Only Yesterday

Only Yesterday. Margaret Sullavan (Mary Lane) and John Boles (Jim Emerson). Image: from CarensClassicCinema.

US © 1933 Universal. P: Carl Laemmle, Jr. D: John M. Stahl. SC: William Hurlbut, Arthur Richman, George O'Neill - based on [n.c.] the short story "Brief einer Unbekannten" (1922) by Stefan Zweig - based on Only Yesterday: An Informed History of the Nineteen-Twenties (1931) by Frederick Lewis Allen. DP: Merritt Gerstad. AD: Charles D. Hall. M: Constantine Bakaleinikoff. ED: Milton Carruth.
    Starring Margaret Sullavan (Mary Lane), John Boles (Jim Emerson), Billie Burke (Julia Warren). 105 min.
    A Universal Studios print viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 24 September 2008. The first screening of this film in Finland.

A very good print.

The first 20 minutes are about the stock market crash of 1929. Jim is about to put a bullet through his head, when he receives the letter from the unknown woman.

The letter reveals to him that there has been a woman in his life that has remained unknown to him. In 1919, young Jim and Mary enjoy a night of love, Jim goes to the front in Europe, Mary becomes pregnant and has their child, but Jim forgets all about Mary, gets married with a society woman and becomes a big businessman.

Her son teases Mary to get married.

But in a New Year's party Mary sees Jim, and they meet in his bachelor apartment. Mary's heart is broken as she realizes that Jim has completely forgotten her and treats her as one of his one night stands. The heartbroken Mary dies.

Reading her letter of farewell Jim decides not to shoot himself and instead to find his son and take care of him.

Cinematically the film is routine, and the storytelling lacks punch, but Margaret Sullavan in her debut role is very touching.

The whole feeling of the Zweig story is changed because the man is not an artist but a businessman.

This is the only one of the first four Zweig adaptations that has no visual flair.

Letter from an Unknown Woman

Kirje tuntemattomalta naiselta / Brevet från en okänd kvinna. US (c) 1948 Rampart Productions. EX: William Dozier. P: John Houseman. D: Max Ophuls. SC: Howard Koch, Ophuls - based on the short story "Brief einer Unbekannten" (1922) by Stefan Zweig. DP: Frank Planer. COST: Travis Banton. M: Daniele Amfitheatrof. Liszt: "Un sospiro". Mozart: Die Zauberflöte. Starring Joan Fontaine (Lisa Berndle), Louis Jourdan (Stefan Brand). 88 min. A 16mm print viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 24 September 2008. - Every time this film is different. - This time I paid attention to significant repetitions such as "two weeks", uttered by both Stefan senior and Stefan junior, the latter repetition the more fatal. The theme of the foster parent is repeated, and Lisa, herself having experienced it, can handle the situation tenderly with her own son. - "If only". - "By the time you read this letter I may be dead". - Narrated by a dead woman from beyond the grave. The man who reads her letter has lost his sense of identity, even lost his talent. He has lost himself, and he finds himself one last time as he reads her letter. He can then face death with a smile on his face. - The moment of recognition. - "Tell me more about your father." - "There is always a higher one". -

Narkose / Anesthesia

Alfred Abel: Narkose. Briefe einer Unbekannten (1929), Renée Héribel. Donation Roger Corbeau. Localisation: Charenton-le-Pont, Médiathèque de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine. Crédit Photo © Ministère de la Culture - Médiathèque du Patrimoine, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image RMN-GP.

Narkose. Briefe einer Unbekannten / L'Inconnue.
    DE 1929. PC: G.P. Films. P+D: Alfred Abel. EX: Ernst Garden. SC: Béla Balázs – based on the short story by Stefan Zweig (1922). DP: Günther Krampf. AD: Julius von Borsody, Willy Brummer. Titles design: M. Tuszkay.
    C: Renée Héribel (Angélique Laumain), Jack Trevor (writer René Vernon), Alfred Abel (manservant Jean).
    2426 m /24 fps/ 88 min.
    Print: Magyar Nemzeti Filmarchivum (low contrast copy on sound stock with left side missing and a light bar below) 1352 m /24 fps/ 49 min. E-subtitles AA. Translator's screening at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 17 September 2008.

Revisiting a forgotten gem from the golden age of German cinema, praised in its time by René Jeanne and Charles Ford and Lotte Eisner.

Only a torso survives, but it is makes sense even so.

A fascinating dream film, much of it the hallucination of the woman in her ether narcosis in the delivery room.

The art of the moving camera, art direction and text design. The expressive details. The fascinating special effects. The elaborate superimpositions. The poetic use of the shimmer of the water and the swelling drops in the superimpositions. Beautiful montages. Expressionism very effective in the dream. The dazzling glasses of the teacher.

There are the white roses, the roses that are seen first are a bit fading. Montages of roses.

Montages of letters returned to sender.

There are changes to the original story. The persons have French names. Towards the end the bestselling author is falling out of favour. Unsterbliche Liebe is no longer wanted, instead, Moderne Liebe is in demand. The writer's hand is paralyzed, and he cannot type. Sister Angélique gets to take dictation for his new work Die Unbekannte (The Unknown Woman), but she rejects it as a lie and leaves. But she comes back to his arms.

The only film adaptation of this story with a happy end.