European Film Star Postcards

Tonight starts Europe’s biggest vintage event, the VerzamelaarsJaarbeurs, the International Collectors Fair in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Tomorrow we will visit the fair in the massive Jaarbeurs halls, searching for rare and interesting film star postcards to share with you at EFSP. Last fair, co-editor Ivo Blom was in Berlin, and I found an album for him with over 100 vintage cards by Pathé Cinema with stills of films from 1911. For today's post, Ivo selected 14 cards from this album, and he wrote the text below.

Stacia Napierkowska and Lucien Callamand in Le Pain des petits oiseaux (1911)

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: Société Cinématographique des Auteurs et Gens Lettres (SCAGL). Stacia Napierkowska and Lucien Callamand in Le Pain des petits oiseaux (Albert Capellani, 1911).

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: SAPF. Madeleine Roch in the historical drama Radgrune (Camille de Morlhon, 1911).

Georges Vinter in Le parfum revelateur (1911)

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Georges Vinter in Le Parfum révélateur (1911). Adaptation: Paul Garbagni.

Andrée Marly in Deux vieux garcons (1911)

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: SCAGL. Andrée Marly in Deux vieux garçons (Michel Carré, 1911).

Georges Denola in Le Pot de confitures (1911)

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: SCAGL. Madeleine Guitty in Le Pot de confitures (Georges Denola, 1911).

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: SCAGL / SAPF. Publicity still for Bonaparte et Pichegru (Georges Denola, 1911).

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: publicity still for Fafrifla ou le fifre magique (Gaston Velle, 1911).

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: SCAGL. Mistinguett in Léocadie veut se faire mannequin (1911). Script by Frédéric Mauzens.

Rare Treasure Trove

The album contains 60 double pages with 120 collector's cards, a bit bigger and thinner than the ordinary postcards issued by Pathé. All films date of the year 1911 and almost all are retraceable on the website of the Fondation Jerome Seydoux Pathé.

Most cards are made for French films by Pathé, sometimes for its subsidiaries Société Cinématographique des Auteurs et Gens Lettres (SCAGL) or Séries d'Art Pathé Frères (SAPF). Occasionally, cards were also published for films by its foreign studios such as American Kinema, Le Film Russe, and Film d'Arte Italiana (FAI).

The series ranges from modern and historical dramas - quite a few deal with Napoleon and his circle in particular - to comedy, fairy tales, and crime films, sometimes with famous dramatic actors such as Stacia Napierkowska, Léontine Massart and Jean Kemm, or comedians such as Max Linder, Prince, Sarah Duhamel, Mistinguett and Madeleine Guitty.

For certain titles - in particular for dramas, two or more cards have been issued and are now in the album. Often with the non-comical films a name is given which is mostly not the director but rather the scriptwriter. Thus for instance for a comedy such as Léocadie veut se faire mannequin we know it was scripted by Frédéric Mauzens, even when we don't know who directed the film.

We found this rare treasure trove at the 2018 Autumn Collector's Fair in Utrecht. The back of the album was heavily damaged, so we had it repaired by a professional book repairer. Still, the album should never be fully opened again, in order to avoid new damage onto its back.

Details from the album by Pathé, published in 1911. Before the restoration. Collection: Ivo Blom.

Details from the album by Pathé, published in 1911. After the restoration. Collection: Ivo Blom.

Jacques Normand in Les victimes de l'alcool (1911)

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: Jacques Normand in Les victimes de l'alcool (Gérard Bourgeois, 1911).

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: Le Film Russe. Nicolaï Vassiliev in L'Chaïm (Maurice André Maître, Kaï Hansen, 1911).

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: FAI. Alfredo Robert in Tarquinio il superbo/Tarquin le superbe (1911).

Dillo Lombardi in La duchesse de Bracciano (1911)

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: FAI. Dillo Lombardi in La duchessa di Bracciano/La Duchesse de Bracciano (1911).

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: American Kinema. Photo: Charles Arling in Short-Lived Happyness (1911). The French title is Le Bonheur éphémère.

Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: publicity still for Barbegrise (Georges Monca, 1911) with Andrée Pascal. Script by Léon Chavignaud.

Source: Fondation Jerome Seydoux Pathé and IMDb.

Tobis Film was a major German film production and distribution company. Founded in 1927 as a merger of several companies involved in the switch from silent to sound films, the organisation emerged as the second leading German studio of the Third Reich.

Adolph Wohlbrück. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9840/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Tobis-Europa / Stania. Publicity still for Port Arthur (Nicolas Farkas, 1936).

Leny Marenbach. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 138, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Photo-Atelier.

Emil Jannings. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 175, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Monika Burg. German Postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. K 1416. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Fita Benkhoff. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. W 51, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

The Paris sound film peace treaty

Tobis was founded on 12 May 1927 as a means to capitalise on sound technology. 'Tobis' is an acronym for Ton-Bild-Syndikat (Sound-Film-Syndicate). Tobis had access to a process developed by the record and patent holding company Tri-Ergon-Musik-AG, which placed the sound directly on the filmstrip. This was technique the firm had developed in the 1920s but hadnot immediately pursued.

Tobis became a sound film company on 30 August 1928, when the Tri-Ergon Music AG (St. Gallen) with the Dutch-German H. J. Küchenmeister limited partnership (Berlin), the German Tonfilm AG (Hannover) and the Messterton AG (Berlin) merged into Tobis. The aim of the merger, as the report of the Working Committee noted, was to consolidate the different patents in one hand. Behind the struggle for its own patent was the intention to get rid of the competition by the American company Warner Bros., which used a patent of Western Electric.

Tobis then signed an agreement with Klangfilm to merge into Tobis-Klangfilm. The studio also signed an agreement with the Ufa, which led to Germany's successful entry into sound film production. Tobis-Klangfilm needed films to show to the European public, so late in 1928, it signed contracts with larger French and British film production companies to establish sound film production in Paris and London.

In Paris, at the the Epinay Studios, René Clair made his first, now classic sound films for Tobis-Klangfilm, Sous les toits de Paris/Under the Roofs of Paris (René Clair, 1930) with Albert Préjean, Le Million/The Million (René Clair, 1931) with Annabella, and À nous la liberté/Liberty for Us (René Clair, 1931) with Raymond Cordy. These were lively musical comedies that mixed asynchronous sound with a bare minimum of dialogue. Clair's innovative sound features placed him as a top director in the forefront of the European cinema. And with the rise of the Tobis-Klangfilm studio, French productions increased.

In 1930, the film industries in Hollywood and Germany signed 'the Paris sound film peace treaty' and agreed to carve up the market. Tobis-Klangfilm had exclusive rights for the German-speaking countries, the Netherlands, the Balkan states and Scandinavia, and Western Electric and RCA got the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Soviet Union. The rest of the world was declared an open market.

Françoise Rosay. Dutch postcard by Tobis filmdistributie N.V. Amsterdam. Photo: Tobis. Publicity still for the French Tobis film La Kermesse Heroique (Jacques Feyder, 1935). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Peter Bosse in Das Gäßchen zum Paradies (1936)

Peter Bosse. Big German card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Tobis. Publicity still for Das Gäßchen zum Paradies/Paradise Road (Martin Fric, 1936).

La Jana. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1910/2, 1937-1938. Photo: Atelier Schneider, Berlin / Tobis. Publicity still for Es leuchten die Sterne/The Stars Shine (Hans H. Zerlett, 1938).

Willi Forst. Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3149/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis.

Harry Baur. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3451/1. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

The second-in-size studio of Germany

After Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, the German film industry gradually came under the complete control of the Nazi Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. During the Nazi period, Tobis-Film was the second-in-size studio of Germany, just after the Ufa. The other two major film companies were Terra Film and Bavaria Film. Tobis produced 100 films in these years. Some Tobis films were released in Germany by the subsidiary Europa Film.

Among the directors of Tobis were Karl Anton, Volker von Collande, Erich Engel, Veit Harlan, Paul Heidemann, Max W. Kimmich, Werner Klingler, Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Wolfgang Staudte, Paul Verhoeven and Hans H. Zerlett.

To Tobis belonged numerous subsidiaries, including Tobis-Cinéma-Film AG, founded on 6 April 1933 in Berlin, which lent and distributed Tobis films abroad. Occasionally, this company also produced films such as the Czech-German drama Das Gäßchen zum Paradies/Paradise Road (Martin Fric, 1936) with the young Peter Bosse and Hans Moser, and the Italian-German war adventure Condottieri (Luis Trenker, Werner Klingler, 1937), starring Luis Trenker.

Tobis also controlled from 1933 until 1938 the dominant Austrian producer Sascha-Film which was then known as Tobis-Sascha. From 1932 it also owned a majority share of one of the main Portuguese producers known as Tobis Portuguesa, a name which the company kept even after the German participation was terminated at the end of world War II.

From 1935 on, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels increased his hold over the large film companies. He was able to claim that the gradual government take-over had been motivated by purely artistic and not commercial reasons. He did not force the film industry to become National Socialists, but instead guaranteed them financial stability. The studios became increasingly the instrument of the Propaganda Ministry.

Camilla Horn. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1777/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Tobis. Publicity still for Fahrendes Volk/
Traveling People (Jacques Feyder, 1938).

Karl Martell. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 2582/2, 1939-1940. Photo: Quick / Tobis. Publicity still for D III 88/D III 88: The New German Air Force Attacks (Herbert Maisch, Hans Bertram, 1939).

Olga Tschechowa. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 3071/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Haenchen / Tobis.

Heidemarie Hatheyer. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3271/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Haenchen / Tobis.

Karl Ludwig Diehl. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 3344/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Binz.

A Nazi Takeover in Complete Secrecy

The definitive takeover of Tobis by the Nazis was achieved in 1937 with the purchase of the majority of shares. The transactions were carried out as seperate dealings. All happened in almost complete secrecy and the film press scarcely noticedof what happened. In December 1937, Tobis was transformed and given the new title Tobis Filmkunst GmbH. The actor Emil Jannings was appointed Chairman of the Board.

In the following years, Tobis produced several Propaganda films. Der Fuchs von Glenarvon/The Fox of Glenarvon (Max W. Kimmich, 1940) portrays the years of the Irish fight for independence during World War I. It starred Olga Tschechova, Karl Ludwig Diehl and Ferdinand Marian.

Ich klage an/I accuse (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1941) is a pro-euthanasia melodrama, in which a successful doctor (Paul Hartmann) is forced to make a heart-wrenching decision after his beautiful young wife (Heidemarie Hatheyer) is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Some of the cast and crew of the film would later face accusations of Crimes Against Humanity at Nuremberg Trials for contributing to the Nazi Action T-4 euthanasia program.

Another Propaganda Film by Tobis is the biographical film Ohm Krüger (Hans Steinhoff, 1941), starring Emil Janningsas the South African politician Paul Kruger and his eventual defeat by the British during the Boer War. The film focused on the theme of colonialism to demonstrate through Britain's history the true nature of the British character, and criticised its imperialism toward the Afrikaans-speaking Boers.

Ohm Krüger won the Mussolini Cup for best foreign film at the 1941 Venice Film Festival, at which the Italian Minister for Popular Culture, Alessandro Pavolini, praised particularly the film's propaganda value and the role of Emil Jannings. Within Germany, the film was the first to be given the honorary distinction 'Film of the Nation' (Film der Nation) by the Reich Propaganda Ministry Censorship Office. Joseph Goebbels also presented Emil Jannings with the 'Ring of Honour of the German Cinema'.

Only one in ten of the produced Nazi films were straight Propaganda, most of them were historical films celebrating an historic past and a glorious future. Tobis also produced a lot light entertainment, such as the musicals by Paul Verhoeven like Renate im Quartett/Renate in the Quartet (Paul Verhoeven, 1939) starring Käthe von Nagy, and the comedies by Kurt Hoffmann such as Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Kurt Hoffmann, 1942) with Heli Finkenzeller.

Frits van Dongen in Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1938)

Frits van Dongen. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. A 1290, 1937-1938. Photo: Tobis / Eichberg-Film. Publicity still for Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eschnapur (Richard Eichberg, 1938).

Hans Albers. German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2879/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Brix / Tobis. Publicity still for Trenck, der Pandur/Trenck the Pandur (Herbert Selpin, 1940).

Hans Albers in Trenck, der Pandur (1940)

Hans Albers. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2879/2, 1939-1940. Photo: Brix / Tobis. Publicity still for Trenck, der Pandur/Major Trenck (Herbert Selpin, 1940).

Emil Jannings. German postcard by Das Programm von Heute, Zeitschrift für Film und Theater G.m.b.H., Berlin. Licensed by Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Tobis / Wesel. Publicity still for Ohm Krüger (Hans Steinhoff, 1941).

Otto Gebühr. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3265/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis. Publicity still for Der grosse König/The Great King (Veit Harlan, 1942), one of the Frederick the Great films.

Otto Gebühr. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3326/1, 1931-1944. Photo: Tobis. Publicity still for Der große König/The Great King (Veit Harlan, 1942).

The Titanic of the Nazis

Joseph Goebbels loathed the Expressionist films of the 1920s, but loved comedies and musicals. He stimulated a film star culture by granting approved film stars a special status in the Nazi party and high salaries. Some stars chose leave to Hollywood, but others like Emil Jannings, Olga Tschechova, Hans Albers, Heinrich George, and Otto Gebühr, embraced their elite status.

Actors who also often worked for the Tobis were Fita Benkhoff, Gustav Fröhlich, Käthe Haack, Heidemarie Hatheyer, Paul Henckels, Lucie Höflich, La Jana, Sybille Schmitz, Eduard von Winterstein and the child actor Norbert Rohringer.

In 1942 Ufa, Tobis, Bavaria and Terra were merged into a single state-controlled industry bringing an end to Tobis' independent existence. Nonetheless, films continued to be released under the Tobis banner. A famous example is Titanic (Herbert Selpin, 1943) starring Sybille Schmitz, depicting the catastrophic sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912.

Titanic was commissioned by Joseph Goebbels with the intent of showing not only the superiority of German filmmaking, but also as a propaganda vehicle which would show that British and American capitalism was responsible for the disaster. The addition of an entirely fictional heroic German officer to the ship's crew was intended to demonstrate the superior bravery and selflessness of German men as compared to the British officers.

The original director of Titanic, Herbert Selpin, was arrested during production after speaking out against the Nazi regime. He was later found hanged in prison. The film was completed by Werner Klingler, who was not credited. Although the film had a brief theatrical run in parts of German-occupied Europe starting in November 1943, it was not shown within Germany by order of Goebbels, who feared that it would weaken the German citizenry's morale instead of improving it. Goebbels later banned the playing of the film entirely, and it did not have a second run.

In 1945, due to increasing difficulties of film production during the later stages of the Second World War, few films released in Nazi Germany. One of them was the Tobis production Solistin Anna Alt/Soloist Anna Alt (Werner Klingler, 1945), a drama starring Anneliese Uhlig as a gifted pianist gives up her career to support her composer husband (Will Quadflieg).

After the war, Tobis became a part of the Ufa, but was dissolved in 1962 along with its parent company. With the fall of the Ufa, the story of Tobis seemed completed. However, producer Horst Wendlandt, who had worked as a cashier for Tobis Film, founded in 1971 a new distribution company which is also known as Tobis. In 2016, the present-day Tobis became an investor in Globalgate Entertainment.

Sibylle Schmitz. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 147, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto Atelier / Tobis.

Will Quadflieg. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3202/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz / Tobis.

Lizzi Waldmüller. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3418/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Haenchen / Tobis.

Lil Dagover. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3427/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Paul Hubschmid. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3442/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Irene von Meyendorff. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3449/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Star-Foto-Atelier.

Ferdinand Marian. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3526/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Wesel / Tobis.

Margit Symo. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3583/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis.

Elfie Mayerhofer. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3748/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Sources: Robert J. and Carol C. Reimer (The A to Z of German Cinema), Klaus Kreimeier (The Ufa Story), David Welch (Propaganda and the German Cinema (1933-1945), Douglas Gomery and Clara Pafort-Overduin (Movie History: A Survey: Second Edition), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Blue-eyed blonde Anna Lee (1913-2004) was a British-born American actress. She started her career in British films and earned the title 'Queen of the Quota Quickies'. In 1939, she moved to Hollywood with her husband, director Robert Stevenson. There she often worked with John Ford, and later became a TV star in the soap series General Hospital.

