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| Harry Piel: Rivalen / The Miracle of Tomorrow (DE 1923). Professor Ravello's henchmen trap Harry Piel in a glass cage about to be dipped into the bottom of the sea, his life depending on the diving support for oxygen. |
Rivalen: 7 abenteuerliche Akte
Kilpakosijat
DE 1923. regia/dir: Harry Piel. scen: Alfred Zeisler, Victor Abel, Harry Piel. photog: Georg Muschner, Franz Meinecke. scg/des: W. A. Herrmann. cast: Harry Piel (Harry Peel), Charly Berger (Professor Ravello), Adolf Klein (John Evans), Inge Helgard (Evelyn Evans), Karl Platen (Chilton), Maria Wefers (Julietta Carnera), Heinz Stieda (Artos), Erich Sandt (Hoppel), Albert Paulig (Poppel). prod: Heinrich Morris Nebenzahl, Harry Piel, Apex-Film, Berlin/London. dist: Bayerische Filmgesellschaft GmbH im Emelka-Konzern. riprese/filmed: 10.1922-1.1923. v.c./censor date: 23.2.1923 (Nr. 7011). première: 23.2.1923 (Schauburg, Berlin). copia/copy: DCP, 106', col. (da/from 35 mm pos. nitr., 2228 m, imbibito/tinted); did./titles: GER. fonte/source: Filmmuseum Düsseldorf.
Helsinki premiere: 10 April 1924 Eldorado, released by Royal Film.
Musical interpretation: Günter Buchwald, Frank Bockius.
Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Harry Piel, 10 Oct 2023.
Hemma Marlene Prainsack, Andreas Thein (GCM 2023):
" “Harry Peel” is the playful name Harry Piel gave his recurring film character, who first appears in 1919’s Der große Unbekannte, which was the start of the adventure detective series “Abenteuer eines Vielgesuchten” (which roughly translates as “Adventures of a Much Wanted [Man]”). The film was produced by MetroFilm GmbH Berlin, a company founded in April 1919 under the management of Piel and Heinrich Nebenzahl; they made a total of 12 films in this series, with Piel playing the title role in all of them as well as acting as director, producer, and co-writer. "
" Piel maintained a close, fruitful business partnership with Nebenzahl between 1917 and 1927, which resulted in nearly 20 films produced through various companies. Metro-Film GmbH was liquidated after Piel left in February 1921 to join the Emelka group, under whose banner he founded the Harry Piel-Film Co., with Nebenzahl as managing director. Within the industry the change led to public disputes that could only be resolved through settlements with the distributors concerned. For the first Harry Piel-Film Co. titles, Piel created a new character, the adventurer Unus, who appeared in three films, but for his next project, Das schwarze Kuvert (1922), Piel “ruefully returned to his old Peel figure”. (Sport im Bild, 9.6.1922). "
" In the 1922-23 season, Piel reappeared as Peel in two other features, Rivalen (working title Der gläserne Käfig) and Der letzte Kampf (also known as Der Elektromensch), all based on scripts by Alfred Zeisler and Victor Abel. Here’s where things get complicated. While making Das schwarze Kuvert, his company declared bankruptcy, and no ads, articles, or documents position the film as the initial offering in a series. We know from the German programme booklet that the character names in Das schwarze Kuvert differ from those in Rivalen, but in the sole surviving print of Rivalen, from its Russian release, not only are the character names identical, including for minor roles, but there are two direct references to Das schwarze Kuvert: the dogs Greif and Caesar reappear in Harry’s boudoir, and when his beloved gazes into her mirror, she sees Harry exactly as he appears in the earlier film. In addition, the Russian version of Das schwarze Kuvert starts with a title card clearly stating it’s “Part 1", and ends with “to be continued”. "
" This prompts multiple questions. Might Piel have originally planned a trilogy with his co-writers Zeisler and Abel, yet with the uncertainty created by his company’s dissolution chose to release the final Harry Piel-Film Co. production as a standalone? And then, once the Apex Film company was formed and they made Rivalen, did he go back to the original idea of a trilogy and change the names accordingly for the foreign market? The film that follows Rivalen, titled Der letzte Kampf, was definitely made as a sequel, so we’re left wondering what the original names were in the finished screenplays. Viewing Das schwarze Kuvert and Rivalen back-to-back, there’s little doubt they were originally planned as a series, as the characters and their motivations act as a narrative arc and the comic-relief supporting characters clearly repeat their roles. "
