dutch Diva starred in several films during the 1930s of when a Dutch Hollywood was created by German emigrants like Richard Oswald, Ludwig Berger and Max Ophüls. Fien sang a song about this curious phenomenon in the short film Hollandsch Hollywood/Dutch Hollywood (Ernst Winar, 1933).


Dutch Postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Publicity still for Bleeke Bet (1934).


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Monopole Film. Publicity still of Fien(tje) de la Mar in Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard by JosPe. Sent by mail in 1935. Photo: Godfried de Groot.

Capricious

Before WW II, the actress and cabaret artist was known as Fientje de la Mar. She was born in 1898 and named after Josephine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Her grandfather Charles de la Mar was an admirer of the French emperor and had called his son Napoleon (Nap). Both were famous Dutch actors and Fien started her stage career in 1917 when she was still a school girl.

Immediately she showed talent but also a huge temper. She would become a glamorous and capricious stage star, who loved liquor and would have many lovers.

Her feature film debut was the extremely successful musical De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1934), one of the first Dutch sound films. The three title characters were played by Willy Costello, Johan Kaartand Fien's lover Jan van Ees.

Fien's second feature was Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934). In this film she sings her torch song Ik wil gelukkig zijn (I want to be happy).

Bleeke Bet (1934) was based on a popular stage melodrama by Herman Bouber, who also wrote the screenplay. His wife, Aaf Bouber  played the title role, a greengrocer of the Jordaan, the old neighbourhood in Amsterdam. Bet wants her daughter Jans (Jopie Koopman) to marry a rich man, but Jans loves sailor Ko (the young Johannes Heesters - right on the photo).

The film was a success and would be re-issued in 1941 and 1961. In 1941 the Jewish actors like Sylvain Poons (also on the photo) were cut out of the picture by the Nazi censors. Poons as the ice-cream salesman Sally sings an evergreen in the film, IJslied (Ice-cream Song). The music was composed by emigrant Hans May and the lyrics were written by the later collaborator, Jacques van Tol.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Clara Vischer-Blaaser, Aaf Bouber, Sylvain Poons, Corry Vonk, Fien de la Mar and Jopie Koopman in the Dutch tragicomedy Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1936).


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Monopole Film / Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still of Fien(tje) de la Mar in Bleeke Bet (1934).


Dutch Postcard. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Publicity still for Bleeke Bet (1934).


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Publicity still for Bleeke Bet (1934) with Jopie Koopman.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Johan Elsensohn, Jopie Koopman, Clara Vischer-Blaaser, Corry Vonk, Fien de la Mar and Jan van Ees in the Dutch tragicomedy Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934).


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Fien(tje) de la Mar and Jopie Koopman in the tragicomedy Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934).

Tragic End

Bleeke Bet proved to be another hit and the following year Fien de la Mar would star in three more films. In the musical Op stap/On the Road (Ernst Winar, 1935) she sang a song, spectacularly accompanied by a dozen pianos.

Her co-star in this film was Frits van Dongen who later would have a Hollywood career as Philip Dorn. They also appeared together in the comedy De Big van het regiment/The Regiment's Mascot (Max Nosseck, 1935).

Her later films include Klokslag twaalf/12 'O Clock (Léo Joannon, 1936) - an alternate language version of Quand minuit sonnera (Léo Joannon, 1936) starring Marie Bell, De spooktrein/The Ghost Train (Carl Lamac, 1939) with Jan Musch, and Ergens in Nederland/Somewhere in the Netherlands (Ludwig Berger, 1940) with Lily Bouwmeester and actor-author Jan de Hartog.

A few weeks after the premiere of the latter film the Second World War started and the film was forbidden by the Nazis. In 1943 Fien refused to work for the Nazi regime and her career halted.

After the war she made a glorious stage come-back and she even had her own theatre for a while. She worked for television, but would not make any more films.

Her life ended tragically in 1965. Fien de la Mar jumped out of the window of her Amsterdam apartment and died a few days later in a hospital. Her legend is kept in an excellent biography by Jenny Pisuisse (1982), a CD and in the stage and television musical Fien (Jan Keja, 1985) with Jasperina de Jong as Fien.


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Nationaal Film. Publicity still of Fien(tje) de la Mar in Op stap/On the Move (Ernst Winar, 1935) .