British Art Photo postcard, no. 37-1. Photo: Gaumont-British.

Anna Lee and Les Allen in Heat Wave (1935)

British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 182. Photo: Gainsborough. Anna Lee and Les Allen in Heat Wave (Maurice Elvey, 1935).

First a Girl

Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith in 1913 in Ightham, Kent. She was the daughter of Bertram Thomas Winnifrith, a headmaster and Anglican rector who supported his daughter in her desire to become an actress, and his second wife, Edith Maude Digby-Roper. Her godmother was legendary actress Sybil Thorndike.

Lee trained at the Royal Albert Hall, then made her debut with a bit part in the musical comedy His Lordship (Michael Powell, 1932), when she was 19. She played a number of minor, often uncredited, roles in films during the early 1930s. She gradually began to get more prominent roles in 'quota quickies', particularly those made for Paramount British.

Anna Lee became known for her roles in films set amongst the wealthy particularly in Chelsea Life (Sidney Morgan, 1933), in which she starred with Louis Hayward. The film was set in the artistic community of Chelsea.

On the strength of her performances in quota films, Lee signed a contract with Gainsborough Pictures in 1934. Gainsborough was the biggest British production company of the era.

She played leading lady roles in a variety of different genres at Gainsborough including the comedy-thriller The Camels Are Coming (Tim Whelan, 1934) with Jack Hulbert, the drama The Passing of the Third Floor Back (Bertold Viertel, 1935) starring Conrad Veidt, the horror film The Man Who Changed His Mind (Robert Stevenson, 1936) with Boris Karloff, and the war film OHMS (Raoul Walsh, 1937).

She appeared in the Jessie Matthews musical First a Girl (Victor Saville, 1935) as the aristocratic other woman. In 1937 she starred in one of the studio's large-budget productions, King Solomon's Mines (Robert Stevenson, 1937) starring Cedric Hardwicke and Paul Robeson.

Anna Lee had met her first husband, the director Robert Stevenson while shooting The Camels are Coming on location in Egypt. They married in 1934. During 1938 she took time off from acting to give birth to their first child. In 1939 she and her husband switched to Ealing Studios which was now being run by Michael Balcon the former head of Gainsborough.

She played a nineteenth century Irish music hall performer who falls in love with an aristocrat (Griffith Jones) in the comedy Young Man's Fancy (Robert Stevenson, 1939) and a journalist who helps the heroes thwart a foreign enemy's plot against Britain in The Four Just Men (Walter Forde, 1939). Her final film in Britain was Return to Yesterday (Robert Stevenson, 1940) about a young repertory theatre actress who falls in love with a Hollywood star (Clive Brook) she meets while touring in a small seaside town.

With the Second World War imminent, she and Stevenson then went to the United States. During the war, Lee performed with Jack Benny and others in USO tours entertaining troops in North Africa and Europe. General George Patton awarded her a special medal for her efforts. She remained supportive of the British war effort and in 1943 appeared alongside other British actors in Forever and a Day (Rene Clair, a.o., 1943), which was made to raise money for British charities.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 880b. Photo: Gaumont-British.

British Real Photograph postcard By Raphael Tuck & Sons, London. Photo: Gaumont-British.

Grand Guignol classic

In Hollywood, Anna Lee became associated with director John Ford. She appeared in several of his films, notably in How Green Was My Valley (1941), Fort Apache (1948) with John Wayne and Henry Fonda, and Two Rode Together (1961) with James Stewart and Richard Widmark.

She co-starred with John Wayne and John Carroll in Flying Tigers (David Miller, 1942). She worked for producer Val Lewton opposite Boris Karloff in the horror thriller Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946) and had a lead role opposite Brian Donlevy and Walter Brennan in Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! (1943), a wartime thriller about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.

Lee made frequent appearances on television anthology series in the 1940s and 1950s, including Robert Montgomery Presents, The Ford Theatre Hour, Kraft Television Theatre, Armstrong Circle Theatre and Wagon Train. She made a guest appearance on Perry Mason as Crystal Durham in the episode The Case of the Unsuitable Uncle (1962).

In 1958 she returned to Britain to appear in John Ford's Gideon's Day, in which she played the wife of the detective, played by Jack Hawkins. She had a small, but memorable, role as Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965), one of the two nuns who thwarted the Nazis by removing car engine parts, allowing the Von Trapps to escape.

Lee appeared in the Grand Guignol classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962) in a small role as Mrs. Bates, a neighbour of the sisters played by Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. From 1979 on, she became known to a new generation as wealthy matriarch Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital and the spin-off Port Charles until being removed from contract and dropped to recurring status in 2003.

In 1994, Lee took the leading role in the feature film What Can I Do? (Wheeler Winston Dixon, 1994). It was her final film role.

Anna Lee and her first husband, Robert Stevenson, had two daughters, Venetia and Caroline. Venetia Stevenson, an actress as well, was married to Don Everly of the Everly Brothers and has three children, Edan, Erin, and Stacy. Lee and Stevenson divorced in March 1944, with Venetia and Caroline electing to live with their father.

She met her second husband, George Stafford, as the pilot of the plane on her USO tour during the Second World War. They married on 8 June 1944, and had three sons, John, Stephen and Tim Stafford. Tim is an actor under the stage name of Jeffrey Byron. Lee and Stafford divorced in 1964.

Her final marriage, to novelist Robert Nathan ('The Bishop's Wife', 'Portrait of Jennie'), in 1970, ended at his death in 1985. Lee became a naturalised US citizen under the name Joanna Boniface Stafford in 1945. In 1992, she was awarded M.B.E. (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her services to drama.

In 2004, she was posthumously awarded a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award; she was scheduled for months to receive the award, but died from pneumonia at age 91 before she could receive it. Her son, Jeffrey Byron, accepted the award on her behalf. On 16 July 2004, General Hospital aired a tribute to Lee by holding a memorial service for Lila Quartermaine.

British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 182. Photo: Gainsborough. Publicity still for Heat Wave (Maurice Elvey, 1935).

Dutch postcard, no. 3484. Photo: Republic Pictures.

Sources: Tom Weaver (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Maybe you wondered what we found last Saturday at the VerzamelaarsJaarbeurs, the International Collectors Fair in Utrecht, the Netherlands? And yes, we found some rare or interesting film star postcards, which we like to share with you at EFSP. Today a post with 17 of my finds. I was looking for postcards of the late silent period and for 'modern' postcards of stars and films, made since the 1970s.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3346/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Orplid / Messtro Film. Walter Slezak in Ledige Mütter/Unwed Mothers (Fred Sauer, 1928). Slezak is one of my postcard favourites, and this one I had not seen till now.

German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot., no. 185/3. Photo: Nicola Perscheid, Berlin / Messter-Film, Berlin. German comedian Arnold Rieck was a forerunner of the stand-up comedians of today. In 1906, he was one of the first stage actors who performed in films. I like the expression of his face.

Norman Kerry and Betty Compson in Love Me and the World Is Mine (1927)

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 988. Photo: Universal Pictures Corporations. Norman Kerry and Betty Compson in Love Me and the World Is Mine (Ewald André Dupont, 1927). Dupont had a great career in the Weimar cinema. With Lubitsch, Lang and Murnau, he was one of the maestros of the German silent cinema. His Hollywood career was far less spectacular than the careers of his colleagues, but this postcard made me curious after this unknown American film he made in 1927.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 554/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Roman Freulich / Unfilman. Mary Philbin of The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) and The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni, 1928), photographed by Universal's master photographer Roman Freulich in a wonderful outfit. Love it.

Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper in Lilac Time (1928)

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 34. Photo: First National. Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper in Lilac Time (George Fitzmaurice, 1928). Who is more attractive, she of he? I am always happy to find a Cinémagazine postcard I did not know yet.

Belgian postcard by P.I.A. Belga Phot., Bruxelles, no. 40. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. I found some interesting Belgian postcards by a publisher called P.I.A. with pictures of MGM stars. They were probably published around 1930. So this card of American actress Marjorie Rambeau was probably made for her role as Marie Dressler's alcoholic waterfront rival in Min and Bill (George W. Hill, 1930).

Belgian postcard by P.I.A. Belga Phot., Bruxelles, no. 60. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Another one of the P.I.A. series of American character actor Charles Bickford, who suddenly became an MGM star. Again a great photo.

George Sidney and Charlie Murray in The Cohens and the Kellys in Africa (1930)

Belgian postcard by P.I.A. Belga phot., Bruxelles, no. 89. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. George Sidney and Charlie Murray in The Cohens and the Kellys in Africa (Vin Moore, 1930). The third in the P.I.A. series. A curiosity. I had never heard of this comedy duo before. Deservedly forgotten?

Belgian postcard. Photo: Paramount. Another postcard from Belgium. An endearing picture of burly, beefy and tall George Bancroft who usually played ill-tempered tough guys. He was Thunderbolt Jim Lang in Josef von Sternberg's gangster film Thunderbolt (1929), and Marshal Curly Wilcox in John Ford's Western Stagecoach (1939).

Dutch postcard by City Theater. Sent by mail in 1934. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for Golddiggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933). Busby Berkeley was mad about girls and we still enjoy the results. The colour of the card seems to be golden too. Typical for Dutch postcards of the 1930s is the ugly censorship stamp, here in the right corner above.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 1271. Photo: Roger Carlet. A simple but beautiful portrait of Maria Casarès of Les Enfants du paradis/Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945), one of the great classics of French cinema.

Dutch promotion card by Philips, no. GF 025 66/08. American singer and actress Rosemary Clooney with the Hi-Lo's. 'Come On A My House' and 'Botch-a-Me'? Yes, anytime!

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris. Photo: Studio Carlet Ainé. I love to collect character actors such as Noël Roquevert (1892-1973) specialised in portraying old and grumpy officers and gendarmes. Cards with him are quite rare.

William Holden in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 3805. Photo: Columbia. William Holden in The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957). The publishing company Takken in Utrecht produced many interesting cards of classic films of the 1950s and early 1960s. I am so happy that I found this one of the David Lean epic.

Spanish postcard by Colección 'Estrellas de actualidad' Cacitel, S.L., no. 109, 1990. Spanish heartthrob Antonio Banderas before he became a Hollywood star.

French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 1624. Lobby card of Johnny Depp in Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994). Fine film, wonderful actor, great director (Burton I mean, not Wood).

Carice van Houten in De gelukkige huisvrouw (2010)

Dutch postcard. Photo: Carice van Houten in De gelukkige huisvrouw/The Happy Housewife (Antoinette Beumer, 2010). It's quite difficult to find postcards of Dutch actress Carice van Houten. This is my first. Yeah! Her late father Theodore used to be a colleague of us. He was so proud of Carice and of her sister Jelka.

Ivo promised to share a selection of his finds next Monday.

Swedish film actress Bibi Andersson died on Sunday 14 April 2019 at the age of 83. She is best known for her 13 films with director Ingmar Bergman.

Bibi Andersson in Smultronstället (1957)

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 53. Photo: Bibi Andersson in Smultronstället/Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957).

The film deals with class, sex and power

Berit Elisabet Andersson was born in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, in 1935. She was the daughter of Karin (née Mansion), a social worker, and Josef Andersson, a businessman. Her artistic dreams came early in life and were further supported by her older sister Gerd Andersson who became a ballet dancer at the Royal Opera and made her acting debut in 1951.

Bibi studied acting at the Terserus Drama School and from 1954 till 1956 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm. Then she joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, with which she was associated for 30 years. At first, she had to make do with bit parts and commercials. Her first collaboration with Ingmar Bergman was in 1951, when she participated in his production of an advertisement for the detergent 'Bris'.

That year, she also made her film debut in Fröken Julie/Miss Julie (Alf Sjöberg, 1951) starring Anita Björk and based on the play by August Strindberg. The film deals with class, sex and power as the title character, the daughter of a Count in 19th century Sweden, begins a relationship with one of the estate's servants. The film won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival.

A brief relationship with Ingmar Bergman made her quit school and follow him to the Malmö city theatre, where he was a director, performing in plays by August Strindberg and Hjalmar Bergman. She had a small part in Bergman's film comedy Sommarnattens leende/Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman, 1955), which was shown at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Andersson starred in 13 Bergman-directed pictures. These included Det sjunde inseglet/The Seventh Seal (1957) with Gunnar Björnstrand and Max von Sydow, Smultronstället/Wild Strawberries (1957) with Victor Sjöström, and Nära livet/Brink of Life (1958) with Eva Dahlbeck and Ingrid Thulin. At the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, Bergman won the Best Director Award and Andersson, Dahlbeck, Thulin and Barbro Hiort af Ornäs won the Best Actress Award together.

Andersson also appeared in Bergman's Ansiktet/The Face/The Magician (1958) with Max von Sydow, Djävulens öga/The Devil's Eye (1960) and the comedy För att inte tala om alla dessa kvinnor/All These Women (1964) a parody of Fellini's 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963).

In 1963, Bibi Andersson won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival for her role in Vilgot Sjöman's film Älskarinnan/The Mistress (1962). She also appeared in his drama Syskonbädd 1782/My Sister, My Love (Vilgot Sjöman, 1966). Her intense portrayal of the nurse Alma in the psychological drama Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) with Liv Ullman, led to an increase in the number of cinematic roles offered her.

Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Bibi Andersson in Duel at Diablo (Ralph Nelson, 1966).

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 62/73. Photo: Bibi Andersson in Chelovek s drugoy storony/The Man from the Other Side (Yuri Yegorov, 1972).

The first Danish film to win the Oscar

Bibi Andersson appeared that same year opposite James Garner and Sidney Poitier in the violent Western Duel at Diablo (Ralph Nelson, 1966). She also worked with John Huston on the Spy film The Kremlin Letter (1970).

She made her debut in American theatre in 1973 with a production of Erich Maria Remarque's Full Circle. Her best known American film is possibly I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Anthony Page, 1977), that also starred Kathleen Quinlan as a a borderline schizophrenic.

During this period she also appeared in several Bergman productions, including the drama En passion/The Passion of Anna (1969) with Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow, the romantic drama Beröringen/The Touch (1971), starring Von Sydow, Andersson and Elliott Gould, and the TV miniseries Scener ur ett äktenskap/Scenes from a Marriage (1973) starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson.

During the following decades, Bibi Andersson acted in several international films. Robert Altman directed her in the post-apocalyptic Science Fiction film Quintet (1979) with Paul Newman and Brigitte Fossey. With Anthony Perkins, she starred in the Dutch film Twee vrouwen/Twice a Woman (George Sluizer, 1979). She also was one of the passengers in the American air disaster film The Concorde ... Airport '79 (David Lowell Rich, 1979) with Alain Delon and Robert Wagner.

In the American drama Exposed (James Toback, 1983), she co-starred with Nastassja Kinski and Rudolf Nureyev. She also appeared in Babettes gæstebud/Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987), featuring Stéphane Audran and based on the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). It was the first Danish film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

In 1990, she worked as a theatre director in Stockholm, directing several plays at Dramaten. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Andersson worked primarily in television and as a theatre actress, working with Ingmar Bergman among others. She was also a supervisor for the humanitarian project 'Road to Sarajevo'.

In 1996, she published her autobiography 'Ett ögonblick' (A Moment, or, literally, A Blink of the Eye). She was married first to the director Kjell Grede (1960-1973, divorced), and, secondly, to the politician and writer Per Ahlmark (1979-1981, divorced). Andersson then married Gabriel Mora Baeza in 2004. In 2009 she had a stroke. An article from 2010 says that since she had been hospitalised, she was unable to speak. Andersson had a daughter, Jenny Matilde Grede, with ex-husband Kjell Grede.

Bibi Andersson in Efter syndafallet (1964)

Swedish postcard. Photo: Beata Bergström. Bibi Andersson in a Dramaten production of the play 'Efter syndafallet' (After the Fall) by Arthur Miller, 1964. Direction by Frank Sundström.

