Kleider machen Leute / Clothes Make the Man (1921) (fragment)

Hans Steinhoff: Kleider machen Leute / Clothes Make the Man (1921) with Hermann Thimig.

The Steinhoff Project
KLEIDER MACHEN LEUTE / BRŸUTIGAM AUF KREDIT (Volo Film, AT 1921)
Clothes Make the Man.
Unreleased in Finland.
    Dir/prod: Hans Steinhoff; sc: Hans Steinhoff, based on the short story “Kleider machen Leute” di / by Gottfried Keller; titles: Homunculus [Robert Weill]; ph: Anton Pucher; des: Hans Neumann (interiors), Hans Dostel, Robert Reich; cost: Karl Alexander Wilke; title des: Mayblond [Michael Maybaum], based on ideas by Hans Steinhoff;
    cast: Hermann Thimig, Dora Kaiser, Hugo Thimig, Thea Oesy, Wilhelm Schmidt, Franz Kammauf, Cornelius Kirschner, Eugen Günther, Fritz Straßny, Josef Moser, Victor Kutschera, Hans Thimig;
    premiere: 29.12.1921, UT Kurfürstendamm, Berlin; orig. length: 1893 m; fragment [restored Act 2 only]: 35 mm, 335 m, 13’ (22 fps), tinted & toned, Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv.
    German intertitles.
    In the presence of Horst Claus
    Grand piano: Donald Sosin.
    Viewed at Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Fuori quadro  – The Steinhoff Project, 15 Oct 2004

Horst Claus (GCM): "Based on a short story by the 19th-century Swiss author Gottfried Keller about the discrepancy between appearances and reality, the film tells the story of an unemployed, penniless tailor whom the petty bourgeois citizens of the small provincial town of Goldach mistake for an important aristocrat. Having eaten an opulent meal that was practically forced on him by the landlord of the “Hotel zur Waage”, the tailor’s various attempts to sneak away are thwarted by important citizens anxious to meet him in the hope of profiting from his acquaintance. Eventually he ends up in the hotel’s best room having a nightmare about the day's events, leading him up to the gallows."

"Written, directed, and produced by Steinhoff himself, this fragment of his first feature (restored by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv in 1999 from an original nitrate print) reflects its director's lifelong (but rarely realised) ambition to be the auteur of his films. It is an example of the professionalism with which he entered (and continued to work in) the film industry. The reel’s (originally tinted and toned) titles and trick sequences are imaginative, charming, and of a high professional standard. The humorous nightmare sequence nicely contrasts with that of Ivan the Terrible’s horror dream in Steinhoff’s next film, Der Falsche Dimitry (1922). All the location work took place in villages of the Vienna Woods. Though a flop with audiences, the film’s enormous critical success became Steinhoff’s entry ticket to the Berlin film industry. The archive would very much welcome information about any other elements of this film which may survive." – Horst Claus (GCM)

AA: I saw this fragment (duration at Zancanaro was 14'21"): innovative camera work and titles, even animation, interesting colour solutions of tinting and toning.