Karl Valentins Hochzeit / [Karl Valentin's Wedding]

Ansfelder: Karl Valentins Hochzeit / [Karl Valentin's Wedding] (DE 1912?/1913?).  With Georg Rückert (bride) and Karl Valentin (groom). Photo: Valentin-Karlstadt-Museum, München.

[Le nozze di Karl Valentin] (DE 1912?/1913?) regia/dir: Ansfelder. scen: Karl Valentin?. photog: Pallatz. cast: Karl Valentin (sposo/bridegroom), Georg Rückert (sposa/bride), Liesl Karlstadt (ospite di nozze/wedding guest, serva/maidservant), Karl Flemisch, Otto Wenninger, Therese Wach. prod: Martin Kopp, Kopp-Film, München. copia/copy: DCP, 12'; did./titles: GER. fonte/source: Filmmuseum München.
    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Slapstick Prog. 5 Marriage Rows, 13 Oct 2023.

Ulrich Rüdel (GCM 2023): " An eager “media craftsman” throughout his career, Karl Valentin (Valentin Ludwig Fey, 1882-1948) embraced stage, film, records, radio, book publications of his stage work, and even his own cabinet of curiosities as a means of artistic and comic expression. His love affair with cinema, however, remained largely unrequited, regardless of his considerable efforts: the 618-page Filme und Filmprojekte (1995) compendium is the most massive book in the nine-volume critical edition of the comic’s texts, and his spotty film career has been subject to considerable film archaeology for decades. "

" “Inventive Munich comic Karl Valentin has been captured on film. Are you aware of the popularity of Karl Valentin’s Munich appearances? That mass popularity is mostly based on the pointed pantomime Valentin so expertly masters. A pantomime forcing a laugh even from the most grumpy stickler will give you the opportunity to open up unexpected perspectives for your business.” (Quoted in Klaus Gronenborn, Karl Valentin. Filmpionier und Medienhandwerker, Kinematograph Nr. 23, 2007) Thus, Valentin himself announced his imminent film career in 1912, commencing with what is now his oldest surviving short, Karl Valentins Hochzeit, where Valentin’s response to a lonely hearts ad quickly leads to a forced marriage, culminating in a fight finale ending with the comic’s demise. It also commenced his Filmpech, or movie misfortune, an ongoing career aspect Valentin, looking backwards, ironically lamented in an early 1940s comic song. According to a 1929 article by Walter Jerven, the first print of Karl Valentins Hochzeit was underexposed, necessitating a 1913 re-shoot. However it succeeded, and indeed provided a film comedy artistically equal to the ubiquitous French and Italian equivalents, but with a fresh, German comic talent: “Karl Valentin successfully transferred his stage role as ‘living caricature’ into his new platform. Makeup and costume present him as a ridiculous caricature of the elegant dandy represented by Max Linder in early French film comedy of the teens. His portrayal was the opposite of Chaplin’s role model, Linder. He was not a gallant lover [...]. Valentin presented himself like a scantily masked petit bourgeois full of misogynistic fears. He did not need an arsenal of collapsing buildings, no hordes of policemen gone wild like the era’s American slapstick films. The domestic coffee table was sufficient to produce comic effects with minimal means.” (Klaus Gronenborn, Karl Valentin. Filmpionier und Medienhandwerker, Kinematograph Nr. 23, 2007) "

" Opposite Valentin and contrasting with his skinny physique down to the film’s fatal body-crushing coda, the bride is played by portly comic Georg Rückert in drag. Not only prints, but also thorough historical details on Valentin’s early film career remain elusive. The quality of this new digital reconstruction from Filmmuseum München finally allows us to confirm the presence of Liesl Karlstadt, appearing both as a comic maid and as a wedding guest. Valentin’s stage (and at times life) partner Karlstadt was a comic genius in her own right, and ironically played some of her roles with Valentin in cross-dress mode as males also, such as an authoritarian conductor-nemesis of orchestra musician Valentin or as intoxicated father Valentin’s young son at his conformation, in a series of 1930s talkie shorts based on the team’s best known stage skits."  – Ulrich Rüdel

AA: Karl Valentin's first movie, startling in its austerity. In early cinema mode, in long shot and long takes. Although offered as a comedy, it makes the marriage infernos of August Strindberg look tame. Karl Valentin is a thin, skinny man, who weds a juggernaut bride. She tosses him around like a rag doll. The physical imbalance is extreme, and when Valentin collapses at the end of the final chase, he has to be carried away in a wheelbarrow. This movie belongs with the theatre of the absurd and existentialism.