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Nationaal Film. Publicity still for Op stap/On the Move (Ernst Winar, 1935) with Frits van Dongen.


Dutch postcard by NV Monopole Film. Photo: Maarseveen. Fien(tje) de la Mar and Hansje Anderiesen (aka Jansje Andriessen and Hansje Andriesen) in De Big van het regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935).


Clip from Bleeke Bet (1934) with Fien singing Ik wil gelukkig zijn. Source: Brassens66 (YouTube).


Final scene from Op stap/On the Road (1935). Source: CaptainvonTrapp (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia, Wim Ibo (Huygens ING) and IMDb.

Willeke Alberti

September 30, 2014, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Eduard Verkade

≪ Previous: Fien de la Mar

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Today one can see again new and old Dutch films in the city of Utrecht at the 2014 edition of the Nederlands Film Festival (24 September - 3 October 2014). And EFSP presents another post of the unofficial Dutch Film Star Postcards Festival...

For more than 50 years now, Willeke Alberti (1945) has been a very popular singer in the Netherlands. During the 1960s she was a teen idol with several #1 hits. In 1964, she was part of the Dutch delegation that won the Knokke Song festival in Belgium, but 30 years later, her participation at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest was a disappointment. In the meanwhile the Dutch Diva starred and stars as an actress on stage, on TV and in popular Dutch films.


Willeke Alberti and her father, the popular ‘Tenore Napolitano’ Willy Alberti. Dutch postcard by VITA NOVA. Photo: Phonogram. Photo: Henk de Looper. Publicity card for Anker watches, imported by P.H. Bonewit, Amsterdam.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. 126. Photo: Philips.


Dutch postcard by SYBA and MUVA, 1965. Photo: Phonogram. Publicity card for Aktiebureau Dousadj (Dousadj is a village in Persia) which was supported voluntarily by Willeke Alberti.


Dutch postcard by NCRV. Photo: NCRV / Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid. Publicity still for the Dutch TV series De kleine waarheid/The small truth (Willy van Hemert, 1970–1972) starring Willeke Alberti.

Teenage Idol

Willeke Alberti was born as Willy Albertina Verbrugge in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 1945. She is the daughter of Carel Verbrugge a.k.a. the famous Dutch entertainer and singer Willy Alberti and his wife Ria Kuiper. Willeke has a brother, Tonny.

Willeke started her career at the early age of eleven in the TV musical Duel om Barbara/Duel for Barbara (1956) and she recorded her first single in 1958 together with her father, Zeg Pappie/Tell Me Daddy.

A few years later she recorded her first solo single called Als Ik Je Zie/When I See You. Through the 1960s she had many hit recordings and she was a teenage idol.

Her first major hit was Spiegelbeeld/Mirror, Mirror (1963), the Dutch version of Tender Years by George Jones. Other #1 hits were De Winter Was Lang/The Winter Was Long (1964) and Mijn dagboek/My Diary (1964).

A fourth huge hit was Morgen ben ik de bruid/Tomorrow I’ll Be the Bride. In real life she married three times. From 1965 till 1974 she was married to Joop Oonk, guitar player in the pop group The Jumping Jewels. They have one daughter, Danielle (1968).

In 1976 she married TV producer and future TV mogul John de Mol. The couple divorced in 1980. Their son Johnny de Mol (1979) is currently a well known film actor and television personality.

Alberti had a third marriage with Danish soccer player Søren Lerby. A second son, Kaj (1983), was born from that marriage. They separated in 1990.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 6518.


Willeke Alberti and first husband Joop Oonk. Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 658.


Shirley Zwerus, Willeke Alberti, Trea Dobbs, Rita Hovink, Ilonka Bilushka. Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 5920. In 1964 this Dutch delegation won the Songfestival of Knokke in Belgium a.k.a. the European Cup for Vocal Recitation. Ten years later, only Willeke Alberti and Rita Hovink were still beloved performers. Hovink died in 1979.

Torch song

Willeke Alberti and her father Willy Alberti had a popular television show between 1965 and 1969. Her singing career from 1970 onwards was less active.

However Alberti still releases singles and albums at an irregular interval and plays roles in television programs and films. In 1970 she played the leading part in the popular television series De Kleine Waarheid/The Little Truth (Willy van Hemert, 1970) and won the Televizierring, the award for the best Dutch TV program of that year.

