Mit Karl Valentin und Liesl Karlstadt auf der Oktoberwiese / [With Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt at the Oktoberfest Fairgrounds]

Mit Karl Valentin und Liesl Karlstadt auf der Oktoberwiese (DE 1921). Liesl Karlstadt, Karl Valentin. Photo: Filmmuseum München / Edition Filmmuseum 89.

[Con Karl Valentin e Liesl Karlstadt sul prato dell’Oktoberfest] (DE 1921) regia/dir: ?. cast: Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt (Oktoberfest attendees). prod: Karl Valentin. copia/copy: 35 mm, 336 m, 14'41" (20 fps); did./titles: GER. fonte/source: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin.

    Forse un frammento di/Possibly a fragment from DER “ENTFLOHENE” HAUPTDARSTELLER [La fuga dell’interprete principale; The Fleeing/Flea-ing Star] (DE 1921) regia/dir: Josef Schmidt. cast: Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt, Hanna Lierke, Ludwig Wengg, Hans Schön-Matz (sposa/bride). prod: Bavaria Film GmbH

    Musical commentary: Mauro Colombis, Frank Bockius.

    Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Slapstick: Appetitzers, 12 Oct 2023

Ulrich Rüdel (GCM 2023): " This fragmentary and somewhat clumsy yet still charming one-reeler about a visit to the fairgrounds of the Oktoberfest – the world’s largest beer festival/funfair, where Karl Valentin himself worked as a showman in 1921 – reminds us that Valentin’s silent film career largely remains terra incognita, and has been for a century. In 1929, film collector and writer Walter Jerven compiled a programme of roughly two hours, Aus der Kinderstube des Films (From the Kindergarten of Cinema), which included four comedies, among them a Max Linder short and Karl Valentins Hochzeit, plus this piece, Mit Karl Valentin und Liesl Karlstadt auf der Oktoberwiese. "

" The enthusiastic audience reaction resulted in an organized search for additional Valentin shorts – many of which remain missing to this day, but the ads led to the discovery of a print of Die lustigen Vagabunden – along with the realization that Germany did have a major but neglected silent comedy genius, longing for a film comedy career. “But then, German slapstick. Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt films. What you could still do with these two guys today! Valentin, this venturesome clown form, a Munich Buster Keaton, and Liesl in her smothering femininity. Of course, the two films – Valentins Hochzeit and even the more recent Oktoberwiese – still exhibit yesterday’s comedy. But there are moments prefiguring Chaplin in the cabinet of laughter, in the fairground stalls […] Who is courageous enough to re-start from there?” (Lotte Eisner, Film-Kurier, 4.3.1929) "

" Ultimately and thankfully, Jerven himself did, and produced the sole Valentin–Liesl Karlstadt silent feature, Der Sonderling [The Nerd] (1929), screened at the 2019 Giornate. Unlike other rediscovered shorts (see this year’s note for Karl Valentins Hochzeit for an open question regarding that film’s genesis), the source and history of the extant Oktoberwiese short remains quite unclear; even the (assigned?) title and production year vary between filmographies. Valentin dates it to 1923, but it is generally believed to be a fragment from a 1921 two-reeler, Der “entflohene” Hauptdarsteller, a title employing a flea (circus) pun (“flea/fled”) that lends credence to the identification, where Valentin and Karlstadt may have been relegated to mere supporting parts, with their scenes extracted here. "

" The Valentin estate contains a 1921 film typescript, Oktoberfest-Schau, which may or may not be a related project. The titles in the surviving version screened here are apparently sound-era re-creations, and may well have been re-written (Chris Horak actually reports that the surviving materials entirely lack intertitles); their blunt, basic, and naïve dialect-infused attempts at humor represents one of all-too-many attempts to frame Valentin (a favorite of critics and intellectuals, including Brecht) as a mere low regional folk comedian, prompting Filmmuseum München to create a new alternate reconstructed version that substitutes Valentin quotes from other sources for the titles. Nowadays, Oktoberwiese, with its rather standard settings and jokes (including some unfortunate but common ethnic stereotyping, as well as a brief but uneasy detour into what could be called “digestive body” comedy) as background for the duo’s violent and rascally comedy, is perhaps best approached as a partially improvised fairground romp, not unlike a 1910s Keystone park comedy, thus fitting stylistically, if coincidentally, with the earlier Jerven-rediscovered Valentin shorts from the 1910s. Exceeding the limitations of a script is perhaps a litmus test to distinguish true funnymen from mere comic actors – and funny women of course, with Liesl Karlstadt, stuffed with pillows to grotesquely extend her physique, sharing in the shenanigans, and preserving the duo’s comic and personal chemistry in this comedy of Schadenfreude. " – Ulrich Rüdel

AA: Epic sense of fun on the Oktoberfest fairground with knife-throwing, hall of mirrors, flea circus, Ferris wheel, carousel, reverse riding, apple cider, boxing matches, electric shocks. Charming intertitles in Bavarian dialect. Triangle comedy leads to a wild chase. A somewhat duped look.