Their finest year
Nineteen Twenty-Seven was the year of miracles. Motion Pictures reached a parity of technology and creative expression, resulting in the greatest collective output of this or any other year, unsurpassed in both quantity and astonishing quality. It was the year of F. W. Murnau's masterpiece Sunrise and Frank Borzage's 7th Heaven, both starring Janet Gaynor, both produced by Fox and both showered with generous and well deserved awards. While Chaplin was missing from 1927, two of film's comic legends produced what many consider their finest work. Buster Keaton's Civil War tale The General and Harold Lloyd's rural gem The Kid Brother appeared. A banner year for Weimar Cinema, UFA produced G. W. Pabst's beautiful but nearly forgotten The Love of Jean Ney and Fritz Lang's futuristic nightmare, Metropolis, while French master Able Gance released his monumental epic, Napoléon. In the year Kevin Brownlow described as "Annus Mirabilis," Hollywood leader MGM contributed Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Love, an adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and a breathtaking Ernst Lubitsch production, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg.
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
Friday, July 13, 7:00 p. m., The Castro, San Francisco
Based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's story of doomed romance between a young prince and an innkeeper's daughter, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) was released by MGM following Sigmund Romberg's Broadway Operetta in 1924. Director Ernst Lubitsch offered a flattering combination of humorous chiding, casual effervescence and tragic duty-before-love resignation, in this lyrical adaptation, his eighth American film.
The wealth of craftsmanship and technology available within Hollywood's greatest studio is visible in the lighting, editing and photography of each and every frame. Starring in one of her finest roles as Kathi, Norma Shearer rivaled any actress on the lot. She was cast in the best productions, under the aegis of her future husband, executive producer and boy genius Irving Thalberg. As Prince Karl Heinrich, Ramon Novarro's expression of naive exuberance contrasted perfectly to the militaristic reality of his royal obligation. The cast was rounded out by a group of consummate supporting characters including, Jean Hersholt, Gustav von Seyffertitz and everyone's younger self, Philippe de Lacy.
A master of light comedy, Lubitsch fails to demonstrate the depth of despair and tragedy seen in the films of Borzage, Seastrom and others, but the exhilarating high entertainment of The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg is only matched by the exceptional beauty of the principle actors. Lubitsch conveys their shared desire by superimposing their eager faces, plunging the camera into close-ups and revealing the Prince's desperate fantasies of what can never be. With the timidity of a sheltered child, Karl Heinrich enters the beer garden below his rooms, seeking the acceptance of his classmates and Kathi's love. Lubitsch choreographed the swarming mass of uniformed and attentive young men with such fluid mastery, they seem to extend and punctuate every movement and gesture Karl Heinrich and Kathi make. At the moment their love is realized, they withdraw from reality, reclining in a fantasy of luminous flowers, beautiful, unreal and impossible.
Nineteen Twenty-Seven was the year of miracles. Motion Pictures reached a parity of technology and creative expression, resulting in the greatest collective output of this or any other year, unsurpassed in both quantity and astonishing quality. It was the year of F. W. Murnau's masterpiece Sunrise and Frank Borzage's 7th Heaven, both starring Janet Gaynor, both produced by Fox and both showered with generous and well deserved awards. While Chaplin was missing from 1927, two of film's comic legends produced what many consider their finest work. Buster Keaton's Civil War tale The General and Harold Lloyd's rural gem The Kid Brother appeared. A banner year for Weimar Cinema, UFA produced G. W. Pabst's beautiful but nearly forgotten The Love of Jean Ney and Fritz Lang's futuristic nightmare, Metropolis, while French master Able Gance released his monumental epic, Napoléon. In the year Kevin Brownlow described as "Annus Mirabilis," Hollywood leader MGM contributed Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Love, an adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and a breathtaking Ernst Lubitsch production, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg.
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
Friday, July 13, 7:00 p. m., The Castro, San Francisco
Based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's story of doomed romance between a young prince and an innkeeper's daughter, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) was released by MGM following Sigmund Romberg's Broadway Operetta in 1924. Director Ernst Lubitsch offered a flattering combination of humorous chiding, casual effervescence and tragic duty-before-love resignation, in this lyrical adaptation, his eighth American film.
The wealth of craftsmanship and technology available within Hollywood's greatest studio is visible in the lighting, editing and photography of each and every frame. Starring in one of her finest roles as Kathi, Norma Shearer rivaled any actress on the lot. She was cast in the best productions, under the aegis of her future husband, executive producer and boy genius Irving Thalberg. As Prince Karl Heinrich, Ramon Novarro's expression of naive exuberance contrasted perfectly to the militaristic reality of his royal obligation. The cast was rounded out by a group of consummate supporting characters including, Jean Hersholt, Gustav von Seyffertitz and everyone's younger self, Philippe de Lacy.
A master of light comedy, Lubitsch fails to demonstrate the depth of despair and tragedy seen in the films of Borzage, Seastrom and others, but the exhilarating high entertainment of The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg is only matched by the exceptional beauty of the principle actors. Lubitsch conveys their shared desire by superimposing their eager faces, plunging the camera into close-ups and revealing the Prince's desperate fantasies of what can never be. With the timidity of a sheltered child, Karl Heinrich enters the beer garden below his rooms, seeking the acceptance of his classmates and Kathi's love. Lubitsch choreographed the swarming mass of uniformed and attentive young men with such fluid mastery, they seem to extend and punctuate every movement and gesture Karl Heinrich and Kathi make. At the moment their love is realized, they withdraw from reality, reclining in a fantasy of luminous flowers, beautiful, unreal and impossible.