This was followed by TV films like Pygmalion (Paul Pouwels, 1974), and series like Medisch Centrum West/Medical Center West (1991).

In 1975 she played the lead in her major film Rooie Sien/Red Sien (Frans Weisz, 1975), in which she sang her torch song Telkens Weer/Times and Times Again.

Other popular films were Oom Ferdinand en de Toverdrank/Uncle Fred and the Magic Potion (Karst van der Meulen, 1974) and Feestje/Party (Paul Ruven, 1995) starring Dutch entertainer Paul de Leeuw.


Dutch postcard by NCRV. Photo: NCRV / Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid. Publicity still for the Dutch TV series De kleine waarheid/The small truth (Willy van Hemert, 1970–1972) starring Willeke Alberti.


Dutch postcard by NCRV. Photo: NCRV / Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid. Publicity still for the Dutch TV series De kleine waarheid/The small truth (Willy van Hemert, 1970–1972) starring Willeke Alberti and John Leddy.


Dutch postcard by NCRV. Photo: NCRV / Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid. Publicity still for the Dutch TV series De kleine waarheid/The small truth (Willy van Hemert, 1970–1972) starring Willeke Alberti, John Leddy and Emmy Lopes Dias.


Dutch postcard by NCRV. Photo: NCRV / Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid. Publicity still for the Dutch TV series De kleine waarheid/The small truth (Willy van Hemert, 1970–1972) starring Willeke Alberti.

As long as there is love

In 1994, Willeke Alberti represented the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest. Her song Waar is de Zon/Where is the Sun only claimed a meagre four points from the international juries.

That same year a musical about her life was made, simply called Willeke the Musical and it contained many of her hits. In 1995 she made a concert tour celebrating her 50th birthday.

In 2004 and 2005 Willeke played Dolly in the Dutch version of the musical Hello Dolly. In 2008 she appeared regularly in the popular soap Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden/Good Times Bad Times, in which her son Johnny earlier started his acting career.

Through the years, Alberti has become embraced in the Netherlands as a gay icon, due to a combination of her song repertoire, her durability, and her performances in support of manifold gay and other causes.

In 2001 she established the Willeke Alberti Foundation, to structurally improve the well-being and quality of life of seniors, children and the sick in nursing homes and care homes, by organizing various cultural activities.

Recently, Willeke Alberti was seen in the cinema in the comedy Alles is familie/Family Way (Joram Lürsen, 2012) starring Carice van Houten, and as the retired Dutch queen in the family film Sinterklaas en de pepernoten chaos (Martijn van Nellestijn, 2013) with Wim Rijken as Sinterklaas.

Willeke herself certainly has not retired. After her critically acclaimed role in the stage musical De Jantjes (The Tars) (2012-2013), she is back in the theatre for a series of concerts under the title Willeke in Concert, as long as there is love.

With her son Johnny, Willeke Alberti re-recorded her father's old hit De glimlach van een kind (The smile of a child). In January 2014 it reached the Dutch charts. All proceeds from the song go to the foundation Het Vergeten Kind (The Forgotten Child).


Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 5442, sent by mail in 1963.


Dutch postcard, no. 11-66Ph 2694. Publicity card for Philips. Autograph of Willeke Alberti.


Dutch postcard, no. 1165. Photo: Phonogram.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V. (Sparo), no. 1296. Photo: Phonogram.


Willeke Alberti sings Spiegelbeeld (1963). Source: Herman (YouTube).


Willeke Alberti sings Telkens weer from the film Rooie Sien (1975). Source: 1960Robbio (YouTube).


Willeke Alberti sings Waar is de Zon at the Eurovision Song Contest 1994. Source: Ptimadonna11 (YouTube).


Willeke Alberti and Johnny de Mol sing De glimlach van een kind (The smile of a child). Source: Het vergeten kind (YouTube).

Sources: Willeke Alberti.nl (Dutch), Wikipedia, Willeke Alberti – Official Site (Dutch), and IMDb.

Eduard Verkade

October 1, 2014, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Mary Odette

≪ Previous: Willeke Alberti

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Today is the fifth day of the 2014 Nederlands Film Festival in Utrecht. In the unofficial Dutch film star postcards festival, we present you Eduard Verkade (1878-1961). He was one of the actor-directors who revolutionized the Dutch theatre in the first decades of the 20th century. Verkade broke with the histrionics and the historic realism of the preceding period. As an actor he was especially renowned for his numerous solo-performances of Macbeth and Hamlet. He also starred in Dutch films of the 1910s, 1920s and the 1930s.