Bibi Andersson and Inga Tidblad in Glasmenageriet (1965)

Swedish postcard. Photo: Beata Bergström. Bibi Andersson and Inga Tidblad in a Dramaten production of the play 'Glasmenageriet' (The Glass Menagerie) by Tennessee Williams, 1965. Direction by Staffan Aspelin.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

At the end of the First World War, Henny Porten appeared as a tragic dancer in the drama Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918), based on the novel by Paul Lindau. The film was produced by the pioneering film company Messter-Film, for which Porten had appeared in films since 1906.

Henny Porten in Die blaue Laterne (1918)

German postcard in the Film-Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 567/1. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918).

German postcard in the Film-Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 567/2. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918) with Henny Porten and Ferdinand van Alten.

German postcard in the Film-Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 567/3. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918) with Henny Porten and Ferdinand van Alten.

A hostess in a shady nightclub

Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (1918) was made by Rudolf Biebrach in the Messter film studio in Berlin's Blücherstraße 32. Sets were designed by Jack Winter, while Karl Freund did the cinematography and the later director Eric Charell choreograped the dance scenes. Irene Daland wrote the script.

Sabine Steinhardt (Henny Porten) and her sister Ellen (Johanna Zimmermann) are both dancers. They have lived a righteous life so far when a dramatic event shakes everything up: embassy councilor Von Guntershausen (Ferdinand von Alten) seduces Sabine and makes her his lover. Sabine marries a banker.

After a while, however, Von Guntershausen drops Sabine. Repulsed by Sabine's morally casual way of life, Ellen turns away from her sister. Then Sabine lands as a hostess in the shady nightclub Die blaue Laterne (The Blue Lantern).

One day she accidentally becomes the guardian angel of the child of Privy Councilor Kurt Franzius (Bruno Eichgrün) and saves the child from great danger. Out of love and gratitude, Kurt Franzius wants to marry Sabine. But when he learns from the seducer Guntershausen about Sabine's past life, he refrains from his intention. Desperately, Sabine, now completely isolated, wants to poison herself, but she dies unexpectedly from a heart attack.

Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918) was submitted for German censorship in November 1918, while the premiere in Berlin took place on 29 November 1918, at the Mozartsaal cinema. Paimann’s Filmlisten wrote: "Story, acting and direction are excellent. Photography very good. (A Hit)."

German postcard in the Film-Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 567/4. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918) with Henny Porten and Johanna Zimmermann.

German postcard in the Film-Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 567/5. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Die blaue Laterne/The Blue Lantern (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918). Porten is visible here in the inn The Blue Lantern.

Sources: Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

In the Technicolor Biblical epic David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951), Gregory Peck plays King David of Israel, who sees the beautiful Bathsheba (Susan Hayward) bathing from the palace roof. She is the wife of Uriah (Kieron Moore), one of his most trusted soldiers who is more devoted to army duty than to his wife. David and Bathsheba succumb to their feelings and their affair results in pregnancy. This has tragic consequences for his family and Israel.

Gregory Peck in David and Bathsheba (1951)

British postcard by The Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 87. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951) with Gregory Peck and Kieron Moore.

Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward in David and Bathsheba (1951)

British postcard by The Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 88. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951) with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward.

The infidelity question

David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951) was loosely based on the life of David (Gregory Peck), the second King of Israel, who ruled Israel for approximately forty years (c. 1000 B.C. to 960 B.C.). It tells a very intimate story of David's fall from grace and how he tries to find it again.

The youth of David is told in flashback; how he was chosen by a Prophet of Yahweh to be King of Israel, and earns his way to be second to the king, Saul, by defeating Goliath the Philistine in battle when all else are afraid to beard the giant warrior. Goliath of Gath was portrayed by 203 cm-tall Lithuanian wrestler Walter Talun.

Thereafter, David finally is driven from the court of King Saul of Israel (Francis X. Bushman), becomes a famous warrior, and returns to claim the kingdom and become the instrument of death of Jonathan, the King's son, formerly a friend.

David's wars are successful - the film opens in fact with a successful attack scene. When the Ark of the Covenant is brought to Jerusalem, a soldier reaches out to steady it and is struck dead. While the prophet Nathan (Raymond Massey) declares this the will of God, a sceptical David pronounces it the result of a combination of heat-stroke and too much wine.

David's life is empty since his wife Michal (Jayne Meadows), is Saul's daughter and is cold to him. He craves for the true love of a woman who loves him as a man instead of as King. He turns to Bathsheba (Susan Hayward), whom he sees from the palace roof bathing naked.

Later Batsheba admits she had hoped he would see her. But she is married to Uriah (Kieron Moore), one of David's most trusted soldiers, and both know an affair would break the law of Moses. When she becomes pregnant, it becomes necessary for Uriah to come in from the battlefield and spend time at home. David's downfall begins when he orders Uriah into a suicidal battle, knowing that this will clear the way for his relationship with Bathsheba. His infatuation leads him to neglect his kingdom and his people, and invokes the wrath of God.

Uriah is killed, a war hero; but this does not solve the infidelity question. Nathan the prophet advises David the people are dissatisfied with his leadership and desire his sons to rule. Nathan tells David he has forgotten that he is a servant of the Lord. Drought comes to Israel, and David's and Bathsheba's baby dies. Nathan returns to tell David that God is displeased with his sin. He will not die as the law demands, but he will be punished through misfortune in his family. David must rediscover his faith in God in order to save Bathsheba from death by stoning, his kingdom from drought and famine, and himself from his many sins.

At last, David places his hands on the Ark of the Covenant, recently brought to Jerusalem and housed in a temple, which has caused the death of others who accidentally came in contact with it, inviting his god to punish him - and nothing happens... David exits the temple, and finds that rain has come to his parched land.

British postcard by The Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 89. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951) with Gregory Peck.

Gregory Peck and Kieron Moore in David and Bathsheba (1951)

British postcard by The Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 90. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951) with Gregory Peck and Kieron Moore.

Intense, hypnotising performance

David and Bathsheba (1951) was produced out of 20th Century Fox by Darryl F. Zanuck, and directed by veteran Henry King. The film is based around the second Old Testament book of Samuel from the Bible.

Seeing the success of Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949), Zanuck had commissioned Philip Dunne to write a script based on King David. Phillip Dunne's Oscar nominated screenplay holds the attention throughout. His script is with much meditation and discussion, interspersed with bursts of word-for-word biblical dramatisations. This makes the film sometimes a bit talkative.

Typically for the genre, David and Bathsheba is a large, grandiose production. From its excellent set designs and art direction by Thomas Little, Lyle Weeler, and George Davis, along Alfred Newman's beautiful music score to the gorgeous Technicolor photography by Leon Shamroy.

The fine cast includes next to the mentioned actors, James Robertson Justice, Raymond Massey and John Sutton plus a dance by a young Gwen Verdon, the future musical theatre star .

David and Bathsheba has all the size and grandeur of many of the great biblical epics of the 1950s and 1960s, but it is the first that humanises the biblical characters themselves. The film earned an estimated $7 million at the US box office in 1951, making it the most popular film of the year.

The power of the film rests in Gregory Peck's intense, hypnotising performance as David. Toward the end, having hit rock bottom, he must answer for his life. These last 15 minutes of the film are great and the handsome Peck is an absolute joy to watch.

Craig Butler at AllMovie: "Fans of Biblical epics will find a lot to like in David and Bathsheba; although there's little here that will appeal to those who don't look favorably upon the genre. The script is predictably overblown, filled with the kind of bombast and stilted melodrama that is to be expected. It's ridiculous, yet in its own strange way, it works."

Gregory Peck and Raymond Massey in David and Bathsheba (1951)

British postcard by The Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 91. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951) with Gregory Peck and Raymond Massey.

British postcard by The Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 92. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951) with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward.

Source: Craig Butler (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), American Film Institute, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) was an indomitable American stage and film actress, known as a spirited performer with a touch of eccentricity. She introduced into her roles a strength of character previously considered to be undesirable in Hollywood leading ladies. As an actress, she was noted for her brisk upper-class New England accent and tomboyish beauty.

Belgian postcard by N.V. Victoria, Brussels, no. 12. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Katharine Hepburn and Franchot Tone in Quality Street (1937)

Italian postcard by Generalcine, Roma / Off. Graf. 'La Lito', Milano. Photo: RKO Radio Pictures. Publicity still for Quality Street (George Stevens, 1937) with Franchot Tone.

British Art Photo postcard, no. 38-1.

American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, no. CL/Personality # 130. Photo: Douglas Kirkland.

An unlikely Hollywood star

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born in 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. Her father was a wealthy and prominent Connecticut surgeon, and her mother was a leader in the woman suffrage movement.

From early childhood, Hepburn was continually encouraged to expand her intellectual horizons, speak nothing but the truth, and keep herself in top physical condition at all times. She would apply all of these ingrained values to her acting career, which began in earnest after her graduation from Bryn Mawr College in 1928.

That year she made her Broadway debut in Night Hostess, appearing under the alias Katharine Burns. Hepburn scored her first major Broadway success in The Warrior’s Husband (1932), a comedy set in the land of the Amazons. Shortly thereafter she was invited to Hollywood by RKO Radio Pictures.

Hepburn was an unlikely Hollywood star. Possessing a distinctive speech pattern and an abundance of quirky mannerisms, she earned unqualified praise from her admirers and unmerciful criticism from her detractors. Unabashedly outspoken and iconoclastic, she did as she pleased, refusing to grant interviews, wearing casual clothes at a time when actresses were expected to exude glamour 24 hours a day, and openly clashing with her more-experienced coworkers whenever they failed to meet her standards.

She nonetheless made an impressive film debut in George Cukor’s A Bill of Divorcement (1932), a drama that also starred John Barrymore. Hepburn was then cast as an aviator in Dorothy Arzner’s Christopher Strong (1933). For her third film, Morning Glory (Lowell Sherman, 1933), Hepburn won an Academy Award for her portrayal of an aspiring actress.

British Real Photograph postcard, no. 40.A. Photo: Radio Pictures.

Colin Clive and Katharine Hepburn in Christopher Strong

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

Merry Christmas! Katharine Hepburn in Little Women

Dutch postcard by the Rialto Theatre, Amsterdam, 1934. Photo: Remaco Radio Picture. Publicity still for Little Women (George Cukor, 1933). In the picture are Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, Jean Parker and Spring Byington. The Dutch title of the film and the book by Louise M. Alcott is Onder moeders vleugels.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 1045a. Photo: R.K.O. Radio.

Box office poison

However, Katharine Hepburn’s much-publicised return to Broadway, in The Lake (1933), proved to be a flop. And while filmgoers enjoyed her performances in homespun entertainments such as Little Women (George Cukor, 1933) and Alice Adams (George Stevens, 1935), they were largely resistant to historical vehicles such as Mary of Scotland (John Ford, 1936), A Woman Rebels (Mark Sandrich, 1936), and Quality Street (George Stevens, 1937).

Hepburn recovered some lost ground with her sparkling performances in the screwball comedies Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) and Holiday (George Cukor, 1938), both of which also starred Cary Grant. However, it was too late: a group of leading film exhibitors had already written off Hepburn as “box office poison.”

Undaunted, Hepburn accepted a role written specifically for her in Philip Barry’s 1938 Broadway comedy The Philadelphia Story, about a socialite whose ex-husband tries to win her back. Howard Hughes, Hepburn's partner at the time, sensed that the play could be her ticket back to Hollywood stardom and bought her the film rights before it even debuted on stage. It was a huge hit.

She chose to sell the rights to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Hollywood's number one studio, on the condition that she be the star. As part of the deal she also received the director of her choice, George Cukor, and picked James Stewart and Cary Grant as co-stars. The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) was a critical and commercial success, and it jump-started her Hollywood career. She continued to make periodic returns to the stage (notably as the title character in the 1969 Broadway musical Coco), but Hepburn remained essentially a film actor for the remainder of her career.

Hepburn was also responsible for the development of her next project, the romantic comedy Woman of the Year (George Stevens, 1942) about a political columnist and a sports reporter whose relationship is threatened by her self-centred independence. The idea for the film was proposed to her by Garson Kanin in 1941, who recalled how Hepburn contributed to the script. She presented the finished product to MGM and demanded $250,000—half for her, half for the authors. Her terms accepted, Hepburn was also given the director and co-star of her choice, George Stevens and Spencer Tracy. Woman of the Year was another success. Critics praised the chemistry between the stars.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, Paris, no. 996.

French postcard by Edition Chantal, Paris, no. 77. Photo: R.K.O.

French postcard by Viny, no. 2131. Photo: R.K.O.

Dutch postcard by S & v. H., Amsterdam.

French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 206. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1950. Although the postcard was produced in 1950, the photo was taken much earlier, probably for The Phildadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940).

An unprecedented fourth Oscar

Katharine Hepburn's stature increased in the following decades as she chalked up such cinematic triumphs as John Huston’s The African Queen (1951), in which she played a missionary who escapes German troops with the aid of a riverboat captain (Humphrey Bogart), and David Lean’s Summertime (1955), a love story set in Venice.

Hepburn received an Academy Award nomination for the second year running for her work opposite Burt Lancaster in The Rainmaker (1956). Again she played a lonely woman empowered by a love affair, and it became apparent that Hepburn had found a niche in playing 'love-starved spinsters' that critics and audiences enjoyed.

After two years away from the screen, Hepburn starred in a film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' controversial play Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. She clashed with director Joseph L. Mankiewicz during filming, which culminated with her spitting at him in disgust. The picture was a financial success, and her work as creepy aunt Violet Venable gave Hepburn her eighth Oscar nomination.

In Long Day’s Journey into Night (Sidney Lumet, 1962), an adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s acclaimed play, Hepburn was cast as a drug-addicted mother, opposite Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell. Long Day's Journey Into Night earned Hepburn an Oscar nomination and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It remains one of her most praised performances.

Katharine Hepburn won a second Academy Award for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Stanley Kramer, 1967), a dramedy about interracial marriage; a third for The Lion in Winter (Anthony Harvey, 1968), in which she played Eleanor of Aquitaine opposite Peter O'Toole as King Henry II; and an unprecedented fourth Oscar for On Golden Pond (Mark Rydell, 1981), about long-married New Englanders (Hepburn and Henry Fonda). Her 12 Academy Award nominations also set a record, which stood until 2003, when broken by Meryl Streep.

In addition, Hepburn appeared frequently on television in the 1970s and 1980s. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her memorable portrayal of Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (Anthony Harvey, 1973), and she won the award for her performance opposite Laurence Olivier in Love Among the Ruins (1975), which reunited her with her favourite director, George Cukor.

Though hampered by a progressive neurological disease, Hepburn was nonetheless still active in the early 1990s, appearing prominently in films such as Love Affair (Glenn Gordon Caron, 1994), which was her last film. At 87 years old, she played a supporting role, alongside Annette Bening and Warren Beatty. It was the only film of Hepburn's career, other than the cameo appearance in Stage Door Canteen (Frank Borzage, 1943), in which she did not play a leading role.

Hepburn was married once. In 1928, she wed Philadelphia broker Ludlow Ogden Smith, but the union was dissolved in 1934. While filming Woman of the Year in 1942, she began an enduring intimate relationship with her costar, Spencer Tracy, with whom she would appear in films such as Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952); both were directed by George Cukor.

Tracy and Hepburn never married — he was Roman Catholic and would not divorce his wife — but they remained close both personally and professionally until his death in 1967, just days after completing the filming of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Hepburn had suspended her own career for nearly five years to nurse Tracy through what turned out to be his final illness.

In 1999 the American Film Institute named Hepburn the top female American screen legend of all time. She wrote several memoirs, including 'Me: Stories of My Life' (1991). Katharine Hepburn died in 2003 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was 96.

Belgian collectors card by Chocolaterie Clovis, Pepinster. Collection: Amit Benyovits.

Turhan Bey and Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed (1944)

Belgian Collectors Card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C. 159. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Publicity still for Dragon Seed (Harold S. Bucquet, Jack Conway, 1944) with Turhan Bey.

Belgian Collectors Card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Belgian Collectors Card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C. 110. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 206. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (Miraculously, the card has the same credits as this card).

