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POLA NEGRI
FILMOGRAPHY
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The German Silent Period
(1918-1922)
(This particular period
still has some mysteries in it that I haven't been able to clear up.
There may be some separate titles that I don't have listed, as well as
some alternate titles to some other films. Sometimes it's difficult
to tell what is a separate film of its own and what is just an alternate
title. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.)
DER GELBE SCHEIN (The Yellow Pass)
(UFA, 1918)
Alternate titles: The Yellow Ticket, The Devil’s Pawn
Director: Victor Janson and Eugen Illés
Other Actors: Harry Liedtke, Victor Janson, Adolf Edgar Licho, Werner Bernhardy, Guido Herzfeld, Margarete Kupfer, Marga Lind
Scenario: Hans Brennert, Hans Kräly
Sets: Kurt Richter
Camera: Eugen Illés
Notes: This is a full-length remake of Czarna Ksiazeczka (The Yellow Pass), the 1915 Polish picture that also starred Pola. Supposedly
this German version was hidden away during the Nazi period, when the Nazis had banned it and were trying to destroy all copies of it and other German pictures what showed Jews in a positive light. It was released in the U.S. in 1922 as
The Devil’s Pawn.
Preservation status: Restored by Kevin Brownlow. Copies are held at the Israel film Archive, The Nederlands Filmmuseum, and probably a couple of the German archives as well (?).
DIE AUGEN DER MUMIE MA (The Eyes of the Mummy Ma)
(UFA, 1918)
Alternate Titles: Eyes of the Mummy, The Eyes of the Mummy Ma, and possibly
Die Toten Augen (?)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Other Actors: Emil Jannings, Harry Liedtke, Max Laurence
Scenario: Hans Kräly and Emil Rameau
Photography: Alfred Hansen
Sets: Kurt Richter
Notes: This was Pola’s and Ernst Lubitsch’s first film together. It was released in the U.S. in 1922 by Paramount as
Eyes of the Mummy.
Preservation Status: Exists in numerous archives.
(Click to buy
The
Eyes of the Mummy
from Grapevine Video. Click "Add
to Cart", and when the e-shopping cart
pops up, type "PNAS" into
the Customer Code box to receive $2 off this
title!)
The
Eyes of the Mummy
at Amazon.com)
MANIA
(UFA, 1918)
Full title: Mania, Die Geschichte einer Zigarettenarbeiterin.
Director: Eugen Illes
Preservation Status: Survives in a private archive in Europe.
CARMEN
(UFA, 1918)
Alternate Titles: Gypsy Blood
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Other Actors: Harry Liedtke, Magnus Stifter
Scenario: Hans Kräly and Norbert Falk, from the story by Prosper Merimée
Photography: Alfred Hansen
Sets: Karl Machus and Kurt Richter
Notes: This was reissued in the U.S. in 1921 by First National as Gypsy
Blood. Carmen is considered to be the record-holder as the most-filmed of all classic stories (121 filmed versions to date), with this version being the tenth time it was filmed.
Preservation Status: Exists in numerous archives.
(Click to buy Gypsy
Blood from Grapevine Video. Click "Add
to Cart", and when the e-shopping cart
pops up, type "PNAS" into
the Customer Code box to receive $2 off this
title!)
THE LAST PAYMENT
(UFA, 1919)
Alternate Titles: Das Karussel Des Lebens (?)
Director: Georg Jacoby.
Other Actors: Harry Liedtke, Leopold von Ledebour, Albert Patry, Reinhold Schünzel
Scenario from a story by Georg Jacoby and John Brennert
Notes: This film was reissued in 1922 by Paramount as The Last Payment.
Preservation Status: ?