Dutch postcard, 1st series, no. 1, 1908/9.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Willem Coret, Den Haag (The Hague). Still of Eduard Verkade as MacBeth in the play by William Shakespeare.

Biscuits and Chocolate

Eduard Rutger Verkade was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1878.

He studied in 1894 at the Finsbury College near Londen. His studies were meant for a managerial job at his father’s famous biscuits and chocolate factory in the Netherlands, Verkade. In London he attended many theatre performances and in 1904 he decided for a stage career.

In 1908 he started his own theatre group, Die Haghespelers. This theatre company would exist till 1936 and staged a.o. William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth, which would become the most famous roles of Eduard Verkade.

He also acted in classic plays by Joost van den Vondel, Maurice Maeterlinck, and in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

In the meantime he would work as the artistic director of numerous theatre companies and as a director he was an important innovator. In the 1930s he would also be the theatre critic for the prolific Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Willem Coret, The Hague. Still of Eduard Verkade as Hamlet in the play by William Shakespeare.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Coret, Den Haag. Picture of Eduard Verkade as the Devil in the stage play De Duivel (Az Ördög/The Devil) by Ferenc Molnár.

Devil in Amsterdam

Eduard Verkade starred in several Dutch films. In the silent film De duivel in Amsterdam/The Devil in Amsterdam (Theo Frenkel, 1919), based on the play Az ördög (The Devil, 1907) by Ferenc Molnár, he played the devil. His co-star was another legend of the Dutch stage, Louis Bouwmeester. The film is considered as lost.

In another silent film, the Alexandre Dumas adaptation De zwarte tulp/The Black Tulip (Maurits Binger, Frank Richardson, 1921), he played the historical politician Cornelis de Witt.

His biggest film hit was the Dutch film version of G.B. Shaw's Pygmalion (Ludwig Berger, 1937), in which he played the role of Pickering.

The star was Dutch diva Lily Bouwmeester, and soon he played in two more films with her: Veertig jaren/Forty Years (Edmond T. Gréville, 1938) and Ergens in Nederland/Somewhere in the Netherlands (Ludwig Berger, 1940).

In Ergens in Nederland/Somewhere in the Netherlands also appeared the author Jan de Hertog and Fien de la Mar. The film was just ready for release when the Netherlands were conquered by the Nazis, who forbade its exhibition.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Willem Coret, Den Haag. Still of Eduard Verkade in his stage role as Feodor Karamazow.


Dutch postcard, 1st series, no. 4, 1908/9. Photo: still of Eduard Verkade as Lanseloet in a stage production by Die Haghespelers of the medieval play Lanseloet van Denemerken (Lancelot of Denmark).

Dangerous sentiments

During WW II, Eduard Verkade refused to join the Kulturkammer(the Nazi Ministry of Culture, which held under close scrutiny all artistic practices).

He was considered suspect because of his ‘dangerous’ pro-English sentiments. He saw in William Shakespeare's plays a powerful vehicle for anti-German - or, more generally, anti-war - protest.

He was also the organiser of many 'black evenings’ - clandestine theatre performances held at people's private homes, with the residents, their family and neighbours as the audience.

His house was a hiding place for many people, including the poet Adriaan Roland Holst.

In 1947 Eduard Verkade retired, and in 1961 he died in Breukelen, The Netherlands.

He was married four times. His wives were Johanna van Wulfften Palthe (1902-1910; two sons and a daughter); Maria Magdalena Müller (a.k.a. actress Enny Vrede)(1910-1919; a daughter and a son); Marie Cramer (a.k.a. author and illustrator Rie Cramer) (1922-1933); and Eline Françoise Cartier van Dissel (1935-1961). Eduard Verkade also had a son (1921) with Henriette Jacoba Maria Carolina Croes.


Dutch postcard, 1926. Photo: Willem Coret, Den Haag. Still of Eduard Verkade as Manson in the stage play De dienstknecht in het huis/The Servant in the House by Charles Rann Kennedy.


Dutch postcard by Weenenk & Snel, Den Haag. Photo: Willem Coret, Den Haag. Collection: Egbert Barten.