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Terra Film was a Berlin-based film production company. Founded in 1919, Terra became one of the four Germany's largest film production companies in the 1930s under the Nazi regime.

Hans Adalbert Schlettow and Mady Christians in Die Jugend der Königin Luise (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 88/4. Photo: Terra Film. Publicity still for Königin Luise, 1. Teil - Die Jugend der Königin Luise/Queen Louise (Karl Grune, 1927) with Hans Adalbert Schlettow and Mady Christians.

Fritz Kortner. Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6037. Photo: Götz Hofbauer / Terra Film.

Diomira Jacobini. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3748/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Terra-Film. Publicity still for Revolutionshochzeit/Revolutions Bryllup/The Last Night (A.W. Sandberg, 1928).

Heinrich George. German postcard by Das Programm von Heute, Berlin. Photo: Baumann / Terra. Publicity still for Jud Süss/Jew Süss (Veit Harlan, 1940).

Heinz Rühmann. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3535/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra. Publicity still for Quax, der Bruchpilot/Quax the Crash Pilot (Kurt Hoffmann, 1941).

The Switch to the Talkies

Terra Film was founded at end of 1919, initially as a limited liability company and converted into a corporation in October 1920. In 1922, Terra acquired studios and reproduction facilities of Eiko-Film GmbH in Berlin-Marienfelde. For a few years, Ullstein AG and IG Farbenindustrie AG were the major shareholders with 47% and 50% of the share capital, respectively. In 1928, the latter bought the Ullstein share and became almost sole owner with 97%.

Terra's first film was Figaros Hochzeit/The Marriage of Figaro (Max Mack, 1920), starring Alexander Moissiand Hella Moja. It was followed by films such as the Science-Fiction film Die Insel der Verschollenen/The Island of the Lost (Urban Gad, 1921), a loose adaptation of H.G. Wells''The Island of Dr. Moreau', and the comedy Der Liebeskorridor/The love Corridor (Urban Gad, 1921) with Anton Edthofer and Adolphe Engers.

In 1927, Heinrich George starred in Bigamie/Bigamy (Jaap Speyer, 1927) as a man between two women, played by Maria Jacobini and Anita Dorris. Mady Christians starred in the two part historical epic Königin Luise/Queen Luise (Karl Grune, 1927/28).

Terra's heyday came after the switch to the talkies and under National Socialism. In 1930, the Swiss Scotoni family, headed by the influential businessman Eugen Scotoni, acquired Terra for 1.2 million Reichsmarks. Between 1930 and 1935, when Terra was gradually nationalised by the German government, Eugen's son Ralph Scotoni oversaw his family's interest in Terra Film.

A huge success was the crime film Der Mann, der den Mord beging/The Man Who Murdered (Kurt Bernhardt, 1931). Conrad Veidt stars as the Marquis de Sévigné, who is put in a difficult position when he falls for the lovely but married Lady Falkland (Trude von Molo). Her husband, the strict Lord Falkland (Heinrich George), subjects her to constant abuse... The following year a separate English version was made, Stamboul (Dimitri Buchowetzki, 1932), starring Warwick Ward, Rosita Moreno, and Margot Grahame.

In 1933, Ralph Scotoni automatically became a member of the Nazi Party (as was common for owners of large companies) but he never picked up his membership card. Many of the 40 films from the era of Ralph Scotoni were influenced by Nazi ideas. The focus was also on Swiss subjects and locations, and the similarities between Switzerland and Nazi Germany. Examples are Wilhelm Tell/William Tell (Heinz Paul, 1934), Der Springer von Pontresina/The Champion of Pontresina (Herbert Selpin, 1934) with Sepp Rist.

German-Swiss historical film Wilhelm Tell/William Tell (Heinz Paul, 1934) starred Hans Marr, Conrad Veidt and Emmy Göring. It is based on the 1804 play William Tell by Friedrich Schiller about the Swiss folk hero William Tell, a woodsman who was an expert with his crossbow. It was made by Terra Film, with a separate English-language version supervised by Manning Haynes also being released. While working on the film Veidt, who had recently given sympathetic performances of Jews in the British films The Wandering Jew (Maurice Elvey, 1933) and Jew Suss (Lothar Mendes, 1934), was detained by the German authorities. It was only after pressure from the British Foreign Office that he was eventually released.

According to Wikipedia, since the Terra films lost money, the family sold its stake in Terra in 1935. Ralph Scottoni left Germany after the nationalisation of Terra. The family continued to run a chain of cinemas in Switzerland.

Matthias Wieman and Mady Christians in Königin Luise (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 89/3, 1925-1935. Photo: Terra Film. Publicity still for Königin Luise/Queen Louise (Karl Grune, 1927) with Mady Christians and Mathias Wiemann.

Gösta Ekman in Revolutionshochzeit (1928)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3746/2. Photo: Terra Film. Gösta Ekman in Revolutionshochzeit/Revolutions Bryllup/The Last Night (A.W. Sandberg, 1928).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3955/2, 1928-1929. Dist.: Terra-Film. Maria Jacobini in the Italian late silent film Il carnevale di Venezia/Carnival in Venice (Mario Almirante, 1928).

Dorothea Wieck. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 7771/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Klagemann / Terra.

Gustav Diessl. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9795/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Bodal Film der Terra.

Propaganda

Between 1933 and 1944, Terra released 120 feature films, including some propaganda films. In Die Reiter von Deutsch-Ostafrika/The Riders of German East Africa (Herbert Selpin, 1934), Sepp Rist played a German farmer in German East Africa, who is conscripted into the Schutztruppe (German armed colonial force) at the beginning of the First World War. Another example is Hermine und die sieben Aufrechten/Hermione and the Seven Law (Frank Wisbar, 1935) with Heinrich George and Karin Hardt. From 1935 on, Terra produced in the Tempelhof studios of Ufa Film Art GmbH.

In the wake of the nationalisation of the film industry in July 1937, Terra-Film Art Ltd. changed its name and a majority was now owned by the state-owned company Cautio Treuhand GmbH. Terra-Film Art continued to produce Propaganda films like the war film Kameraden auf See/Comrades at Sea (Heinz Paul, 1938) starring Theodor Loos. The film is set during the Spanish Civil War, which it portrays as a Communist uprising against the lawful government.

Otto Lehmann produced for Terra the notorious propaganda film Jud Süß/Jew Süß (Veit Harlan, 1940) at the behest of Joseph Goebbels. Jud Süß/Jew Süß is considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. Director Veit Harlan also wrote the screenplay with Eberhard Wolfgang Möller and Ludwig Metzger. The leading roles were played by Ferdinand Marian and Harlan's wife Kristina Söderbaum. Werner Krauss and Heinrich George played key supporting roles.

Jud Süß/Jew Süß has been characterised as "one of the most notorious and successful pieces of antisemitic film propaganda produced in Nazi Germany." It was a great success in Germany, and was seen by 20 million people. Although the film's budget of 2 million Reichsmarks was considered high for films of that era, the box office receipts of 6.5 million Reichsmarks made it a financial success. SS Leader Heinrich Himmler urged members of the SS and the police to watch the film.

After the war, some of the leading cast members were brought to trial as part of the denazification process. They generally defended their participation in the film on the grounds that they had only done so under duress. Despite significant evidence to support their arguments, Susan Tegel, author of 'Nazis and the Cinema', characterises their postwar attempts to distance themselves from the film as "crass and self-serving". However, she concedes that their motives for accepting the roles seem to have been more driven by opportunistic ambition than by antisemitism.

Veit Harlan was the only major film director of the Third Reich to stand trial for 'crimes against humanity'. After three trials, Harlan was given a light sentence because he convinced the courts that the antisemitic content of the film had been dictated by Goebbels and that Harlan had worked to moderate the antisemitism. Eventually, Harlan was reinstated as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany and went on to make nine more films. He remained a controversial figure and the target of protests.

But how bad or good is the film? I never saw it myself, but many reviews at IMDbare surprisingly positive. Karl Self: "Considering the enormous, fanatical hatred of the Nazis against Jews, the movie's antisemitism comes across as surprisingly subtle. Flanked by the occasional antisemitic outburst ("There are no hostels for Jews in Stuttgart") the movie builds a convincing psychogram of a perpetrator and leaves all its great performances to its antiheroes, while the good guys come across as pale, square and boring."

Together with the propaganda films Die Rothschilds/The Rothschilds (Erich Waschneck, 1940) and the 'documentary'Der ewige Jude/The Eternal Jew (Fritz Hippler, 1940), Jud Süß/Jew Süß (Veit Harlan, 1940) remains one of the most frequently discussed examples of the use of film to further the Nazi antisemitic agenda. In the 2000s, two documentary films and the feature Jud Süss - Film ohne Gewissen/Jew Suss: Rise and Fall (Oskar Roehler, 2010) were released that explore the history and impact of this films.

Anna Dammann. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2534/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Hertha Feiler. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2566/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Quick / Terra.

Leny Marenbach. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 2808/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Margot Hielscher. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 3854/1. 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Heinrich George in Andreas Schlüter (1942)

Heinrich George. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 3647/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Lindner / Terra. Publicity still for Andreas Schlüter (Herbert Maisch, 1942).

Absolutely One of the Best Movies Ever

Otto Lehman later also produced for Terra Fronttheater/Front theatre (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1942), starring Heli Finkenzeller. In the film, the very successful actress Lena Andres (Finkenzeller) marries dr. Paul Meinhardt (René Deltgen). For his sake, she renounces her acting career. When Paul is drafted, she gets persuaded by director Langhammer (Lothar Firmans), with whom she shot several films, to step in for a sick colleague on a front-theater tour. Paul learns about it and retreats disappointed. Lena follows her now transferred to Greece man with the troupe of the front theater there to save their marriage. A clarifying conversation between the spouses leads to a reconciliation.

Like Lehman, several producers had their own 'production groups' at Terra. Among them were also Helmut Beck, actor-director Gustaf Gründgens, Edward Kubat, comedy star Heinz Rühmann, Viktor von Struve, EC Techow, Hans Tost and Walter Tost.

Hans Tost was one the most productive of them. He produced such films as Nanu, Sie kennen Korff noch nicht?/What, you know still don't know Korff? (Fritz Holl, 1938) with Heinz Rühmann, Wir machen Musik/We make music (Helmut Käutner, 1942) with Ilse Werner and Viktor de Kowa, and the Hans Albers hit Große Freiheit Nr. 7/Great Freedom No. 7 (Helmut Käutner, 1944), the first Agfa-colour film by the Terra. This musical drama was named after Große Freiheit, a street next to Hamburg's Reeperbahn road in the St. Pauli red light district. Große Freiheit Nr. 7 tells the story of the blond 'singing sailor' Hannes Kröger (Hans Albers) who works in a St. Pauli club - address: Große Freiheit 7 - and falls in love with a girl played by Ilse Werner. But she prefers his rival Willem (Hans Söhnker) and Hannes returns to the sea.

In 1942, Terra was absorbed into Ufa-Film GmbH (UFI) and retained only formal independence. Among Terra's directors were Boleslaw Barlog, Géza von Bolváry, Peter Paul Brauer, Erich Engels, Kurt Hoffmann, Helmut Käutner, Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Roger von Norman, Rudolf van der Noss, Heinz Paul, Arthur Maria Rabenalt, Günther Rittau, Herbert Selpin, and Hans Steinhoff.

Terra produced many successful entertainment films. A huge success was the circus drama Zirkus Renz/Circus Renz (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1943), starring René Deltgen, Paul Klinger and Angelika Hauff. The circus film was made as a deliberately escapist release at a time when the Second World War was starting to turn against Germany and its allies. The film takes its title from the real Circus Renz.

Heinz Rühmann made with his production group such popular comedies as Der Florentiner Hut/The Florentine hat (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1939), Quax, der Bruchpilot/Quax the Crash Pilot (Kurt Hoffmann, 1941), Ich vertraue Dir meine Frau an/I Entrust My Wife to You (Kurt Hoffmann, 1943), and Quax in Afrika/Quax in Africa (Helmut Weiss, 1944-1953).

His biggest success, Die Feuerzangenbowle/The Punch Bowl (Helmut Weiss, 1944) tells the story of a famous writer (Heinz Rühmann, 42 at the time) going undercover as a student at a small-town secondary school after his friends tell him that he missed out on the best part of growing up by being educated at home. The story in the book takes place during the time of the Wilhelmine Empire in Germany. The film was produced and released in Germany during the last years of World War II and still it is a favourite for many film fans. Marcus Cyron at IMDb: "Die Feuerzangenbowle is absolutely one of the Best Movies ever and the Best German Movie at all."

From the early 1960s to the 1980s, Terra-Film GmbH returned in West-Berlin and produced or co-produced more than 100 films.

Paul Hörbiger. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3118/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Terra / Wien-Film.

Joachim Gottschalk. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 3253/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Dorothea Wieck. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, Berlin, no. A 3628/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Heli Finkenzeller. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3648/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Theodor Loos. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3680/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Terra.

Kirsten Heiberg. German Postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3371/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Heinz Rühmann. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3852/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Ilse Werner. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3896/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Terra.

Lil Dagover. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3920/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Happy Easter! Films on the Passion of Christ, starting with the Annunciation and ending with the Resurrection, were extremely popular in the early years of cinema. No doubt the impetus was given by the already popular stage versions, in particular, the Oberammergau Passion Play, performed every decade at a small Bavarian town. Many cards were made for the Oberammergau Passion Play, already from the late 19th century onwards. This inspired first the Americans to create their own Passion Play films in the late 1890s. They were immediately followed by the French companies Lumière and Gaumont. While Gaumont shot another version in 1906, Pathé produced four versions in 1900, 1902-1903, 1907, and 1913.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: Joseph and Maria at Betlehem.

FFrench postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: The Sleep of Jesus.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: The Flight to Egypt.

Miraculous moments created by classical theatrical effects

Roberta Pearson writes in her entry on biblical films in the 'Encyclopaedia of Early Cinema' (2005) that the 1907 Pathé version "was probably seen by more people in North America and Europe (and more than once) than any other film of the period."

Pearson also stresses that these biblical films heavily relied upon "previous intertexts such as a long tradition of biblical illustration, including illustrated Bibles, stereoscope cards, magic lantern slide series, and illustrated lectures."

The Pathé 1907 version confirms this too, even if not as explicit as the later From the Manger to the Cross (Kalem, 1912), which faithfully copied the Bible illustrations made by James Tissot for his 1897-1897 French Bible.

Typical in the 1907 Pathé film is the tableau style in which every shot is preceded by an intertitle, which uses few words to indicate the scene and always in Pathé's patented red color (likewise, Gaumont used green for its intertitles).

While most shots use painted backdrops, still all kinds of sets, props, and people were used to create some deep staging, even if on a modest scale. Deepness could even be accentuated by diagonals of people simultaneously crossing the screen and approaching the camera, e.g. in the Adoration of the Magi.

Also, at times, inserts (cut-ins) were used to stress details, such as the Veil of Veronica or the Ecce Homo moment of the scourged, bound Jesus, crowned with thorns. Miraculous moments were created by classical theatrical effects but also by modern cinematic effects such as stop motion (e.g. the appearance of the angels) and double exposure (e.g. Jesus walking on the water).

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: At the Feet of the Sphinx.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: The Wedding at Cana. The actress on the right is Julienne Mathieu, a regular at Pathé in its early years. She plays the Holy Virgin Mary.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ, which might be La Vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (Lucien Nonguet, Ferdinand Zecca, 1903). Caption: The Entrance to Jerusalem. This image deviates from the one in the existing prints of Vie et passion de notre seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907).

It is unclear who played Jesus

When comparing the Pathé postcards with the film, some cards show a certain kind of compressed, simultaneously happening actions, which are spread out over time within the film.

A good example is the scene of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem. In the film, we first see a lively street with many extras. They disappear when the holy couple appears. In vain, Joseph and Mary ask for shelter to the innkeeper on the left, while later on the girl on the right directs them to an offscreen space on the right, clearly the stable. On the card, we see the innkeeper, the girl, the couple, and the extras altogether.