MADAME DUBARRY
(UFA, 1919)
Alternate Titles: Passion
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Other Actors: Emil Jannings, Harry Liedtke, Eduard von Winterstein, Reinhold
Schünzel, Else Berna, Frederich Immler, Gustave Czimeg, Carl Platen, Bernhard
Goetzke, Magnus Stifter
Scenario: Fred Orbing and Hans Kräly
Photography: Theodor Sparkühl
Sets: Karl Machus and Kurt Richter
Costumes: Ali Hubert
Technical advisor: Kurt Waschneck
Titles (for American Version): Katherine Hilliker
Notes: Released in 1920 by First National under the title Passion. This is
the big one that tore down the American ban on German films, caused an international interest in German pictures that for a time threatened to overshadow Hollywood, and began the Hollywood phenomenon of importing overseas talent, beginning with director Ernst Lubitsch on December 24, 1921, and following up with Pola Negri on September 12, 1922. Only in France did this film do poorly, where its rewrite of French history was generally considered to be revisionist German propaganda.
Preservation Status: Exists in numerous archives.
(Click to buy Passion
from Grapevine Video. Click "Add
to Cart", and when the e-shopping cart
pops up, type "PNAS" into
the Customer Code box to receive $2 off this
title!)
KOMTESSE DODDY (Countess Doddy)
(UFA, 1919)
Director: Georg Jacoby
Other Actors: Poldi Deutsch, Harry Liedtke, Heinz Saffner, Herman Thimig, Georg
Baselt, Heddy Wendry, Victor Janson
Scenario: Hans Kräly, George Jacoby
Sets: Kurt Richter
Camera: Theodor Sparkühl
Lighting technician: Kurt Waschnek
Notes: A Pola comedy!
Preseration Status: Survives at the Nederlands Filmmuseum.
DIE MARCHESA VON ARMIANI (The Marquise of Armiani)
(UFA, 1920)
Director: Alfred Halm
Other Actors: Fritz Schulz
Preservation Status: ?
SUMURUN
(Decla-Bioscop/UFA, 1920)
Alternate Titles: One Arabian Night
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Other actors: Ernst Lubitsch, Paul Wegener, Harry Liedtke, Jenny
Hasselquist, Egede Nissen, Carl Clewig.
Scenario: Adapted to the screen by Hans Kräly and Ernst Lubitsch, from the stage pantomime of Fredrich Freska and Victor Hollander (recently produced by Max Reinhardt). Story lifted from a portion of
The Arabian Nights.
Photography: Theodor Sparkühl
Sets: Kurt Richter and Arno Matzner
Costumes: Ali Hubert
Technical advisor: Kurt Waschneck
Notes: This film was released in the U.S. in 1921 by First National as One
Arabian Night. It is based on Max Reinhardt’s production of the popular play, which was Pola’s first big break in Germany, as well as the happy accident that brought Ernst Lubitsch and Pola together and began their remarkable professional relationship.
Preservation Status: Exists in numerous archives.
(Click to buy Sumurun
at Amazon.com)
 DIE GESCHLOSSENE KETTE (The Closed Chain)
(UFA, 1920)
Director: Paul L. Stein
Alternate Titles: Intrigue
Notes: This film was released in the U.S. in 1922 by S. R. Levinson under a States Rights basis. It is also the first of three German silents starring Pola directed by the forgotten German director Paul L. Stein. Paul Stein and Pola would meet again in 1932 when he would direct her in RKO’s
A Woman Commands. Stein had also come to the U.S. and was a contract director at RKO at the time.
Preservation Status: ?
DAS MARTYRIUM (The Martyrium)
(UFA, 1920)
Director: Paul L. Stein
Preservation Status: ?
ARME VIOLETTA (Poor Violetta)
(UFA, 1920)
Alternate titles: Camille, The Red Peacock
Director: Paul L. Stein
Notes: This film was released in 1922 by Paramount as The Red Peacock. It was loosely based on the Alexandre Dumas novel
Camille, but actually followed more closely the libretto of the opera
La Traviata.
Preservation Status: ?