Sources: H.H.J. de Leeuwe (Huygens ING), Ruud van Capelleveen (Abolute Facts), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

Mary Odette

October 2, 2014, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Die Nibelungen (1924)

≪ Previous: Eduard Verkade

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At the final day of the Nederlands Film Festival (24 September - 3 October 2014), EFSP presents in the unofficial Dutch Film Star Postcards Festival an odd post. Mary Odette (1901-1987) or Odette Goimbault was not a Dutch but a French actress, who starred in British, German and French silent films. But she also appeared in several Dutch films produced by the Hollandia Filmfabriek, which made her a star in the Netherlands. In Germany, she also worked with Dutch director Jaap Speyer.


British postcard by Pictures Ltd., London, in the Pictures Portrait Gallery series, no. 49. Photo: Claude Harris.

Hollandia star

Mary Odette was born Odette Goimbault on 10 August 1901 in Dieppe, France. When she was still a child her parents moved with her to Britain.

As a teenager she debuted on the London stage and started in British cinema under her real name, in the film Cynthia in the Wilderness (Harold Weston, 1916), starring Eve Balfour.

From 1918 she had an intense career in British silent cinema, until 1919 still under own name, and often in the female lead. Her British films included The Greatest Wish in the World (Maurice Elvey, 1918), Spinner O’Dreams (Wilfred Noy, 1918), The Wages of Sin (Arrigo Bocchi, 1918), and Peace, Perfect Peace (Arrigo Bocchi, 1918), released just after the armistice ending the First World War.

In the latter film Goimbault’s character had the name of Marie Odette, a name she started to use as her own from 1919 on, first with Castle of Dreams (Wilfred Noy, 1919).

In 1920, she played opposite the reputed French actor Henry Krauss in Enchantment (Einar Bruun, 1920), also with Eric Barclay.

The same year she got an offer to act in the Netherlands at the company Hollandia, which was making co-productions with Britain.

Odette starred here in Zoo als ik ben/As God Made Her (Maurits Binger, B.E. Doxat-Pratt, 1920), and De vrouw van de minister/John Heriott’s Wife (Maurits Binger, B.E. Doxat-Pratt, 1920).

In both films, she co-starred with Adelqui Migliar, Lola Cornero and Henry Victor. One of the other actresses in the cast was the former Dutch diva Annie Bos, named Anna Bosilova here.

Odette rose to star status in the Netherlands and she also managed to convince British actress Elsie Cohen to come over and work for Hollandia.

Yet, she herself soon returned to Britain where she continued to act in films mainly directed by Kenelm Foss, but also in e.g. The Hypocrites (Charles Giblyn, 1923).


Ivan Mozzhukhin. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1064/1, 1927-1928. Photo: DeWesti Film-Verleih. Publicity still for the film Kean/Kean ou désordre et génie (Alexandre Volkoff, 1924).


Stewart Rome

Jaap Speyer

In 1923, Mary Odette went to Berlin, where she acted with Stewart Rome in Im Schatten der Moschee (Walter Richard Hall, 1923).

Then she returned to Holland to act in De leeuw en de muis/The Lion’s Mouse (Oscar Apfel, 1923). The film co-starred Marguerite Marsh, a sister of famous American actress Mae Marsh, who died at a very young age because of pneumonia.

Around the same time, Odette acted in France in the period piece Kean/Kean ou désordre et génie (1924) by Alexandre Volkoff and starring Ivan Mozzhukhin as the legendary British actor Edmund Kean.

In 1925, Odette played in Berlin in Max Mack’s Vater Voss, with Stewart Rome, and also in the British-German co-production She (Leander De Cordova, 1925), starring Betty Blythe and Carlyle Blackwell. This H. Rider Haggard adaptation was shot in a German zeppelin hall.

With Blythe she also acted in the German version of She, called Mirakel der Liebe (Leander De Cordova, 1925).

Odette continued to act in Germany in Elegantes Pack (1925) by Dutch director Jaap Speyer, opposite Eugen Klöpfer, Ralph Arthur Roberts and Hanni Weisse, and in Die Moral der Gasse (Jaap Speyer 1925), with Werner Krauss, Ernst Hofmann and Evi Eva.

Her last silent films were Emerald of the East (Jean de Kucharski, 1928), and Celle qui domine (Carmine Gallone, Léon Mathot, 1929), starring Léon Mathot himself and Soava Gallone.

