Notes On Cafe Elektric At Aero Theatre

Dietrich headlined, but Gruber stole the show

Tonight, I saw Cafe Elektric (now spelled Cafe Electric all over the Web, despite the signs visible on the joint itself in the movie) for the first time at Santa Monica's Aero Theatre, alongside over 50 other folks. Truly, pianist Gerhard Gruber was the star of the show, and I recommend that you attend any silent film screening he accompanies because he improvises in dialogue with the screen and the audience. Gruber has posted his Cafe Elektric compositions on YouTube, which gives you some sense of his work. My favorite scene of the film was the near-rape of Hansi because of Gruber's jolting arrangement.

Bah! I'm typing out of order. If you want a structured synopsis, read the one on the Silents Are Golden site, which summarizes exactly what I saw; however, the print the Aero screened continued after Gottlinger noticed the ring on Hansi's finger. Maybe the Silents Are Golden writer didn't wish to spoil any surprises, not that there are any. Also, read Ferdinand Von Galitzien's spiel; he's Blogger nobility, you know. I'll share a slightly cleaned-up and cleaner version of my jumbled notes, which I wrote right after watching the film:

Restoration of "The Devil Is A Woman" At TCM Film Fest

The Museum of Modern Art's new restoration of the 1935 Dietrich-von Sternberg collaboration, The Devil Is A Woman, will be premiere at the 2011 TCM Classic Film Festival.

From their website:

Industry censor Joe Breen wanted her killed for her sins. The Spanish government wanted her taken out of circulation altogether. But for film lovers, Marlene Dietrich's Concha Perez has become one of the great icons of forbidden love. For his last film with protégée Dietrich, Josef von Sternberg created a fantasy version of Spain during Carnival time as the setting for a delirious study of male masochism. The star was at her most sensual as the factory girl who rises in the world through the love of a police captain but can't stay true to him or any man. Fans now adore the film for its dazzling style and exotic perversity, but audiences at the time didn't quite get it. When Spain threatened to ban all Paramount pictures over the film's depiction of their police guard, the studio pulled it from worldwide distribution and destroyed the master. They also released von Sternberg from his contract prematurely ending a level of artistic freedom that the director would never enjoy again. THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN remained largely unseen until 1959, when the studio screened it at the Venice Film Festival and included it in a package of classic pictures sold to television. Dietrich, who has called the film her favorite, saved her own print in a bank vault. That print was the source of an '80s art-house re-issue and subsequent DVD versions. A new restoration from the Museum of Modern Art makes its world premiere at this festival screening.

The Devil Is A Woman will be screened at 22:15 this coming thursday (28 April) at the Chinese Multiplex, adjacent to Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Further information at the TCM Classic Film Festival website.

One scene that won't be projected at the festival is Marlene's sensational performance of "If It Isn't Pain (Then It Isn't Love)", a number censored from the film in 1935. Only Marlene's prerecording survives:

Weimar Cinema at MOMA

Weimar Cinema, 1919-1933: Daydreams and Nightmares, an exhibition presented by MOMA in association with the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation, includes screenings of 75 Weimar-era films and an exhibition of posters and stills. The exhibit, which started in November, will run until 7 March 2011. Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt and Der Blaue Engel will be screened in January.

Count Ferdinand Von Galitzien has reviewed Die Frau, Nach Der Man Sich Sehnt at his blog.

Grand Hotel

Over at The Platinum Blog Starring Jean Harlow, Lisa Burks tells the interesting story of what happened to the Grand Hotel Register, which was signed by all the guests as they arrived at the premiere for the film at Grauman's Chinese in April 1932.

Below is a page from the register, which survives in a private collection:

Guests "signed in" at the Grand Hotel, top to bottom:

Mr & Mrs Cecil B de Mille, Marlene, Rudi, Anita Loos, John Emerson (producer & husband of Anita Loos), Mr & Mrs ??? Barclay, Pat O' Brien, Jean Harlow, Paul Bern, Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone.

MGM made a promo short about the event, "Hollywood Premiere" - available on the Grand Hotel DVD, and also on youtube. Marlene only apprears briefly - this was MGM publicity, after all.

A Foreign Affair - Screening

UCLA's film archive is putting on the ritz! Billy Wilder's often ignored Foreign Affair
will be screened on Sunday the 18th of February at approximately 4P.M...

Where, you ask? Why at the new Billy Wilder Theatre of course! It's right inside the Hammer Museum, in case you are wondering.

(Please ignore the first movie, without Dietrich it's probably very blan... well, I shouldn't be too mean!)
______________________________________________
Sunday February 18 2007, 2:00PM ( Buy Ticket )

GERMANY YEAR ZERO
(Germania anno zero)
(1947) Directed by Roberto Rossellini

The third installment in the postwar trilogy turns from Italy to its former occupier. Twelve-year-old Edmund (Edmund Moeschke) and his ailing father lead a desperate existence in the rubble of Berlin just after the war. A chance encounter with a former teacher sends Edmund on a path of self-destruction to rival even the nightmarish city around him. Shot on location, GERMANY YEAR ZERO uses Berlin's bombed-out ruins as a landscape of desperation and hopelessness.

Producer: Salvo D'Angelo, Roberto Rossellini. Screenwriter: Roberto Rossellini, Max Colpet. Cinematographer: Robert Julliard. Editor: Anne-Marie Findlesen. Cast: Edmund Meschke, Ernst Pittschau, Ingetraud Hintze, Franz Kruger. Presented in German dialogue with English subtitles. 16mm, 72 min.

Preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive
A FOREIGN AFFAIR
(1948, United States) Directed by Billy Wilder

Congresswoman Phoebe Frost (Jean Arthur) embarks on a fact-finding mission to American occupied Berlin (where director Billy Wilder himself lived prior to World War II). There the straight-laced politico finds more than she bargained for in a tangled web of romance and mystery involving a handsome GI (John Lund) and an ex-Nazi cabaret performer (Marlene Dietrich). Wilder's satire of American naivete v. European cynicism was shot on location in Berlin around the same time as GERMANY YEAR ZERO and even includes a brief, humorous homage to Rossellini's film.

Producer: Charles Brackett. Screenwriter: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Richard L. Breen. Cinematographer: Charles B. Lang. Editor: Doane Harrison. Cast: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell. 35mm, 116 min.

January 2007 film screenings, continued!

01/27/07
The Blue Angel, Wesleyan (8:00pm)

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Disappointed by this paltry update, I did a Dietrich search on Craigslist. If you have one grand lying around, this item may interest you:


A letter from Dietrich to fashion designer Jean Louis

Jean Louis' nimble fingers, of course, crafted the bugle-beaded gowns that caressed Dietrich's seemingly nude silhouette during her stage shows.

January 2007 film screenings!

See if Dietrich's playing in your area:

01/18/07
A Foreign Affair, Seattle (7:30)
Touch of Evil, Bay Area (7:30)

01/19/07
Angel, Bay Area (9:15)