Discussed is who directed the film. It is clear that Ferdinand Zecca, who also co-directed with Lucien Nonguet the 1903 version, was the main director for the 1907 version as well.

There are suggestions the Spanish special effects 'wizard'Segundo De Chomon, who was probably responsible for all the trick photography in the film, may have been co-director as well for the film. Others contest this.

In any case, De Chomon's wife Julienne Mathieu clearly plays the Holy Virgin Mary, while it is unclear who played Jesus. The film was released in bright stencil coloring, announced as 'Pathé-Coloris', It increases the pictorial qualities of the images.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ which might be La Vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (Lucien Nonguet, Ferdinand Zecca, 1903). Caption: Jesus chases the merchants from the Temple. This image deviates from the one in the existing prints of Vie et passion de notre seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907).

French postcard. Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ aka Vie et passion de notre seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: The Last Supper.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: The Flagellation.

The Passion in colour

When Kalem's From the Manger to the Cross was released in the Netherlands, Dutch film distributor Jean Desmet (re-)released the Pathé 1907 version with the title Van de Kribbe tot het Kruis, a Dutch translation of the Kalem title, angering Kalem and the local Dutch renter.

When under attack, Desmet coolly reposted he at least had the Passion "in colour" while Kalem's film was in black and white. Desmet was rather matter-of-fact. When a local exhibitor asked him if he had a description of the Pathé Passion film, he wrote back: "The film is self-explanatory and you probably have a Bible somewhere."

In his monograph on early French cinema, 'The Ciné Goes to Town' (1994), American film scholar Richard Abel stresses that even if the Gaumont 1906 version may differ from the Pathé 1907 version in a more female perspective (Gaumont director Alice Guy e.g. linked the character of Jesus closely to women surrounding him), both versions share that they were offered on the market "in a variety of lengths, including versions of multiple reels." Just like with earlier Passion Play movies, exhibitors were encouraged "to purchase and exhibit whatever combination of tableaux would best suit their programs."

While from the 1903 earlier version by Zecca only some five tableaux remain, several coloured prints of the 1907 version, remain, including the one in the Desmet Collection at EYE Filmmuseum. Not all are complete and not all have the garish stenciling.

It is moreover a pity that our postcards don't possess the same pictorial colouring. For other pre-1910 Pathé film, postcard sets have been made with multicolour images. We hope to complete this Passion postcard set in the future with pictures from other key moments in the film and in the Passion tale, such as the Annunciation and the Crucifixion.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: St. Veronica - The Holy Face.

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: The Burial. On the right the actress Julienne Mathieu (Virgin Mary).

French postcard by Pathé Frères. Scene from the early Pathé film La vie du Christ/La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907). Caption: The Resurrection. For this version of the Passion, Segundo De Chomon did the special effects. His wife, Julienne Mathieu played the Virgin Mary. Unknown is who played Jesus.

Sources: Roberta Pearson in Richard Abel (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema; Richard Abel, The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914; and Ivo Blom, Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade.

Last Monday I did a post at EFSP about my own finds at the VerzamelaarsJaarbeurs, the International Collectors Fair in Utrecht, on 13 April. Today 17 more postcards, which my partner in crime, Ivo Blom found.

1. Napoléon vu par Abel Gance
French postcard, no. 469. Albert Dieudonné in Napoléon, vu par Abel Gance (1927).

Ivo: I already had a faded black-and-white postcard with this photo, but this sepia version is much more attractive and has additional text too. I once saw a marathon version of this masterful, sophisticated, poetic, but also very lengthy film at a theatre in Udine, Italy, as a special programme included at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy. We were transported by steam train. Also, we had a buffet in-between, devoured by mostly the Italians, so e.g. too modest Japanese guests must have suffered hunger that night.

2. Esther Williams and Tom & Jerry in Dangerous When Wet
Country of editor unknown. Collectors card. Photo: M.G.M. Publicity still for Dangerous When Wet (Charles Walters, 1953).

I don’t know if I ever saw the full film, but clips I saw plenty, e.g. in a MGM jubilee compilation film. The combination of animation with live action was already known at the time of the magic lantern, but my own meeting with the genre was with the Alice shorts by Disney, of which many were found at the EYE Film Museum when I was working in their nitrate archive in Overveen in the early 1990s. Of course, one may also think of Who’s Framing Roger Rabbit?

3. Alwin Neuss
German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 83/3. Photo: Karl Schenker / Decla.

Over the years, working on this site and on Flickr we got more and more intrigued by certain photographers recurring at the postcards. One was Karl Schenker, who was a master in studio photography in the 1910s and 1920s. His style is clearly related to Pictorialism in photography. This card well shows his interest in dramatic lighting and clair-obscur, what in film terms was sometimes called 'Rembrandt lighting'. A few years ago an exhibition on Schenker was held in Germany, of which we acquired the catalogue.

4. Mariya Germanova
German postcard. Mariya Germanova as Olga in 'Three Sisters', by Anton Chekhov. Guest performances by the Moscow Art Theatre (in Germany, 1920s).

Mariya or Maria Germanova must have clearly been one of the monstres sacrés of the Russian stage, who also exported her dramatic acting outside of Russia with a troupe of the Moscow Art Theatre. After having played in a handful of films in early Russian cinema, including her debut Anna Karenina (Vladimir Gardin, 1914), she also played in two German films for which the cast was Russian-only: Raskolnikow (Robert Wiene, 1923) and Die Macht der Finsternis (Conrad Wiene, 1924). I obtained a large series of French cards on the actors of the Moscow Art Theatre performing abroad, so these will appear soon on Flickr as well.

5. Marbres vivants
French postcard by Raphael Tuck & Fils Editeurs, Paris, Series 349.

Living statues or 'poses plastiques' were popular stage acts around the 1900s, either imitating (then) famous statues such as those by classic artists such as Michelangelo Buonarotti and Antonio Canova but also now forgotten 19th-century sculptors, or creating a statue-like atmosphere by painting bodies white (marble-like) or green (imitating bronze). Light effects were very important during the shows. While nudity was initially only suggested by women wearing flesh-coloured 'leotards', later on, nudity was shown - provided the models would not move (and thus suggest statues, or in general: art). On this postcard, the women are wrapped in enormous cloths, similar to the popular depiction of artist models in silent film, but also referring to the draperies of Greek and Roman art. ‘Poses plastiques’ were popular in silent cinema too, while future Italian diva Hesperia started her career with ‘living statues’ on stage.

6. Alexander Kerst in Ciske – ein Kind braucht Liebe (1955)
German postcard. Omega Film. Autographed postcard of Alexander Kerst in Ciske - Ein Kind Braucht Liebe (Wolfgang Staudte, 1955), based on the novel by Dutch author Piet Bakker.

This was the German version of the parallel made Dutch film Ciske, de rat (Wolfgang Staudte, 1955), situated and shot in the city of Amsterdam (with interiors shot at the Amsterdam Cinetone film studio). Kerst played the sailor Freymuth, Ciske's father. Part of the Dutch cast played in the German version as well, including Kees Brusse as Ciske's teacher Bruis, and young Dick van der Velde as Ciske himself. Rob de Vries played Kerst’s role of Ciske’s father. While the Dutch version became the third best viewed Dutch film in the Netherlands ever and won a Silver Lion in Venice, the German version was not a huge success in Germany and remained one of the most unknown films of Staudte.

7. Conny Froboess in Amsterdam
Dutch postcard by Ed. Int. Filmpers, Amsterdam.

This card well ties in with a major project I am co-curating, a large retrospective on Dutch-German film exchange since the 1890s, to be held at the 2020 Cinefest in Hamburg. We will also co-organise an accompanying conference, a catalogue, and afterward, a book. For this, we will look e.g. at the popularity of German cinema in the Netherlands, confirmed by the visits of many German stars, before and after the war. Cornelia ‘Conny’ Froboess (1943), though a singer in the first place, was also a popular film actress in German Schlager-Filme. She visited the Netherlands a few times, probably first in May 1959 when she visited Amsterdam to promote her new film Teenager-Melodie/Wenn die Conny mit dem Peter (Fritz Umgelter, 1958). She returned in February 1960 for a performance at the Scheveningen Kurhaus during a dance contest, and in September 1962 for the Grand Gala du Disque. On Dutch Conny-mania, see Mustafa Özen's article in the Dutch magazine TMG.

8. Viggo Larsen in Der Sohn des Hannibal (1918)
German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 542/3. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Viggo Larsen in Der Sohn des Hannibal (1918), directed by himself. The woman with the gun is Käthe Haack.

Plot: The racing team owner Count Ferdinand Muntaniz buys a racehorse, a descendant of the stallion Hannibal, and calls it "Imperator". Immediately he bets with Count Szivarwany that the horse will win the first derby. Due to race shifts and game losses, Count Ferdinand is forced to resell Imperator but he has recovered his losses through the bet. Viggo Larsen (1880-1957) was a Danish actor, director, scriptwriter and producer. He was one of the pioneers in film history. With Wanda Treumann he directed and produced many German films of the 1910s. I have no clue why on this card Haack carries a gun and why Larsen is so happy reading the letter, but guns and letters were most important props in silent cinema, as writer Colette has also confirmed.

9. Lucien Muratore.
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, Paris, no. 987. Photo: Les Films Osso.

Lucien Muratore (1876–1954) was a French actor and operatic tenor, who acted in the 1910s in several American and Italian silent films opposite his then-wife Lina Cavalieri. In the 1930s he also acted in four French sound films. This postcard refers to his first sound film, Le chanteur inconnu/The Unknown Singer (Viktor Tourjansky 1931), made for Les Films Osso. This card shows Muratore was a man of 50 by then but still looking good, even if a bit stiff. Mark the elegant wristwatch, the ring and the tie-pin: quite fancy.

10. Jane Faber
French postcard, editor unknown. Photo: Reutlinger.

Jane Faber (1880-1968) was a Belgian actress, who was active in French cinema of the 1910s and is best known for her role as Princess Sonia Danidoff in the Fantomas crime serial (1913-1914) by Louis Feuillade, made for Gaumont. Before her start in film, Jane Faber already must have been a popular theatre actress, whose last name was enough to promote her. Watch the ‘droit-devant’-like dress with the long trail, the lace sleeves, the hourglass waist, and the ‘Gainsborough’ hat.

11. Marie Ventura
French postcard by Editions Sid. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères, Paris.

Marie or Maria Ventura (1888-1954) was a Romanian-French actress and theatre director. She became well known in the silent cinema with her role in the popular serial Les misérables (1912). From 1919 to 1941, she worked at the Comédie-Française. In 1938, she directed 'Iphigénie' by Racine, becoming the first woman to direct a play at the Comédie-Française. At the fair, I obtained various cards by Editions Sid, so these will be uploaded soon.

12. Józef Wegrzyn
Polish (?) postcard by Ed. "Victoria" PW, no. 67.

Polish actor Józef Wegrzyn (1884–1952) is considered one of the most important figures of pre-war Polish theatre and cinema. I was happy to find this card, because the Polish cinema before the war was a blind spot to us until recently. Over the last months, we already found a few cards on actresses of the Polish silent screen on the net. One of them, Jadwiga Smosarska, proved to have often been paired with Józef Wegrzyn in silent films, though not always as lovers. See also our former post on the Polish pre-war cinema.

13. Paul Vincenti
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 5456/1. Photo: Atelier Amster, Berlin.

Paul Vincenti is a mystery actor. All we know is he acted in two silent Hollywood films in 1927, one by Alexander Korda and one by George Fitzmaurice. At the advent of the talkies, he moved (back?) to Europe, where he acted in four German films between 1929 and 1934. The first was the Czech-German coproduction Kennst du das kleine Haus am Michigansee? (Max W. Kimmich, Viktor Brumlík, 1929). Then, Vincenti had the male lead opposite Gretl Theimer in Die Csikosbaroneß (Jakob & Luise Fleck, 1930). So was he Hungarian? He might just as well have been German, Czech, American, or even Maltese - the name Vincenti is quite common there.

14. Frank Keenan
British postcard by Lilywhite Ltd., no. 20. Photo: Pathé.

Frank Keenan (1858–1929) was an American stage actor and director and was among the first stage actors to star in American cinema. From 1909 to 1926 he appeared in some 70 films, and also directed four films himself. Keenan peaked around 1918-1919 as the star in several films released by Pathé Exchange, e.g. the crime drama The Bells (Ernest C. Warde, 1918) and the Western The Midnight Stage (Ernest C. Warde, 1919). Over the last months, we majorly expanded our collection territory by delving into European postcards for American cinema. This inspired to expand my collection of silent cinema postcards for American stars, including those of pre-Hollywood 1910s stars of Eastcoast companies such as Pathé, or the Chicago-based company Vitagraph. A separate post on the American Pathé company will appear soon.

15. Johnny Sheffield ‘Boy/ Bomba’
Belgian collectors card, Series KF 12. Photo: Monogram.

Johnny Sheffield (1931-2010), well-known as Boy in the Tarzan movies, went on to star in his own jungle films, starting with Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949). This card mentions this film, so it is probably from around that year.

16. Ricardo Montalban
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 500. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1953.

Handsome Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban (1920-2009) was the epitome of elegance, charm and grace on film, stage and television. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he reinvigorated the Latin Lover style in Hollywood without achieving top screen stardom. He fought to upscale the Latin image in Hollywood and this may have cost him a number of roles along the way, but he gained respect and a solid reputation and provided wider-range opportunities for Spanish-speaking actors. Montalban is probably best remembered for his starring role as the mysterious Mr. Roarke on the TV series Fantasy Island (1977–1984), with Hervé Villechaize as his partner Tatto, and as Grandfather Valentin in the Spy Kids franchise.

17. Sophia Loren
Dutch postcard by NS, no. 18. On the back, the numbers 621024 might be the date of printing, so 24 October 1962. She had the same hair style at the time she won the Oscar. (Thanks, Philip Mayer @ Flickr).

Sophia Loren (1934) rose to fame in post-war Italy as a voluptuous sex goddess. Soon after she became one of the most successful stars of the 20th Century, who won an Oscar for her mother role in La ciociara (Vittoria De Sica, 1960). I love Sophia, that is: the Sophia of her Italian highlights Peccato che sia una canaglia, Boccaccio ’70, La ciociara, Matrimonio all'italiana, and in particular Una giornata particolare. Though I am less fond of her foreign films, on festivals, during research, and on YouTube, I started to discover La fortuna di essere donna, I sequestrati di Altona, The Fall of the Roman Empire, and some of her song or dance scenes, such as the mambo in Pane, amore e…, and her version of 'Tu Vuò Fà L'Americano' in It happened in Naples. Cin!

Henny Porten played the title role as a simple and natural mountain girl in the German silent drama Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927), which is situated in the Swiss Alps. Again Henny's happiness is in danger because of secrets from the past. The later director Wilhelm (William) Dieterle was her co-star. The film was produced by Porten's own film company, which she managed together with director Carl Froelich, and by the Swiss company Monopol-Film.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 68/1. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film. Publicity still for Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927) with Henny Porten.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 68/2. Photo: A. Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film. Publicity still for Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927) with Henny Porten and Inge Landgut.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 68/3. Photo: A. Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film. Publicity still for Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 68/4. Photo: A. Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film. Publicity still for Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927) with Henny Porten and Wilhelm Diegelmann.

A dark family secret in the Swiss Alps

Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927) was scripted by Walter Supper, Hans Wilhelm, and Ernst Zahn, and was adapted from the novel Der Schatten (1904) by Ernst Zahn.

Ms. Zureich (Elsa Wagner) is the owner of a hostel in the Swiss Val Tremola (Ticino Alps), which has a pretty bad reputation. To generate additional revenues, she presses her employees and even her own daughter to sexually provide themselves to the hosts. Only her niece Violantha (Henny Porten) can escape such impositions.

One day a company of soldiers set up their quarters nearby in preparation for a manoeuvre. Since soldiers are often sexually starved because of their long service, Violantha has the good sense to stay away from these people. Nevertheless, a lieutenant manages to seduce the young woman and drag her to her bed.