At the end of the silent era, Odette didn’t manage to switch to sound cinema and retired from screen acting.

She married a journalist, first moved with him to India, then returned to Britain.

Mary Odette died in Stockport, UK, in 1987. She was 85.

Sources: Cineressources (French), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (Dutch, German, English and French), and IMDb.

Die Nibelungen (1924)

October 3, 2014, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Ludmila Tchérina

≪ Previous: Mary Odette

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Today starts the 33rd edition of the Giornate del Cinema Muto, which will take place in Pordenone, Italy, from 4 till 11 October. The Teatro Verdi will be the venue for 60 screenings of silent films. The main programme section is devoted to The Barrymores, Lionel, Ethel and John - the Royal Family of Broadway who brought prestige to 1920s Hollywood. The closing show of the festival is a live performance of City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931), with Chaplin's own score restored. There are exciting rediscoveries of films long considered lost, among them Lady Hamilton (Richard Oswald, 1921) with Conrad Veidt as Nelson, the sensational white-slave drama Das Frauenhaus von Rio/Girls for Sale! (Bud Pollard, Hans Steinhoff, 1927), and Die Macht der Finsternis/Power of Darkness (Conrad Wiene, 1924), a legendary adaptation of Tolstoy's drama. Another highlight is a marathon screening of both films of Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen diptych, screened successively on the same afternoon and evening, and accompanied by Günter Buchwald (piano) and Frank Bockius (percussion). I can't attend the screening, but today's extra long film special honours this film and the Giornate del Cinema Muto.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/1. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Paul Richter.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 672/6. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Margarethe Schön.


Italian postcard by Q. Vettori, Bologna.

How Siegfried Slayed the Dragon

Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) is one of the masterpieces of the Weimar cinema. Die Nibelungen is a duology of silent fantasy films: Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache/Kriemhild's Revenge.

It was produced by the Ufa and Decla studios, and it starred Austrian actor Paul Richter as the (nearly) invulnerable hero Siegfried. Ross Verlag published in 1924 a beautiful series of sepia tinted postcards with stills of this classic film.

The screenplays were written by Fritz Lang and his wife at the time, Thea von Harbou. They were based upon the epic Nordic poem Nibelungenlied, written around AD 1200 and told through seven cantos.

It is the tale of the legendary German hero Siegfried (Paul Richter), son of King Siegmund. He masters the art of forging a sword at the shop of Mime (George John). On his journey home, he hears tales from the locals about Princess Kriemhild (Margarete Schön), the beautiful sister of King Gunter of Burgundy (Theodor Loos).

Siegfried decides to go to Worms, the capital of Burgundy, to win Kriemhild. On his journey to Worms, he is attacked by a dragon. Siegfried slays the dragon and bathes in his blood.

This bath makes him invulnerable - except for one spot on his shoulder blade which is missed after being covered by a falling lime leaf.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 678/1. Photo: Decla / Ufa-Film. Publicity still for part I. of Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Paul Richter as Siegfried. Caption: Siegfrieds Kampf mit den Drachen (Siegfried's fight with the dragon).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 678/2. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Caption: Siegfried's Fight with the Dragon.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 678/3. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Caption: Siegfried's Fight with the Dragon.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 678/4. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Caption: Siegfried bathes in the dragon's blood. After slaying the dragon, Siegfried (Paul Richter) bathes in the dragon's blood, which will make him invulnerable. Incidentally, a leaf falls on his back, creating Siegfried's one weak spot (his Achilles heel). When the vain and arrogant Paul Richter refused to strip for this scene, Lang called in the not so pretty Rudolf Klein-Rogge (Etzel - Attila - in the film), who immediately undressed and played the scene, to the dismay of Richter, as people now would identify Klein-Rogge's behind as his.

How Volker, the Bard, sang of Siegfried in front of Kriemhild, and How Siegfried Came in Worms

Siegfried trespasses on the land of the Nibelungen and is attacked by Alberich, King of the Dwarves (again George John).

He fights and defeats Alberich who was wearing his wonder cloak of invisibility and transformation. Alberich asks Siegfried to spare his life and in return he gives the Treasure of the Nibelungen and the Balmung sword.

While Siegfried is mesmerised by the treasure, Alberich tries to defeat him, but dies in the attempt. Dying, Alberich curses all inheritors of the treasure and he and his dwarves turn to stone.

