The Merry Jail 1917

Das fidele Gefängnis (original title)

A neglected wife disguises herself in order to lure her wastrel husband into a compromising position.

The Merry Jail is my favorite feature-length (just barely) film of the 1910’s so far, the only one I actually enjoyed. As can be told from the title, everyone in this film is just so gay and giddy no matter what debacles they get into. The three acts were all zippy, zany, and zesty, filled with dramatic and situation surprise, but the gem was the central, second act. All the side characters, were assembled marvelously in one of the most fun parties I’ve seen on screen. They rollicked among zany symmetrical sets in faux European countries complete with lobby boys wearing cocked hats. Surely an inspiration for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Even the quirky graffiti in the prison resembled Anderson’s doodles. The Merry Jail is a dapper, dandy, and dashing film bubbling with drunken laughter and filled with gusto and appetite. Lubitsch’s touch gets touchy-feely here, and the lust of every single character including those in the background is clearly also a lust for life….Review by Ledi

Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Producer: Paul Davidson
Cinematography: Theodor Sparkuhl
Screenplay: Ernst Lubitsch, Hanns Kräly

Stars: Harry Liedtke, Emil Jannings, Paul Biensfeldt

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Fortune’s Fool 1923

Rupp (Jannings) is a former butcher, made rich in the meat packing industry as a result of the reversal of fortunes brought on by WWI. He is crude, uncouth and uneducated. His son, Fred, is the apple of his father’s eye and is an auto enthusiast. The widowed Rupp falls in love with a former aristocrat, Helen, now down on her luck and pawning her last heirloom. He proposes marriage and she accepts in order to save her ailing mother who needs a monetary influx to avoid death. Her former boyfriend, Platen, warns Helen against Rupp’s intentions – he and Rupp are enemies, Rupp having caused his being fired for protecting a chorus girl against Rupp’s unwanted advances. Meanwhile, Graf, a shyster, arranges purchase of a near bankrupt auto manufacturing firm, Phoenix, to Rupp’s great advantage with practically no monetary recognition to Graf, who swears revenge. Rupp comes upon his son begging Helen not to marry his father but to return to Platen. Rupp misinterprets the scene, thinks his son is after his intended, and banishes him. The last twenty minutes involve an auto race and its aftermath. Fred unknown to all becomes the driver of his father’s rival auto maker. Platen is driving for Rupp’s firm, Phoenix. In order to win, Rupp has bribed Graf to make sure his rival won’t.

—Arne Andersen

Also known as All for Money

 

Director: Reinhold Schünzel
Screenplay: Hanns Kräly
Producers: Emil Jannings, Paul Davidson
Cinematography: Alfred Hansen, Ludwig Lippert

Stars: Emil Jannings, Hermann Thimig, Dagny Servaes

Algol- Tragedy of Power 1920

7/10 · IMDb

Algol: Tragedy of Power is a 1920 German science fiction film about an alien from the planet Algol. Wikipedia

 

This film has English intertitles

A wonderful science fiction movie from the era of German Expressionist classics like “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari”, as its title implies, “Algol …” is a parable of how power can corrupt human beings and human society

for a full review click on the following link http://undersoutherneyes.edpinsent.com/algol-tragedy-of-power/
Initial release: September 3, 1920 (Germany)
Director: Hans Werckmeister
Producer: Erich Pommer
Screenplay: Hans Brennert, Friedel Köhne
Cinematography: Axel Graatkjær, Hermann Kircheldorff

Stars: Emil Jannings, John Gottowt, Hans Adalbert Schlettow