To his great misfortune, his immediate superior, the commander of the troop, is on a general inspection tour and notices the unauthorised absence of his officer. When he returns to his company at the camp, he is immediately arrested for unauthorised removal from the troops. Violantha, who does not know why suddenly her lieutenant has vanished, thinks her part of it and leaves her valley in the Ticino for the city, hoping to find work there. She finally receives it from the old innkeeper Hofer (Wilhelm Diegelmann).

Meanwhile, years pass by in the countryside. Alderman Alderich Renner (Wilhelm Dieterle) tries to woo Violantha, who since the unpleasant meeting with the soldier has become quite shy. Finally, she gives in to his urge to marry him. Shortly before the wedding, Violantha learns of her future from his dark family secret. He has a brother named Marianus (Alexander Sacha), the 'black sheep' of the family, who, one day, emigrated to America by night and fog, and since then nothing was heard from him again.

One day, when Marianus reappears in Alderich's hometown out of nowhere, Violantha, now the mother of two children, realises with horror that this man is her former soldierly seducer. Not that Marianus now asks for forgiveness for his sexual surprise act, no: he rather tries to make Violantha again compliant by threatening her, he will otherwise exchange words with his brother over her previous life.

Violantha, however, is not ready to be blackmailed by Marianus, and flees on her own into the mountains. Marianus follows her and wants to rape her this time. It comes to a fight in which the villain finds his death falling from a cliff into the depths. Freed from all the shadows of the past, the faithful wife returns to her husband Alderich.

The film's happy ending is different from the more tragic in the novel by Ernst Zahn. In Zahn's novel, Violantha knows the identity of her seducer from the very beginning, and she finally kills him intentionally in the mountains and then poisons herself.

Violantha was shot from August to October 1926 in the Efa studio in Berlin-Halensee (the interiors) and in Switzerland (the exteriors on the Gotthard massif, in Flüelen, Airolo, Andermatt, Hospental, Schöllenen and in the Val Treola). The not even four-year-old Inge Landgut made her film debut here as Porten's daughter. The sets were designed by Franz Schroedter, the costumes by Ali Hubert, while cinematography was by Axel Graatkjær and Gustave Preiss.

The six-act film passed German censorship on 9 March 1927, but had already premiered on 19 January 1927 in the Zurich Capitol cinema. In Germany Violantha was first shown at the Munich Phoebia-Kino on 25 November 1927. In 1942, the Ufa presented another film adaptation directed by Paul May. This sound version was released in German cinemas under the slightly changed title Violanta and it starred Annelies Reinhold.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 68/5. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film. Publicity still for Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927) with Henny Porten

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 68/6. Photo: A. Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film. Publicity still for Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 68/8. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film. Publicity still for Violantha (Carl Froehlich, 1927) with Henny Porten and Wilhelm Dieterle.

Sources: Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Last year, film historian Ivo Blom did an interesting find, a series of sepia postcards of three lost, silent films from the former Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, now Croatia. The films were produced by the short-lived studio Croatia Film and distributed in 1919 by Jugoslavija Film in Zagreb. On 25 October 2018, EFSP did a post on the drama Dvije sirote/Dvije sirotice/The Two Orphans (Alfred Grinhut a.k.a. Alfred Grünhut, 1918). Today follows the second post, Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918), starring Austrian actress Gina Klitsch in the title role.

Yugoslavian postcard by Jugoslavija Film, Zagreb, no. 1. Photo: Croatia Film. Publicity still for Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918) with Ivo Badallic and Gina Klitsch.

Yugoslavian postcard by Jugoslavija Film, Zagreb, no. 2. Photo: Croatia Film. Publicity still for Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918) with Ivo Badallic and Gina Klitsch.

Yugoslavian postcard by Jugoslavija Film, Zagreb, no. 3. Photo: Croatia Film. Publicity still for Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918) with Milica Mihicic.

A mundane melodrama unable to veil its technical shortcomings

Domestic film production in Croatia started during the First World War. In 1917, Hamilkar Bošković and Julien Bergmann founded the first Croatian film company, Croatia. They engaged Croatian actors and directors and Austrian technicians. At the end of 1918 Bošković and Bergmann sold their rights to the new company Hermes or New Croatia, which was active until 1920.

About their production Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918), former film historian Peter Volk wrote that only photos and some notes were left. However, he condemned the film as pretending to display a mundane melodrama but not being able to veil its technical shortcomings. Therefore, Sreten Jovanovic, in his 1976 text Metodoloski pristup istoriji jugoslovenske kinematografije sa posebnim osvrtom na kinematografiju u Zagrebu 1917-1923, is rather critical of Volk's judgements. The film itself is still lost, so we cannot check the qualities for ourselves.

In 1917 a stage play came out at the London Haymarket theatre, called The Lady in the Black Mask, by Tom Gallon, whose last work this was before he died. Perhaps the film was based on it. The play begins in a theatre with the heroine, Ruth, watching a play. Arriving home from the theatre, Damia, the girl whose companion she is, pleads fatigue and persuades her to go out again to a masked ball, wearing the dress and indeed assuming the personality of her mistress. The two girls live in a gloomy house with old Mr. Verinder, who is Damia's guardian. But when Ruth returns from the ball, Verinder has been stabbed during Ruth's absence. As no one knows, or would ever believe, that it was Damia and not herself who had remained at home, Ruth is in a pretty bad situation. Moreover, it is not sure whether Damia really killed Verinder...

Little is known about director Robert Staerk. After Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask, he returned to the film sets after a gap of a decade, to act instead of direct. Between 1928 and 1932 he acted in three German films.

Very little is also known about the actress Gina Klitsch, who played the lead in the film. She is named Tina Klitsch on IMDb, and it would have been her only film. However, there was an Austrian actress Gina Puch-Klitsch. She was the sister of Austrian film star Olaf Fjord, originally Ämilian Maximilian Pouch. Puch-Klitsch played in three Austrian films in 1920, produced by her brother's company Fjord-Film, and starring himself. In 1922 she was Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) in Ludwig II (Otto Kreisler, 1922), opposite her brother in the title role. In 1930 she had a major part opposite Oscar Marion and Attila Hörbiger in the Austrian film Die Tat des Andreas Harmer/The act of Andreas Harmer (Alfred Deutsch, 1930).

Milica Mihicic (1864–1950) was a Croatian actress known for her early part in Dama sa crnom krinkom (1918). As a pupil of the Croatian actor and director Mandrović, Mihicic debuted in 1890 at the Croatian National Theatre. She was accepted and worked over 50 years on this stage. She acted often in plays by such French authors as Ohnet, Bourdet, etc., whose characterts she was able to enliven with fine irony. She also appeared in the realistic and psychological plays by Tolstoy, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Pirandello etc. Mihicic was an important supporter of local plays by Vojnović, Begović (sd.), Krleža, Kulundžić, etc. She also translated some German and French plays into Croatian.

Ignjat (Ignacij) Borštnik (1858-1919) was a Croatian and Slovene actor. He scripted the first and very ambitious project of the new Yugoslavia, Brišem i sudim/B. and the Judges (Arnošt Grund, 1917), a grandiose, poetic melodrama. Borštnik interpreted the main role in the film as well. Tošo Lesić and Ivo Badalić, who also played in Dama sa crnom krinkom, acted in Brišem i sudim/B. and the judge as well. Tošo Lesić aka Teodor Lesić (1866-1949) was a Croatian actor.

Ivo Badalić (1890-1937) was a Croatian actor and director. He was a member of the Zagreb Drama Theatre, then worked in Split and Osijek. He participated in the first Croatian feature films, such as Brišem i sudim/B. and the Judges (Arnošt Grund, 1917), Matija Gubec (Aleksandar-Aca Binicki, 1917) and Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918). In the theatre, he made significant acting achievements in plays by William Shakespeare and Miroslav Krleža.

NB. Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918) was distributed by Jugoslavija Film in 1919, that's why IMDb lists it as a production from 1919.

Yugoslavian postcard by Jugoslavija Film, Zagreb, no. 4. Photo: Croatia Film. Publicity still for Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918) with Milica Mihicic and Gina Klitsch.

Yugoslavian postcard by Jugoslavija Film, Zagreb, no. 5. Photo: Croatia Film. Publicity still for Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918) with Gina Klitsch, Ignat Borstnik and Toso Lesic.

Yugoslavian postcard by Jugoslavija Film, Zagreb, no. 6. Photo: Croatia Film. Publicity still for Dama sa crnom krinkom/The Lady in the Black Mask (Robert Staerk, 1918) with Gina Klitsch and Toso Lesic.

Sources: Biographien.ac.at, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Yesterday, French singer and actor Dick Rivers (1945-2019) passed away. With Eddy Mitchell and Johnny Hallyday, he was one of the three stars who introduced Rock and Roll in France in the early 1960s. He was the frontman of the group Les Chats Sauvages. In later life, he also appeared in some films. Dick Rivers was 74.

French postcard by PSG, no. 923. Photo: Patrick Bertrand.

Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 6343.

Dutch postcard by Hercules, Haarlem, no. 641. Caption: Les Chats Sauvages in Twist Dance.

French collectors card by Publistar.

The Wild Cats

Dick Rivers was born Hervé Fornieri in in Villefranche-sur-Mer in southern France in 1945. He was fascinated by America, the juke box and Rock and Roll. He admired Elvis Presley, who highly influenced both his singing and his looks.

In 1960, at the age of fifteen, Hervé founded with three friends, guitarists Jean-Claude and Gerard Roboly, and bassist Gerard Jacquemus, the group Les Chats Sauvages (The Wild Cats). With his black hair slicked back, his never worn jeans and his cowboy boots he was the lead singer. His stage name came from the character (Deke Rivers) that Presley played in his second film, Loving You (Hal Kanter, 1957).

In February 1961, the British music magazine, NME, reported that Rivers concert at the Palais des Sports de Paris, whilst headlining with Vince Taylor, had turned into a full-scale riot. Between May 1961 and June 1962, he recorded with Les Chats Sauvages more than a hundred songs, and they sold more than 2 million albums.

Big hits were Ma petite amie est vache (My girlfriend is a cow), Twist à Saint-Tropez (Twist in Saint-Tropez) and Est-ce que tu le sais (Do you know). The band’s success extended to all French-speaking countries, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec, where they attracted large crowds.

But then, Rivers suddenly left Les Chats Sauvages.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 228. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1095. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 227. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by P.I., no. 1085, offered by Corvisart. Photo: Jean Mainbourg.

Mister D

In September 1962, Dick Rivers released his solo single Baby John which sold 200,000 copies. It was the start of a long and successful solo career, with more than thirty albums (three in English) and many singles.

Among his hits were Tu n'es plus là (1963), the French version of Roy Orbison’s Blue Bayou, and Va t'en va t'en (1965), based on Go Now by the Moody Blues.

In the 1970s, his music seemed outdated. For ten years, between 1982 and 1992, he hosted a program devoted to rock on Radio Monte Carlo.

In 1994, a first collection of his old successes, Very-Dick was certified gold the following year. He started to record new music. In 1999, Dick made his first film La Candide Madame Duff/The Candid Lady Duff (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1999) and gave about 60 concerts in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

In 2003, Rivers played in the comedy Le Furet/The Ferret (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 2003) with Jacques Villeret and Michel Serrault. The following year he appeared on stage in the play Les Paravents (The Screens) by Jean Genet, at the Théâtre National de Chaillot. It was a success.

Furthermore, he was the French voice of Shere Khan in Jungle Book 2 (Steve Trenbirth, 2003) and he also gave his voice to Arthur et les Minimoys/Arthur and the Invisibles (Luc Besson, 2006). On television he appeared in Mon amour de fantôme/Phantom Love (Arnaud Sélignac, 2007).

To celebrate his 50-year career, the album Mister D was released in 2011. At the same time, a book with the same title was published containing his memoirs collected by Sam Bernett. He returned to the stage and made a tour in France.

Dick Rivers passed away on 24 April 2019. He died of cancer and was 74. He was married to Micheline Davis, but they separated. They had a son, Pascal, and an adopted daughter, Natala, who lived for three years with the American director George Lucas. Later Rivers lived together with longtime partner Babette.

Small French collectors card, offered by Jony Biscuits.

French promotion card by Pathé Marconi, no. 1-64. Photo: Pleine Page.

French promotion card by Pathé Marconi, no. 5-63. Photo: Vallois.

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 1339.

French promotion card by Sonopresse. Photo: Tony Frank.

Sources: RFI Musique (French), Dick Rivers.com (French), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

Earlier this week, on 21 April 2019, grand German actress Hannelore Elsner (1942-2019) died from cancer. Elsner started her film career in quickly forgotten light entertainment films, but in later years she starred in films by interesting directors like Edgar Reitz, István Szabó, Dani Levy and Uli Edel. She is best known in Germany for her roles in popular TV series such as Die Schwarzwaldklinik/The Black Forest Hospital (1987-1988) and the Krimi series Die Kommissarin/The Inspectoress (1994-2006).

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg. Photo: Constantin / Rialto / Vogelmann. Publicity still for Zum Teufel mit der Penne - Die Lümmel von der ersten Bank, 2. Teil/To hell with the pen - The clown of the first bank, Part 2 (Werner Jacobs, 1968).

Hannelore Elsner in ...aber Jonny! (1973)

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg. Photo: Constantin / Vogelmann. Publicity still for ...aber Jonny!/...But Johnny! (Alfred Weidenmann, 1973).

Hannelore Elsner in Die Kommissarin (1994)

German postcard by Das Erste. Photo: ARD / Thorsten Eichhorst. Hannelore Elsner in the TV series Die Kommissarin/The Inspectoress (1994-2006).

Heimat

Hannelore Elsner was born Hannelore Elstner in 1942 in Burghausen, Bavaria. Her father, an engineer, died when she was eight years old. She lost her brother, who was three years older, during a World War II air raid.

In 1959, she made her screen debut in the Heimatfilm Alt Heidelberg/Old Heidelberg (Ernst Marischka, 1959) starring Christian Wolff. That year she also played small parts in Immer die Mädchen/Always the girls (Fritz Rémond Jr., 1959), with Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff, and Freddy unter fremden Sternen/Freddy under foreign stars (Wolfgang Schleif, 1959), featuring Schlager singer Freddy Quinn.

She had her first starring role in Das Mädchen mit den schmalen Hüften/Yusha (Johannes Kai, 1961) opposite Claus Wilcke. After finishing drama school in her hometown Burghausen in 1962, she worked in theatres in Berlin and München.

During the 1960s she continued to play in several light entertainment films, including the comedy Zur Hölle mit den Paukern/To hell with the drummers (Werner Jacobs, 1968). It was the first entry into the seven part Die Lümmel von der ersten Bank/The clown of the first bank series of comedy films starring Hansi Kraus and Theo Lingen. Elsner also appeared in the sports comedy Willi wird das Kind schon schaukeln/Willi Manages The Whole Thing (Werner Jacobs, 1972). It was the final entry into a four film series with Heinz Erhardt as Willi.

She also played in more serious films like Die Reise nach Wien/Trip to Vienna (Edgar Reitz, 1973), in which she co-starred with Elke Sommer and Mario Adorf. During the closing months of the Second World War, two small-town German women discover some money in an attic and decide to spend it on a trip to Vienna. Interesting was also the Italian adventure film Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca/Challenge to White Fang (Lucio Fulci, 1974) starring Franco Nero. It is the only official sequel to the box office hit Zanna Bianca/White Fang (Lucio Fulci, 1973).

From then on, she appeared in arthouse films like Berlinger (Alf Brustellin, Bernhard Sinkel, 1975), featuring Martin Benrath, the comedy Bomber & Paganini (Nicos Perakis, 1976) with Mario Adorf, and Grete Minde (Heidi Genée, 1977), based on the novel by Theodor Fontane and featuring Katerina Jacob.

For Der Schneider von Ulm/The Tailor from Ulm (1979), she reunited with director Edgar Reitz, who became famous for his TV series Heimat, in which Elsner also had a role. Der Schneider von Ulm tells the true story of a German pioneer aviator, Albrecht Berblinger (Tilo Prückner), in the late 18th century.

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg, no. 5194. Photo: Constantin / Rialto / Vogelmann. Hannelore Elsner in Hurra, wir sind mal wieder Junggesellen!/Hurray, we're bachelors again! (Harald Philipp, 1971).