Siegfried makes twelve kings as his vassals, and arrives in Worms as a hero.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/2. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Caption: Siegfried and Alberich in the fog meadow.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/3. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924, Fritz Lang) with Paul Richter as Siegfried and Georg John as Alberich. Caption: Siegfried and Alberich in the cave.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 672/1, 1924. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924).

How Siegfried Won Brunhild for Gunther

News reaches the court that Brunhild, a queen of outstanding strength and beauty may be won only by a man capable of matching her athletic prowess.

Gunther decides to woo Brunhild (Hanna Ralph) with the aid of Siegfried, to whom he promises the hand of Kriemhild if successful.

The men travel to Iceland, to the kingdom of Brunhild, where Siegfried feigns vassalage to Gunther so that he can avoid Brunhild's challenge.

He uses instead the cloak's power of invisibility to help Gunther beat the powerful Queen in a three-fold amazonian battle of strength: throwing stones, throwing a spear and jumping.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 673/3. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 672/8. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Hanna Ralph as Brunhild.

How Brunhild Enters Worms and How the King Celebrate Their Wedding

The men return to Burgundy where Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried weds Kriemhild.

Brunhild is not, however, completely defeated. She suspects deceit and says to Gunther that she is his captive but not his bride.

Hagen von Tronje (Hans Adalbert Schlettow) convinces Siegfried to help.

Siegfried transforms himself with the cloak into Gunther and battles Brunhild and removes her arm-ring during battle after which she submits to his will.

Siegfried leaves the real Gunther to consummate the marriage. Siegfried accidentally brings Brunhild's armlet with him.

On the postcard below Siegfried presents Kriemhild the circlet.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/6. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Caption: Siegfried greets Kriemhild.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 673/1. Photo: Decla / Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Siegfried (Paul Richter) and Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) in part I. of Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/7. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Siegfried (Paul Richter) presents Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) the circlet.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 673/4. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924).

How After Half a Year, Siegfried's Gift to His Bride, The Nibelungen Treasure, Arrives in Worms and How the Two Queens Quarrel With Each Other

When Kriemhild finds Brunhild's armlet, Siegfried tells her how her brother won the queen.

When the Nibelungen treasure that Siegfried acquired from Alberich arrives at the court of Burgundy as Kriemhild's morning gift, the jealous Brunhild becomes more suspicious about Siegfried's feigned vassalage to Gunther.

Brunhild dons the Queen Mother's jewelery and proceeds to the cathedral to enter as the first person, as is her right as Queen of Burgundy.

Kriemhild and Brunhild quarrel. Brunhild ridicules Kriemhild for marrying a vassal, and Kriemhild reveals Siegfried’s and Gunther’s deception.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 672/7. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Theodor Loos as Gunther.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 673/2. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Siegfried (Paul Richter) in the woods.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/5. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen, part I, Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) and the women in the 'kemenate', the heated private room of the castle, also called 'cabinet'.

How Gunther Betrayed Siegfried

Brunhild demands Siegfried to be killed.

She lies to Gunther and tells him that Siegfried stole her maidenhood when he battled her on her wedding night.

King Gunther and his uncle and loyal warrior, Hagen von Tronje (Hans Adalbert Schlettow), conspire to murder Siegfried during a hunt in the Odenwald Forest.

Hagen deceives Kriemhild into telling him the vulnerable part of Siegfried's body where the leaf has fallen.

She sews a cross on the spot in Siegfried's tunic.

After the hunt, Hagen challenges Siegfried to a race to a nearby spring.

When Siegfried is on his knees drinking, Hagen pierces him from behind with a spear.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/8. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924). Caption: Siegfried at the well.


German postcard by Uvachrome, serie 405, no. 5487. Photo: publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 673/6. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Margarete Schön as Kriemhild near the corpse of Siegrfied (Paul Richter). She points at the murderer Hagen Tronje (Hans Adalbert Schlettow). Her brother, King Gunther (Theodor Loos), is standing next to her.

How Kriemhild Swears Revenge to Hagen Tronje

On the postcard below Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) and Brunhild (Hanna Ralph) mourn by the body of Siegfried (Paul Richter).

In an evil twist of bitter revenge, Brunhild confesses that she lied about Siegfried stealing her maidenhood in order to avenge Gunther's deceit of her. Gunther killed his only loyal friend.

