Der letzte Mann / The Last Laugh (1983 ZDF Reconstruction by Gerd Luft and Jürgen Labenski, with score by Giuseppe Becce 1924 and Werner Schmidt-Boelcke 1984)

F. W. Murnau: Der letzte Mann / The Last Laugh (DE 1924) with Emil Jannings (the hotel porter). Poster design: Theo Matejko.

013059 / G / DE / 1924 / Murnau, F. W. / / drama

Viimeinen mies / Sista skrattet. PC: Ufa. EX: Erich Pommer. D: F. W. Murnau. SC: Carl Mayer. DP: Karl Freund. PD: Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig. CAST: Emil Jannings (The Hotel Porter), Maly Delschaft (His Niece), Hans Unterkircher (The Hotel Manager). Music for live accompaniment composed by Giuseppe Becce. 2315 m /20 fps/ 101’. Silent b&w. 

    There are several original versions of this film.

    Yleisradio TV2 PAL transmission at midnight on 22 March 1998 of a ZDF reconstruction from 1983 by Gerd Luft and Jürgen Labenski, with a score by Giuseppe Becce (1924) and Werner Schmidt-Boelcke (1984), based on a print from Münchner Filmmuseum, with Finnish subtitles by Pirkko Vikkula. Caught on Easter Sunday on VHS.

**** This was the first viewing of this film for the general audience in Finland since its premiere. In the meantime, it has been a part of the basic film archive programming.

The ZDF version is complete, nothing is missing. Probably the pictorial quality has been enhanced in later restorations. The music was not bad, but I was happy to quickly turn it off.

”All the tenants, in particular the female ones, are awed by his uniform, which, through its mere presence, seems to confer a mystic glamour upon their modest existence. They revere it as a symbol of supreme authority and are happy to be allowed to revere it” to quote Kracauer.

As a storyteller Murnau is crude: he hammers home every point, overstating the obvious. As a creator of visions he still reigns supreme. His sense of composition is startling, and the space is kept alive with rain, steam, smoke, and moving reflections. The mobile camera, introduced in Scherben and Sylvester, was perfected here. The roving camera creates a sense of vertigo, which fits the theme of rise and fall – downfall and resurrection.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, poster by Theo Matejko. Please click to enlarge.

011308 / 16 / DE / 1920 / Wiene, Robert / / horror
Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, Das / Tohtori Caligarin kabinetti. PC: Decla-Film. EX: Erich Pommer. D: Robert Wiene. SC: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz. DP: Willy Hameister. AD: Walter Röhrig, Walter Reimann, Hermann Warm. CAST: Werner Krauss (Dr. Caligari), Conrad Veidt (Cesare), Lil Dagover (Jane), Friedrich Fehér (Francis), Hans-Heinz von Twardowski (Alan). Silent b&w toned. Originally 1703 m /18 fps/ 82’. ZDF 1983 reconstruction with music, not toned by Gerd Luft and Jürgen Labenski based on the 1923 re-release with material from the Munich and SDK Archives, ca 74’. Finnish subtitles by Riitta Piironen. Silent frame uglily cropped to Academy. With the edges cut off, the beautiful title cards turn illegible and the composition of the image is thrown off balance. Yleisradio TV2 transmission viewed in Helsinki, Sunday 18 January 1998. **** The film is one of a kind, still magnetic. One has to adjust to the twisted style to find the strange fascination and the black humour of the film. It is the first great zombie story of the cinema. This Luft / Labenski reconstruction was the best available 15 years ago, although the music and sound effects are best turned off at once. Today one should screen the 1995 Lumière Project restoration.