German autograph card. Photo: Ruth Kappus.

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Hamburg. Photo: Karin Rocholl, Hamburg.

First Krimi with a Female Lead

During the 1980s and 1990s, Hannelore Elsner starred in several films but also in many popular TV series such as Die Schwarzwaldklinik/The Black Forest Hospital (1987-1988). In 1980, she starred in the cold-war melodrama Der grüne Vogel/The green bird (1980) by acclaimed director István Szabó.

Her other films included the Swiss drama Mann ohne Gedächtnis/Man Without Memory (Kurt Gloor, 1984), the drama Marie Ward - Zwischen Galgen und Glorie/Marie Ward: Between gallows and glory (Angelika Weber, 1985), and the British crime film Parker (Jim Goddard, 1985) starring Bryan Brown.

She became well known in Germany and other German speaking countries for her role in the German detective series Die Kommissarin/The Inspectoress (1994-2006). The series, which takes place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is notable as being the first, and as one of the most successful, Krimi series with a female lead character. She played the lead character Inspector Lea Sommer in 66 episodes. Sommer is divorced with custody of her teenage son, Daniel. She is looking forward to a new relationship with her new boyfriend, Jonathan. Although Lea and Jonathan telephone each other frequently, he is never seen or heard on screen. Sommer was originally paired with Nick Siegel (Til Schweiger), but in a 1996 episode, Siegel was shot to death by an escaping criminal.

Elsner’s later films include Die Unberührbare/No Place to Go (Oskar Roehler, 2000) with Vadim Glowna, and Alles auf Zucker!/Go for Zucker (Dani Levy, 2004). This ironic comedy about modern Jewish identity in present-day Germany can be seen as part of the ´Ossi-Wessi´ confrontation within Germany. Henry Hübchen stars as Jaecki Zucker, and Elsner co-stars as his mother.

She then co-starred in the drama Kirschblüten – Hanami/Cherry Blossoms (Doris Dörrie, 2008), which tells the story of Rudi (Elmar Wepper): terminally ill, he travels to Japan after the sudden death of his wife Trudi (Elsner) – in order to make up for missed opportunities in life. Elsner also played German rapper Bushido’s mother in the biographical film Zeiten ändern dich/Times change you (Uli Edel, 2008), starring Bushido himself. Recently, she appeared in Hin und weg/Tour de Force (Christian Zübert, 2014), a powerful drama about euthanasia starring Florian David Fitz, and Hannas schlafende Hunde/Hanna’s sleeping dogs (Andreas Gruber, 2016).

Hannelore Elsner’s longtime companion was Professor Günter Blamberger. She was previously married to actor Gerd Vespermann (1964-1966) and Uwe Carstensen (1993-2000). She had a son, Dominik (1981), from a relationship with director Dieter Wedel.

Trailer Die endlose Nacht - Nebel über Tempelhof (1963). Source: Arild Rafalzik (YouTube).

Trailer for Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca/Challenge to White Fang (1974). Source: Italo-Cinema Trailer (YouTube).

German trailer for Auf das Leben/To Life! (2014). Source: Berlin & Beyond Film Festival (YouTube).

German trailer for Hannas schlafende Hunde/Hanna’s sleeping dogs (2016). Source: Vipmagazin (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Actress Elina Bystritskaya (1928-2019) was one of the most beautiful women of the Soviet cinema. She is best known for her role of Axinia in the epic film trilogy of Mikhail Sholokhov's novel Tikhiy Don/And Quiet Flows the Don (1957-1958) by Sergei Gerasimov. She passed away today, 26 April 2019, in Moscow. Bystritskaya was 91.

Russian postcard, 1966.

Russian multiview postcard, no. 115, 1958. Photos from above: Elina Bystritskaya in Bogatyr idyot v Marto/The bogatyr goes to Marto (Yevgeni Bryunchugin, Sigizmund Navrotsky, 1954), Neokonchennaya povest/Unfinished Story (Fridrikh Ermler, 1955) and Tikhiy Don/Quiet Flows the Don (Sergei Gerasimov, 1957).

Russian postcard.

Socialist Realist Film

Elina Avraamovna Bystritskaya was born in 1928 in Kiev, Soviet Union (now: Ukrain). She was born to a Jewish family. Her father, Avraam Petrovich Bystritsky, was a notable medical doctor in Kiev, and her mother, Esther Isaakovna, worked as a medical administrator.

Young Elina worked as a nurse helping her parents in a Soviet military hospital during World War II. She was decorated by the Soviet State for her contribution. She went on to study as a medical nurse at Nezhin Nursing School, specialising in gynecology. She went to work at a gynecological clinic.

At the same time Elina started being engaged in amateur performances. Shortly after becoming a nurse, Bystritskaya tried out for a Kiev acting school and failed. Disappointed, she decided to study to become a teacher, but then tried out for acting school again and was accepted. From 1948-1953 she attended the Kiev Theatrical Institute.

In 1953 Elina Bystritskaya graduated from the institute and started working at the Russian Drama Theater in Vilnius (1953-1956), and then at the Moscow A.S. Pushkin Drama Theater (1956-1958).

From 1950 on, she acted in films, and quickly rose to fame. In 1955, she appeared with the later director Sergei Bondarchukin Neokonchennaya povest/Unfinished Story (Fridrikh Ermler, 1955) an archetypal Socialist Realist film. With her role as a doctor in this film, she became a star in the Soviet Union.

Bystritskaya was acclaimed as the Best Soviet actress of the year, and was a member of the Soviet delegation in Paris for the Week of Soviet Film there.

Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. 3975, 1962. Retail price: 8 kop.

Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. 4490, 1964. Retail price: 8 kop.

Small Russian collectors card.

The Russian equivalent of Gone with the Wind

In 1956, Elina Bystritskaya was handpicked by writer Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov to co-star as Aksinya opposite Pyotr Glebov in the trilogy Tikhiy Don/And Quiet Flows the Don (Sergei Gerasimov, 1957-1958).

The three-part, 330 minutes lasting, epic film was released in 1957 (parts 1 and 2) and 1958 (part 3). It was based on Sholokhov's classic novel about a Cossack family living along the Don river, and portrays their experience of World War One, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War.

Proud and red-blooded Don Cossack Grigori (Pyotr Glebov) comes home from the First World War and has a crush on dark-haired Aksinya, but she is already married - an unhappy marriage. Angered by the adulterous affair, Grigori's parents arrange a marriage with a village bride, but even after being married, Grigori cannot stop seeing Aksinya.

The tragedy is set against a background of great historic upheaval, including big battle scenes: the First World War, the Revolution and the Civil War, making it the Russian equivalent of Gone with the Wind.

In 1958, Bystritskaya turned to theatre work in the Maly Theatre in Moscow, and her screen appearances grew sporadic. Her later films include Vsyo ostayotsya lyudyam/Everything Remains for the People (Georgi Natanson, 1963), and Bravye parni (Nikolai Zaseyev, 1993).

In 1960, the USSR sent a delegation to meet with President Eisenhower in the White House. Bystritskaya, along with Sergei Bondarchuk and Nikolay Cherkasov, was a member of that delegation. Bystritskaya was sought after by American directors, who wanted to invite the Soviet star to perform in Hollywood films. But she was not told of those offers, and she continued to perform solely in the Soviet Union.

In 1978 she was named People's Artist of the Year. She also taught acting at the Shchepkin school (Shchepkin Theatre School), and at the Soviet State Theatrical Institute (GITIS). At the age of 80 the actress still worked in the Maly Theatre.

Bystritska was married to Nicolas Kuzminsky, a member of the ministry of Foreign Affairs. The couple never had children. After she left acting, Bystritskaya remained in the public eye due to her political activism and her support for President Putin.

In 2014, Bystritskaya publicly opposed the 'Euromaidan' movement which was sweeping across Ukraine. The actress called on Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich to end the Euromaidan and arrest its participants. She and her fellow anti-Euromaidan protesters claimed that the Euromaidan movement was anti-Russian and called on Yanukovich to take action against the group’s leaders. That year, the Russian government annexed the Crimean Peninsula. The move sharply divided sentiments throughout the former Soviet Union. Bystritskaya was among those who supported the move.

On 26 April 2019, after a long illness, Elina Bystritskaya passed away in Moscow at the age of 91.

Small Romanian collectors card.

Russian multi-view card. Photo: combination of publicity stills for Tikhiy Don/And Quiet Flows the Don (Aleksandr Gerasimov, 1957).

Russian postcard, no. A 506112. Price: 75 Kop. Released in an edition of 40,000 postcards.

Russian postcard. Photo: compilation with still from Tikhiy Don/And Quiet Flows the Don (1957).

Love scenes from Tikhiy Don/And Quiet Flows the Don (1957-1958). Source: Elfiya (YouTube).

Sources: Kate Prengel (heavy.), Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Russia-IC, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

100 years ago Bavaria Film in Munich was founded. The German studio is still one of Europe's largest film production companies, with some 30 subsidiaries. Many famous, international films were made here, including Alfred Hitchcock's film debut. For this post, we focus on the Nazi period, when 'Bavaria Filmkunst' became one of the four major film companies of Germany.

German card. Photo: Bavaria. Publicity still for IA in Oberbayern/1A in Upper Bavaria (1937, Frans Seitz). Caption: "Ein lustiger Zeitvertreib für Ursula Grabley und Georg Bauer in dem film IA in Oberbayern". (A fun pastime for Ursula Grabley and Georg Bauer in the film IA in Oberbayern/1A in Upper Bavaria).

Heli Finkenzeller. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 125, Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Gusti Huber. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 2235/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Hans Moser. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2713/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst / Wien Film. Publicity still for Anton, der Letzte/Anthony the Last (E.W. Emo, 1939).

Ruth Hellberg. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2971/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Bavaria Film-Kunst.

Alfred Hitchcock's film debut

The Bavaria Film studios were founded as Münchener Lichtspielkunst GmbH in 1919. Then Munich-raised film producer Peter Ostermayr converted the private film company he had started in 1907, Münchener Lichtspielkunst GmbH, to the public company Münchener Lichtspielkunst AG (Emelka).

He acquired a large area (ca. 356.000 m²) for the studios in Geiselgasteig, a district of Munich's southern suburb Grünwald. He built a glass studio there. The company was a direct competitor to Ufa, which had started in Berlin in 1917, and it quickly absorbed several other film industry companies in the region. The first film shot in Geiselgasteig was Der Ochsenkrieg/The Ox War (Franz Osten, 1920).

Many well-known silent films were made in the studios, including the costume film Monna Vanna (Richard Eichberg, 1922), starring Paul Wegener and Lee Parry, the Indo-European co-production Prem Sanyas/The Light of Asia (Franz Osten, Himanshu Rai, 1925) about the origin of the Buddha, and also British director Alfred Hitchcock made here his first film, The Pleasure Garden (1925).

The last large-scale production Waterloo (Karl Grune, 1928), starring Otto Gebühr, ushered in the bankruptcy of the Emelka and the transition to Bavaria. From 24 September 1930, Emelka produced in addition to the films also a weekly newsreel, the 'Tönende Emelka-Wochenschau'. Director Max Ophüls made his musical comedy Die verkaufte Braut/The Bartered Bride (Max Ophüls, 1932) starring Jarmila Novotná. When Bavaria's theatre chain financially did not survive the conversion to sound film, Emelka had to declare bankruptcy in November 1932.

Willy Birgel. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2991/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Brigitte Horney. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. 3378/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Bavaria Filmkunst.

Hans Holt. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3499/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Hämmerer / Wien-Film / Bavaria Filmkunst.

Josef Eichheim. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3528/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Johannes Heesters. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3570/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz/Bavaria Filmkunst. Collection: Egbert Barten.

Suddenly We're in Powell and Pressburger Territory

In 1930, investor Wilhelm Kraus and a consortium of banks bought a major shareholding in the company, and on 21 September 1932 the group took control of the company and renamed it Bavaria Film AG. After the National Socialists seizure of power in January 1933, a number of longtime Bavaria employees left the country, including the directors Ewald André Dupont, Karl Grune, Max Ophüls, the cinematographer Franz Planner and the actors Therese Giehse and Fritz Kortner.

Director Kurt Bernhardt (also known as Curtis Bernhardt) directed the French-German science fiction film Der Tunnel/The Tunnel (Kurt Bernhardt, 1933) starring Paul Hartmann and Attila Hörbiger. It is an adaptation of Bernhard Kellermann's 1913 novel 'Der Tunnel' about the construction of a vast tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean connecting Europe and America.A separate French version was also produced. In 1935 the film was remade in Britain as The Tunnel/Transatlantic Tunnel (Maurice Elvey, 1935). The British film was released in the United States.

In 1934, the drama Peer Gynt (Fritz Wendhausen, 1934) was made at the Bavaria studios. Peer Gynt starred Hans Albers, Lucie Höflich and Marieluise Claudius, and it is based on the play 'Peer Gynt' by Henrik Ibsen. It was one of the most expensive productions made by Bavaria Film and involved location shooting in Norway. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Karl Vollbrecht and Hermann Warm.

After the Bavaria got into difficulties in 1936 and had to stop its payments in the spring of 1937, Bavaria Film was nationalised. The Bavaria Filmkunst GmbH was founded on 11 February 1938 with political support from Berlin. Shareholders were the notorious firm Cautio Treuhand and the General Film Trust (AFT), a wealthy company that held their shares in trust for the Cautio.

In 1939, Hans Albers starred in the Western Wasser für Canitoga/Water for Canitoga (Herbert Selpin, 1939) with Charlotte Susa and Josef Sieber. The film is in fact a 'Northern', set in Canada in 1905 where an engineer is working to construct a new water supply system despite repeated attempts at sabotage. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Wilhelm Depenau,Ludwig Reiber and Arthur Schwarz.

On 19 February 1941, however, Bavaria was relinquished to the Berlin Film Finance Company. The production facilities remained in Munich, but the company was now controlled from Berlin. On 10 January 1942, the Cautio also withdrew its Bavaria shares, and Film Finanz, which now owned all shares in Bavaria Filmkunst, was simultaneously transformed into the Ufa film (UFI). In the state-owned monopoly group UFI Bavaria had from 1942 on only formal independence.

Managing Director and Production Manager of the Bavaria were Hans Schweikart from 1938 to 1942, Erich Walter Herbell, Helmut Schreiber and Helmut Keil. Production group leaders were Hans Abich, Fred Lyssa, Oskar Marion, Ottmar Ostermayr, Ernst Rechenmacher and Gerhard Staab.

Popular were the comedies with Hans Moser and Theo Lingen, like Sieben Jahre Glück/Seven Years Luck (Ernst Marischka, 1942), in which they co-starred with Wolf Albach-Retty and Hannelore Schroth. But also romantic comedies such as Reise in die Vergangenheit/Trip to the past (Hans H. Zerlett, 1943), starring Olga Tschechowa and Ferdinand Marian, Es lebe die Liebe (Erich Engel, 1944), with Lizzi Waldmüller and the Dutch tenor Johannes Heesters, or Ich brauche dich (1944), starring Marianne Hoppe and Willy Birgel.

Famous director G.W. Pabst made the interesting Paracelsus (1943) with Werner Krauss at Bavaria. It is a celebratory film about the 'revolutionary' 16th century German philosopher/doctor known as Paracelsus (Werner Krauss). Reviewer MAK-4 at IMDb: "Though Pabst's sound films never achieved the prominence of his silent work, this is a well produced biopic with real surprises, especially when Paracelsus gives credit to Gypsy (!) folk remedies or when an Expressionist dance number symbolizes the entry of the plague (St. Vitus' Dance) into the closed town. Suddenly we're in Powell/Pressburger territory."

Other Bavaria films made during the final years of the Third Reich were the crime films Der Täter ist unter uns/The culprit is among us (Herbert B. Fredersdorf, 1944) with Paul Dahlke and Margot Hielscher, and Orient-Express (Viktor Tourjansky, 1944), starring Siegfried Breuer and Gusti Wolf. Popular was also the drama Das Lied der Nachtigall (Theo Lingen, 1944) with Elfie Mayerhofer, Johannes Riemann, and Paul Kemp.