Kriemhild demands her family avenge her husband's death at the hands of Siegfried, but her family is complicit in the murder, and so they protect Hagen.

Kriemhild swears revenge against Hagen while a guilt-ridden Brunhild commits suicide at the foot of Siegfried's corpse laid in state in the cathedral. Kriemhild swears revenge to Hagen.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 675/9. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924).


German postcard. Decla-Ufa-Film. Ross Verlag, no. 672/4. Bernhard Goetzke as Volker von Alzey, the bard in Die Nibelungen (1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 672/2. Photo: Decla / Ufa-Film. Publicity still for part I. of Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Hans-Carl Müller as Gerenot von Burgund and Erwin Biswanger as Giselher von Burgund.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 672/3. Photo: Decla / Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Gertrud Arnold as Queen Ute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 672/5. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Hans Adalbert Schlettow as Hagen (von) Tronje in Fritz Lang's saga Die Nibelungen (1924).

Kriemhild's Revenge

In the second film, Kriemhild's Rache/Kriemhild's Revenge, is shown how Kriemhild gets her revenge.

After Siegfried's dead, Kriemhild marries Etzel, the King of the Huns.

She gives birth to a child, and invites her brothers for a party.

She tries to persuade Etzel and the other Huns, that they kill Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried, but he is protected by her brothers.

A fierce battle begins to force her brothers to give Hagen to her.

Probably no literary work has given more to Germanic arts than the Nibelungenlied. Many variations and adaptations appeared through the centuries.

The most significant modern adaptation is Richard Wagner’s famous opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1853–1874).

The 1924 film Die Nibelungen is still astounding to look at. Fritz Lang gives the film a real sense of wonder by way of fantasy elements such as dwarfs, dragons and magic powers.

It's amazing that such a masterpiece of the cinema could have been made in the early 1920s.

The standout is the dragon-slaying scene with its wonderful special effects.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 676/1. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Margarete Schön as Kriemhild.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 676/2. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Fritz Alberti as Dietrich von Bern in Fritz Lang's medieval saga Die Nibelungen (1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 676/3. Photo: Decla / Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924) with Georg August Koch as Hildebrand.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 676/4. Photo:Decla-Ufa-Film. Rudolf Rittner as Rüdiger von Bechlaren in Fritz Lang's historical drama Die Nibelungen, part II (1924). The geometric patterns in the costumes and sets were inspired by book illustrations for a 1908-1909 edition of Die Nibelungen, edited at Gerlachs Jugendbücherei. These illustrations were by the Viennese artist Carl Otto Czeschka.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 676/9. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Rudolf Klein-Rogge as lord Etzel, king of the Huns, in Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924), part II.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 677/1. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen 2: Kriemhilds Rache/Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (Fritz Lang, 1924). The Betrothal of Giselher (Erwin Biswanger) and Dietlind (Annie Röttgen), led by her father Rüdiger von Bechlaren (Rudolf Rittner). To the right the Burgunds assist, including king Gunther (Theodor Loos), Hagen von Tronje (Hans Adalbert Schlettow) and Volker von Alzey (Bernhard Goetzke).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 677/2. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) at the spring where Siegfried died. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen, part II, Kriemhilds Rache/Kriemhild's Revenge (Fritz Lang, 1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 677/3. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen 2: Kriemhilds Rache/Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (Fritz Lang, 1924). At the beginning of Kriemhild's Rache Margrave Rüdiger von Bechlaren (Rudolf Ritttner) swears loyalty to the vengeful Kriemhild (Margarete Schön).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 677/5. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen 2: Kriemhilds Rache/Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (Fritz Lang, 1924). Hagen von Tronje (Hans Adalbert Schlettow) dumps the Nibelungen treasure, that has been the cause of so much fight, jealousy and even murder.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 677/7. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen 2: Kriemhilds Rache/Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (Fritz Lang, 1924). Hagen von Tronje (Hans Adalbert Schlettow) protects king Gunther (Theodoor Loos) in the burning palace of Etzel.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 671/8. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Publicity still for Die Nibelungen 2: Kriemhilds Rache/Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (Fritz Lang, 1924). Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) has got the deathblow. In the back, King Hetzel (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) looks on in astonishment.


See how Siegfried slays the dragon in Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924). Source: Gtelloz (YouTube).

Sources: Claudio Carvalho (IMDb), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Encyclopedia Britannica, IMDb and Wikipedia.