" In Das schwarze Kuvert, Peel loses his money in a London banking crisis and moves to the Alps; there he falls for a rich industrialist’s daughter who’s subsequently kidnapped by order of a nefarious physicist. Harry rescues his beloved after many adventures, but in Rivalen the scorned scientist Ravello reappears, seeking revenge with the help of an ingenious invention, a mechanical man he controls from a distance (the plot somewhat follows an earlier Piel title, 1916’s Die große Wette). The film’s most spectacular scene occurs during a masked ball with the theme “Heaven and Hell”, in the castle of industrialist John Evans. During the party, as Peel secretly becomes engaged to Evans’ daughter, disaster strikes when Ravello’s robot appears, sending lightning bolts into the crowd of panic-stricken revelers. Piel and his art director (the sets are especially imaginative) find a strong metaphor for the destructive rage of the steel monster when the stage for a dance interlude, decorated with blazing theatrical flames, bursts into real flames after the robot attacks. "
" As an actor, Piel brings wit and charm to his alter-ego before shifting into full adventure mode as he battles his opponents with breakneck feats and then in a glass cage under water. Der Kinematograph (18.3.1923) described his character as a “hodgepodge of Casanova, Cagliostro, and strongman; in short: a devil of a guy”. "
" Filming for both Rivalen and Der letzte Kampf took place in Berlin and the surrounding area between October 1922 and January 1923. The critical reaction in Der Kinematograph (18.3.1923) was enthusiastic: “a truly great business success by irreproachable means!” The same article also provides an important insight into the Piel star phenomenon: “We have to attribute this enthusiastic reception largely to the popularity of Harry Piel’s repeatedly ‘cultivated’ sensational adventure moments, which reflect the zeitgeist of a community that habitually frequents the cinema, particularly those hungry for adventure who want to have their nerves tickled at any price.” Harry Piel took this game of daredevil adventures and nerve-racking sensations to the extreme in his next films, reaching the pinnacle of his acting career. This restoration used a Russian print; the German intertitles were reconstructed from the German censor card. " Hemma Marlene Prainsack, Andreas Thein
AA: Andreas Thein and Filmmuseum Düsseldorf have achieved an important feat in reviving the legacy of Harry Piel, the daredevil star of Weimar cinema (and after: his career continued in Nazi Germany). In today's cinema, the great adventurer and master of the derring-do evokes Tom Cruise.
In Rivalen, the action is still amazing, and the movie is also inventive in the realm of science fiction. Scenes in the machine room of Professor Ravello precede Metropolis and James Whale's Frankenstein and raise the question that Harry Piel might have influenced them. Let's also notice the Moloch theme in the lavish masked ball scene where guests don devil masks.
The thrilling scene with the glass cage in which Harry Piel is held captive in the bottom of the sea evokes his contemporary Harry Houdini the escape artist (who had also introduced a robot in one of his films, The Master Mystery).
Gilles Deleuze divided the history of the cinema into l'image-mouvement and l'image-temps, and the resurrection of Harry Piel places him firmly among the masters of the movement-image. There is never a dull moment.
A most fascinating theme is the gigantische Vernichtungswille [the gigantic will of destruction] in the subject of Professor Ravello and his steel monster. This theme is at the core of the Weimar legacy of the cinefantastique.
Action cinema was launched by Victorin Jasset at the Éclair company and immediately became an art form, noble representatives including Louis Feuillade, Douglas Fairbanks and Fritz Lang. In this company, Harry Piel excels in bravado and kinetic brio, but suffers because the excitement remains superficial, characters lack depth and nuance, and his own character feels a bit hollow.
Fine visual quality and colour solutions in good taste in this enjoyable restoration.
Günter Buchwald and Frank Bockius contributed a music commentary full of sound and fury.
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