VENDETTA
(UFA, 1920)
Director: Georg Jacoby
Other actors: Emil Jannings, Harry Liedtke, Magnus Stifter, Emil Barron
Scenario: Georg Jacoby and Leo Lasko
Notes: Film was released in the U.S. in 1921 by Commonwealth Pictures Corporation. It was listed, along with Madame DuBarry, Carmen, and One Arabian Night, as one of the best pictures of the 1921 motion picture season in The New York Times. The articles in the Times that discuss
Vendetta consider it a very good picture, but not quite as good as the aforementioned Pola pictures.
Preservation Status: Apparently still survives in Germany(?).
DIE BERGKATZE (The Mountain Cat)
(UFA, 1921)
Alternate Titles: The Mountain Cat, The Wildcat, The Mountain Wildcat
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Other actors: Victor Janson, Paul Heidemann, Wilhlem Diegelmann, Hermann Thimig, Edith Meller, Marga Köhler, Paul Biensfeld, Paul Grötz, Max Kronert, Erwin Kopp.
Scenario: Hans Kräly and Ernst Lubitsch
Photography: Theodore Sparkühl
Sets: Ernst Stern.
Costumes: Ernst Stern and Emil Hasler
Notes: This film was released in the U.S. in 1923 as The Mountain Cat (apparently on a very small scale). It is a fluke of a picture if there ever was one, being a German Expressionist comedy, a feature-length Monty Python-like parody of German Expressionism and of the German military. It was Lubitsch’s favorite of his German pictures, but it was a financial failure. In Germany, audiences did not have enough of a sense of humor to have their beloved military poked fun of; the Americans just didn’t get it altogether. But it makes for great entertainment today!
Preservation Status: Restored by the F. W. Murnau Stiftung in association
with ZDF/Arte. Copies survive at the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna, Munich Film Archives, Filmmuseum Berlin, and the Deusches Filminstitut. A fragment also survives at
MoMA.
(Click to buy Die Bergkatze (aka The Wildcat)
DIE DAME IM GLASHAUS (The Lady in a Glass House)
(UFA, 1921)
Alternate Titles: Erleuchteten Spiegel (The Enlightened Mirror).
Director: Victor Janson
Preservation Status: ?
SAPPHO
(UFA, 1921)
Alternate titles: Mad Love
Director: Dimitri Buchowetski
Other actors: Alfred Abel, Johannes Riemann, Albert Steinruk
Notes: This film was censored heavily when it hit the States and was finally released in its censored version in 1923 by Goldwyn under the title
Mad Love. Dimitri Buchowetski was an excellent Russian-born costume film director who is best known today for directing the 1922 German version of Othello with Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss, and Lya de Putti. Buchowestki was imported to Hollywood a little over a year after Pola was, and directed her three times more for Paramount (all of Pola’s pictures which he directed received good reviews). He also directed the original version of
Die Nacht der Entsheidung, the 1930 German picture featuring Conrad Veidt and Olga Tschechowa, which Pola remade for the
Third Reich in 1938.
Preservation status: A restored, tinted print of the uncensored original with English intertitles exists in the UCLA archives.
DIE FLAMME (The Flame)
(UFA, 1922)
Alternate titles: Montmarte
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Other actors: Hermann Thimig, Alfred Abel, Hilda Worner, Max Adalbert, Frieda Richard, Jakob Tiedtke
Scenario by Hans Kräly and Rudolph Kurtz, from the play Die Flamme by Hans Muller.
Photography: Theodor Sparkühl, Alfred Hansen
Sets: Ernst Stern and Kurt Richter
Notes: The final German Pola/Lubitsch collaboration, as well as the final German silent for Pola, and the final German picture ever for Lubitsch. It too was heavily censored in the U.S., complete with a tacked-on happy ending, and released in 1924 by Paramount as
Montmarte.
Preservation Status: Apparently only two fragments of footage survive,
which run approximately 20 minutes; it has been given full restoration
treatment with stills replacing the missing footage.
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