René Deltgen. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3578/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Bavaria Filmkunst.

Charlotte Dalys. German Postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3596/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Siegfried Breuer. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3597/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Ferdinand Marian. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3602/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Haenchen / Bavaria Filmkunst. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Hannelore Schroth. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3606/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Haenchen / Bavaria Filmkunst.

The Sound of Music

The studios of the Bavaria Film remained undamaged in the war. On 10 May 1945, they were subordinated to the American army, which initially forbade Bavaria Filmkunst any production activity of its own. Only the film lab, which also set up a colour department in 1952, and the dubbing studio were allowed to continue to operate and soon resumed their work. In addition, a rental company - General Film Distribution, AFI for short - was founded on the premises.

After 1945, Bavaria was lead by the managing directors Helmut Jedele and Günter Rohrbach. Later CEOs were Thilo Kleine, Dieter Frank and Matthias Esche. The American military government allowed Bavaria to rent its studios to other production companies.

During the 1950s, the Bavaria studios have been used by numerous famous directors, such as Elia Kazan for Man on a Tightrope (1952), Max Ophüls for Lola Montès (1954), Stanley Kubrick for Paths of Glory (1957), Richard Fleischer for The Vikings (1958), John Huston for Freud: The Secret Passion (1960) and Robert Siodmak for L'Affaire Nina B (1960). Bavaria Film was privatised again in 1956.

During the 1960s the studio was again for such international productions as One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, 1961) with James Cagney, The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963) with Steve McQueen, The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) starring Julie Andrews, The Deep (Orson Welles, 1967), and Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970).

The Studios in Geiselgasteig are the reason why Munich has become a famous site of crime in TV fiction (in opposite to real life), with Krimi-series like Derrick, Der Alte/The Old Fox, and Der Kommissar.

Also Monty Python worked in Geiselgasteig in 1971 and 1972 for Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus (Mont Python's Flying Circus), two specials for German and Austrian television. In addition to recreating classic sketches as 'The Lumberjack Song', several new sketches were written specifically for this show, such as 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'William Tell' and a herd of cows doing 'Merchant of Venice'.

In these years, again many top directors worked in the Bavaria Studios: Bob Fosse directed Cabaret (1972), Wim Wenders made the two TV films Ein Haus für uns/A House for Us (1974), Ingmar Bergman directed The Serpent's Egg (1977), Billy Wilder returned to make Fedora (1978) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder created here his legendary TV series Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980).

Later followed Wolfgang Petersen with Das Boot (1981) and Enemy Mine (1985), Claude Chabrol with La demoiselle d'honneur/The Bridesmaid (2004) with Laura Smet, and Oliver Stone with Snowden/The Snowden Files (2015) with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Other production companies have produced films in the Bavaria studios, including Constantin Film, for example The Neverending Story (Wolfgang Petersen, 1984), Der Untergang/Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004) with Bruno Ganz, and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006) with Ben Whishaw and Dustin Hoffman.

Today, the company is managed by Christian Franckenstein (CEO) and Achim Rohnke. Twelve modern film and TV studios are located on the 30-acre site. Bavaria Filmstadt is an attraction offered for tourists. Visitors taking the tour see sets and props from The Neverending Story, Das Boot, and many more.

Theo Lingen. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3624/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Bavaria Filmkunst.

Leny Marenbach. German postcard, no. A 3643/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Paul Kemp. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 3864/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Bavaria Filmkunst.

Mathias Wieman. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3723/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Bavaria Filmkunst.

Olga Tschechowa. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3956/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Bavaria Filmkunst.

Sources: Bavaria Film, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Last Friday, 26 April 2019, German film and stage actress Ellen Schwiers passed away at the age of 88. The versatile actress often appeared as the dark, passionate woman, enmeshed in her own sensuality or another fate. During her 60 year-career she played in ca. 50 films and 150 television productions, but she also worked as a stage actress, director and intendant.

German postcard by ISV, no. M 2. Photo: Europa-Film / List.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 117. Photo: Bayer.

German autograph card by Simon Offset, München. Photo: Virginia.

Seven-year-contract

Ellen Schwiers was born in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland) in 1930. She was the daughter of stage actor Lutz Schwiers. Her brother, Holger Schwiers, was also an actor.

Ellen was trained to be a baker and a gardener, and before her breakthrough as an actress, she worked as a prompt. Her father gave her acting classes and she made her first stage appearance at the Stadttheater in Koblenz. Engagements in München (Munich), Frankfurt a.M., Göttingen and Zürich followed.

In 1949 she made her film debut in the romance Heimliches Rendezvous/Secret Rendezvous (Kurt Hoffmann, 1949). In the following sixty years she would play dozens of film roles.

She had her breakthrough in the cinema in the mid-1950s. She then appeared in box office hits like the war drama 08/15–2. Teil/ 08/15 Part 2 (Paul May, 1955), Anastasia – Die letzte Zarentochter/Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter (Falk Harnack, 1956) with Lilli Palmer, Skandal um Dr. Vlimmen/Dr. Vlimmen (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1956) and the Oscar nominated comedy Helden/Arms and the Man (Franz Peter Wirth, 1958) with O.W. Fischer and Lilo Pulver.

In France she appeared opposite Fernandel in the classic comedy La vache et le prisonnier/The Cow and I (Henri Verneuil, 1959). She was offered a seven-year-contract by a major Hollywood studio, but she refused to move to Los Angeles due to her family.

She was married to film producer Peter Jacob (the ex of Leni Riefenstahl) from 1952 till his death in 1992. They had two children, actress Katerina Jacob (1958) and actor Daniel Jacob (1963). Daniel died tragically from a tumor in 1985, only 21 years old.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Wanne-Eickel, no. 2143. Photo: Real / Rank Film / Gabriele. Ellen Schwiers in Skandal um Dr. Vlimmen/Dr. Vlimmen (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1956).

German postcard. Photo: Defir. Ellen Schwiers in Nackt, wie Gott sie schuf/Naked, how God created them (Hans Schott-Schöbinger, 1958).

German collectors card in the Star Revue series. Photo: Sokal Film / Bavaria / Gabriele. Ellen Schwiers in Helden/Arms and the Man (Franz Peter Wirth, 1958).

Problematic, Seductive Women

Ellen Schwiers often played problematic, seductive women, who stir up the well-ordered community like in Das Erbe von Björndal/Heritage of Bjorndal (Gustav Ucicky, 1960), the Krimi Der letzte Zeuge/The Last Witness (Wolfgang Staudte, 1960), Frau Irene Besser/Mrs Irene Besser (John Olden, 1960), and Der Satan mit den roten Haaren/Red-haired Satan (Alfons Stummer, 1964).

One of her best parts was Buhlschaft in the film adaptation of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann/Everyman (Gottfried Reinhardt, 1961) opposite Walter Reyer.

When the German film industry got in a crisis during the 1960s, she started to focus on television, and appeared in such hit series as Derrick and Tatort. On stage she starred as Lady Macbeth in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1972) or Lysistrata in Hochhuth’s Lysistrata und die Nato (1974).

During the 1970s she appeared in the international productions Novecento/1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976) with Robert de Niro, Gérard Depardieu and Donald Sutherland, and Fedora (Billy Wilder, 1978) with William Holden, Marthe Keller and Hildegard Knef.

In 1982 Ellen Schwiers founded Das Ensemble Jacob-Schwiers together with her husband and her daughter. Sher managed this theatre ensemble, for which she also directed plays.

Her last feature film was Scarmour (Sikander Goldau, 1997). She regularly appeared on German television. Recent TV-films were the thriller Mord am Meer/Murder at the Lake (Matti Geschonneck, 2005), the tragi-comedy Mein Vater und ich/My Father and I (Rolf Silber, 2005) with Dietmar Schönherr, and Eine Liebe in Königsberg/A Love in Königsberg (Peter Kahane, 2005).

In 2009 she appeared in the popular crime series SOKO 5113 and in 2011 in in the TV dramas In den besten Jahren/In the Best Years (Hartmut Schoen, 2006) with Senta Berger, and Im Fluss des Lebens/In the river of life (Wolf Gremm, 2011) with her daughter Katerina Jacob.

Ellen Schwiers was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1989. On 26 April 2019, she passed away in Berg am Starnberger See, Bavaria, at the age of 88. Actress Josephine Jacob is her granddaughter.

German photo.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1679, 1962.

German autograph card. Photo: Titsche-Friedrichs, Düsseldorf.

Sources: Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line.de - German), Prisma (German), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

Hungarian actress Maria Corda played Helen of Troy in the American silent film The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927) with Ricardo Cortez as Paris. Husband Alexander Korda directed them, parodying the plot-line of historical epics of the era by transforming the classical characters into everyday people with modern problems.

Ricardo Cortez and Maria Corda in The Private Life of Helen of Troy

French postcard by Europe, no. 312. Photo: Mercure Film. Maria Corda and Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

French postcard by Europe, no. 313. Photo: Mercure Film. Maria Corda and Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

Maria Corda in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)

French postcard by Europe, no. 315. Photo: Mercure Film. Maria Corda as Helen of Troy in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

French postcard by Europe, no. 316. Photo: Mercure Film. Maria Corda as Helen of Troy in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

A fetchingly underdressed coquette, oblivious to all the political turmoil she's causing

In the American historical epic The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927) stars Maria Corda as the legendary Queen Helen of Troy. The film was based on the 1925 novel of the same name by John Erskine and the play 'The Road to Rome' by Robert E. Sherwood, and it was adapted to screen by Carey Wilson with intertitles by Gerald Duffy, Ralph Spence and Casey Robinson.

In response to her husband Menelaus' (Lewis Stone) lack of interest in her, Helena elopes with Paris (Ricardo Cortez) to Sparta. Menelaus, egged on by his henchman, starts a war with Paris, finally effecting the return of Helen. The time-honoured custom demands that he have the pleasure of killing her, but her seductive loveliness restrains him. And so at the end of the story, we find Helen engaging in a new flirtation with the Prince of Ithaca, while Menelaus happily goes fishing.

The cast also included George Fawcett as Eteoneus, Alice White as Adraste, Bill Elliott as Telemachus and Hungarian actor Károly Huszár, credited here as Charles Puffy, as Malapokitoratoreadetos.

The film was produced by Carey Wilson for Richard A. Rowland Productions and was distributed by First National Pictures. Director George Fitzmaurice started the film, was fired and replaced by Hungarian-born Alexander Korda. The remarkable costumes were designed by Max Rée. Special effects by Ralph Hammaras. Cinematography was done by Lee Garmes and Sid Hickox (Sydney Hickox).

In 1928, the year of the Academy Awards' inception, The Private Life of Helen of Troy was nominated for an Oscar. According to an author at IMDb, it was for 'Engineering Effects', what we call now Special Effects or Special Visual Effects. According to Wikipedia, it was nominated in the short-lived category of 'Best Title Writing'. Wikipedia is right, according to the database at Oscars.org, Gerald Duffy was nominated for WRITING (Title Writing). The category was dropped by the second Academy Awards. Gerald Duffy had died on 25 June 1928, and he was the first person to be posthumously nominated for an Academy Award.

The film was a significant success for Korda. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Setting the standard for his later light-hearted biopics The Private Life of Henry VIII and Rembrandt, producer-director Alexander Korda steadfastly refuses to take any of The Private Life of Helen of Troy seriously. Maria Corda, wife of the director, plays the title character as a fetchingly underdressed coquette, oblivious to all the political turmoil she's causing."

Variety: "Helen [based on the novel by John Erskine] is all comedy. Satirizing ancient myth in general and Helen's affairs particularly, the titles are topical, while the music is mainly based on pop dance tunes. Wheeling the giant wooden horse inside the gates of Troy is accomplished to the strains of 'Horses, Horses, Horses', etc."

The Private Life of Helen of Troy survives only partially at the British Film Institute (BFI). Two sections from the beginning and end, running about 27–30 minutes in total, survive there.

Maria Corda and Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1925)

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 37. Photo: publicity still for The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 523. Maria Corda as Helen of Troy in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3216/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Defina / First national. Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

Maria Corda and Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3399/1. Photo: Defina. Maria Corda and Ricardo Cortez as Helena and Paris in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

Maria Cord and Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3684/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Defina. Maria Corda and Ricardo Cortez in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3780/1, 1928-1929. Photo: First National. Maria Corda in The Private Life of Helen of Troy (Alexander Korda, 1927).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Variety, Silent Era, Oscars.org, Wikipedia and IMDb.

The Swedish silent comedy Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917), scripted by Gustav Molander (as Harald B. Harald), deals with a screenwriter who falls in love with his secretary Bessie and imagines himself rescuing her from poverty. Reality is quite different as Bessie is a modern woman. The film also mocks the bored aristocracy involved in the modernity of filmmaking. Victor Sjöström and Karin Molander starred in this delicious little gem.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/1. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern AB. Publicity still for Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917). Caption: The home she ran away from, as it was described. Karin Molander as Bessie, with her parents played by Albin Lavén and Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson.

Victor Sjöström in Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/3. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern AB. Publicity still for Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917) with Victor Sjöström. Caption: The author Thomas Graal at sea.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/4. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern AB. Publicity still for Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917), with Karin Molander as Bessie and Albin Lavén, who plays her father. Caption: Miss Bessie has invented a war stratagem.

An adorable romantic comedy, a social tract and one of the first films about filmmaking

In Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917), the great Victor Sjöstrom stars as Thomas Graal, a screenwriter. He is very fond of his secretary Bessie, played by the lovely Karin Molander. However, she runs away from his kisses and embraces. In fact, Bessie has already run away earlier from her proper and domineering mother and her bumbling father to go to the big city, where she claimed to Thomas Graal that her parents are poor and mistreat just to get her a job as his secretary.

After she has run away from Thomas' kisses and embraces, Bessie is forced by family servants to go back to her parent's home. In his misfortune, Thomas Graal has run out of ideas. He embroiders Bessie's tall tales to create a screenplay and insists that Bessie must be found to play the leads with him in order to meet her again.

At IMDb, The Red Dutchess writes: "'Thomas Graal's Best Film' is one of the best comedies of the silent era. It works as an adorable romantic comedy about a concupiscent novelist who falls for his secretary; as a startling social tract, with the dessicated aristocracy giving onto the modern world of cinema, entrepreneurs and the New Woman; as one of the first films about filmmaking - there is an exquisite parody of Griffith's monumental 'Intolerance', as the actor playing a hanged criminal complains about the pain of being hoist from a ceiling."

"Stiller's movie shows a thrilling modernity in this sequence as it blurs not only the reality of Graal's writing and the fantasy he imagines, but also intrudes Bessie's own story: she disrupts his narrative just as she disrupts all the forces of (male) power that would try to pin her down. Bessie is one of the great heroines of silent film, permanently amused by the absurd complacency of the inferiors surrounding her, with a gorgeous, generous grin suggesting both a taste for playfulness, and a voracious sexual appetite. The scene where she flees her father and ritualistically forces him to abandon his paternalistic intentions by destroying the bridge between them is hilarious but provocative."

Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917) was shot at Svenska Biografteatern's studio at Lidingö with exteriors filmed by Henrik Jaenzon at Restaurant Blå Portens garden at Djurgården and various places in Stockholm.

Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film was premiered on 13 August 1917 at the cinema Röda Kvarn in Stockholm. A year later, the film got a sequel, Thomas Graals bästa barn/Thomas Graal's best child (Mauritz Stiller, 1918) with mostly the same cast and crew.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/7. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern AB. Publicity still for Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917), with Victor Sjöstrom. Caption: Thomas is found outside of the end-of-life home.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/8. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern AB. Publicity still for Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917), with Victor Sjöström and Karin Molander. Caption: The newly engaged ones.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/9. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern AB. Publicity still for Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917), with Victor Sjöström and Karin Molander. Caption: After the engagement dinner.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/10. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern AB. Publicity still for Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917). Caption: The official engagement dinner with landlord Douglas and his wife, Bessie's parents (played by Albin Lavén and Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson).

Sources: The Red Dutchess (IMDb), Wikipedia (Swedish) and IMDb.