Die Welt von einst - Max Linder (1943)

DIE WELT VON EINST – MAX LINDER / DIE WELT VON EINST: DER ERSTE FILMKOMIKER DER WELT, MAX LINDER [Il mondo di una volta – Max Linder / Il mondo di una volta: Il primo comico cinematografico del mondo, Max Linder; The World of Yesteryear – Max Linder / The World of Yesteryear: The First Film Comedian in the World, Max Linder] (DE? 1943) comp: Walter Jerven. cast: Max Linder. copia/copy: DCP, 28" (da/from 16 mm). fonte/source: Ulrich Ruedel + Lobster Films, Paris.

    Grand piano: Stephen Horne.
    Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Slapstick: Appetizers, 12 Oct 2023

Lisa Stein Haven (GCM 2023): " Norbert Aping, in his book Es darf gelacht werden: von Männern ohne Nerven und Vätern der Klamotte: Lexikon der deutschen TV-Slapstickserien Ost und West (2020), identified this film as a compilation by Walter Jerven, the same person who rediscovered the Karl Valentin silents featured elsewhere in this year’s “Origins of Slapstick” program. This footage, sourced from Ulrich Ruedel and Lobster Films, is from a 16 mm print of a German one-reel Max Linder compilation that was sonorized with voiceover commentary, which was limited to describing the action rather than identifying the actual films. It will be shown silent. [without the 1943 soundtrack - AA note] "

 " A total of 6 films can be distinguished in the larger compilation, and within those films many distinct scenes can be counted as well. The excerpts in question, from Max Linder’s Max, der Zirkuskönig , filmed at the Vita-Film Studios in Vienna from late December 1923 through April 1924, are 3 distinct scenes, all of which are outtakes. In fact, it is quite possible that these scenes were taken on the special press day that Linder set up on about 8 or 9 March 1924, to which the public were invited to fill the seats in the circus tent set, while Linder himself, in his lion tamer costume, practiced the all-important skill of cracking the whip. The first scene shows his entrance from the street, the second, his mingling with the crowd in the stands surrounding the circus ring, and the third his practicing with the whip inside the ring. "

" Linder had recently been receiving some bad press for, in addition to slow film production and high production costs, a failed suicide attempt involving his wife Ninette and himself. "

" On 22 February 1924 Linder and his wife took an overdose of Veronal pills (Linder three times as many as Ninette), but their maid discovered them at about 2:00 in the morning and had them transported to the hospital, where they received antidotes that saved them. The press day on 8 or 9 March was evidently devised to combat this bad press and to show that Linder was as vital and energetic as ever. The whip-cracking instruction, possibly the subject of the third scene, was the most important skill Linder had to master to film the scene with the lions safely. "

" The Hagenbeck Circus’s lion tamer, whose white coat can be seen briefly in the shot, gave Linder this advice: “Just don’t lose sight of the animal. And show yourself quite fearless.” (Quoted by Friedrich Porges in Film-Kurier, 25.3.1924) " Lisa Stein Haven

AA: Three outtakes with Max in lion tamer wear, glimpses from Max, der Zirkuskönig / Le Roi du Cirque.