Tragödie (1925)

Tragödie/Tragedy (Carl Froelich, 1925) is a lost film. None of the sources gives a plot of the film, but the title says it all. Because of her past (the letter!), Henny Porten loses her wealthy life as a countess and her dearly beloved daughter. I think the last postcard of the two Ross Verlag series is the most beautiful one: it shows the elegant but desperate Henny in tears. Tragödie is indeed a tragedy, and confirms why Henny Porten was one of the most popular German screen stars of the 1910s and 1920s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 41/1. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten as Countess Maria Tamar, Walter Janssen as Count Tamar and Annemarie Winkler as their daughter Monica in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 41/2. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 41/4. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten and Annemarie Winkler in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 41/5. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten and Walter Janssen in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).

The social repression by patriarchy over women

Tragödie/Tragedy (Carl Froelich, 1925) was produced by Henny Porten's own film production company Henny-Porten-Film. Porten had founded in 1919 in a period when several stars started their own film studio. Most of them were finished after one or two films but Henny-Porten-Film flourished. But during 1923-1924 she was seen as 'box office poison, and could only find work with difficulty.

Henny Porten achieved a renewed comeback with the melodrama Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924), produced and directed by Carl Froelich. On the 26 September 1924, the company Henny Porten-Froelich Produktion GmbH was founded in Berlin, in which Porten, Froelich and Porten's husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann were associates. Till 1929, the company made fifteen star vehicles for Porten, all directed at the general public. Tragödie/Tragedy was one of them.

Hans-Michael Bock writes in his encyclopedia of the German cinema, The Concise Cinegraph: "These films were often solidly produced, but mostly comprised formulaic narratives, such as the maternal melodramas Mutter und Kind (Mother and Child, 1924) and Mutterliebe (Mother Love, 1929)."

Henny Porten used to play women who found fulfilment in serving others and in self-sacrifice, who indulged in submission even against their will. Her films exposed the social repression that patriarchy exercised over women, showed how women with extramarital relationships or who were single mothers were separated from social life, and showed unequal competition between men and women at work.

Porten's personal life also became a tragedy after 1933. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband increasingly narrowed her film options. She had only six small roles by 1943. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis, but was never offered any work.

Carl Froelich joined the Nazi party in 1933. His company became an associate partner of the state-controlled Ufa film studio. From 1939 on, Froelich was in charge of the Gesamtverband der Filmherstellung und Filmverwertung ("Union of Film Manufacture and Film Evaluation").

In 1934, Froelich directed Ich für Dich – Du für mich on behalf of the Ministry of Propaganda. The film depicted women’s involvement in the state labour service. As a producer of entertainment films, Froelich adjusted to the 'new spirit of National Socialism'. In 1937, he was appointed professor, and in 1939, he was appointed president of the Reichsfilmkammer, a public corporation that regulated the German film industry between 1933 and 1945. After the end of the war, Froelich was arrested and 'de-Nazified' in 1948.He died in 1953.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1192/1. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1192/2. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1192/3. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1192/4. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1192/5. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1192/6. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Publicity still of Henny Porten in Tragödie (Carl Froelich, 1925).

Sources: Hans-Michael Bock (The Concise Cinegraph), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Haarlem Film City

Today a new film book will be presented, 'Haarlem filmstad' (Haarlem film city), edited by Harry Hosman and Arie Vestering. 'Haarlem Film city' describes the cinema life and the well-known and lesser-known studios, filmmakers and stars from the Dutch city. During the 1910s and 1920s, Haarlem even seemed to be the centre of the Dutch film world. Cameramen, actors and set builders walked back and forth in the Filmfabriek Hollandia at the Spaarne river, where dozens of silent films were created. Haarlem-based actresses like Annie Bos achieved star-status. For this new book, I wrote a chapter on film poster designer Frans Bosen, who worked and lived in Haarlem, and designed dozens of colourful film posters during the 1920s. EFSP joins the festivities around the book presentation with a post on the work of Frans Bosen, but we start with a very rare card with Annie Bos which we found just a few weeks ago.


Dutch postcard by E & B. Photo: Annie Bos in Toffe jongens onder de mobilisatie (deel 1)/Cool boys under the mobilisation (part 1) (Jan van Dommelen, 1914). Translation caption: The coast guard, My Johnny is here all day on the coast watching, I think he likes a bath, so I'll be the coast guard.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for Salammbo (Pierre Maradon, 1924) with Jeanne de Balzac.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924) starring Douglas Fairbanks.

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (1883-1939) was the elegant, dashing, and athletic star of several classic swashbuckling films of the silent era. He produced and starred in ever more elaborate, impressive costume films, such as The Three Musketeers (Fred Niblo, 1921), Robin Hood (Allan Dwan, 1922), The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924), The Black Pirate (Albert Parker, 1926, the first full-length Technicolor film), and The Gaucho (F. Richard Jones, 1927) with Lupe Velez. With his marriage to Mary Pickford in 1920, the couple became Hollywood royalty and Fairbanks was referred to as ‘The King of Hollywood'.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for Don Q Son of Zorro (Donald Crisp, 1925) starring Douglas Fairbanks.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) with Lon Chaney.

Lon Chaney (1883-1930) was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema. Between 1912 and 1930 he played more the 150 widely diverse roles. He is renowned for his characterisations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with makeup in such silent horror films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, (1923), He Who Gets Slapped (Victor Sjöström, 1924) and The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925).


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for Tartüff/Tartuffe (F.W. Murnau, 1925) starring Emil Jannings.

If Weimar cinema had one film star, then it was Emil Jannings (1884-1950) for sure. Jannings managed to get away from his famous historical characters in such films as Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) and Quo Vadis (Georg Jacoby, Gabriellino D'Annunzio, 1925) with two major films. In Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924) he was a proud hotel doorman who loses his self-esteem and the esteem of others when he is reduced to a toilet man, working in the basement of the hotel. In Varieté/Variety (Ewald André Dupont, 1925), he was the strong acrobat, who killed his rival out of jealousy. Jannings magnificently expressed the fears and doubts of proud and big-hearted men, who are cheated by their surroundings. Murnau directed him in two more silent classics Tartüff/Tartuffe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1925) with Lil Dagover, and Faust (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926) as Mephisto opposite Gösta Ekman as Faust.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926) starring Emil Jannings.

Frans Bosen

As a designer of film posters, Bosen was a pioneer: he was one of the first Dutch designers to use film images. Before 1920, mainly 'letter posters' were made in the Netherlands: cinema advertisements with text only, on which a number of films were announced simultaneously. Another habit was to take over the placards from abroad with the films and stick the Dutch title on them. Frans Bosen, on the other hand, designed film posters with original images that stood out with their bright colors and short, powerful texts.

Frans Bosen (1891-1949) made dozens of film posters. The circumstances for these assignments were not comfortable: there was little time and money for it and he had to base his designs on a press photo of the film.

What is striking about his posters is that there is hardly any text on it. Modern film posters mention the credits of the actors, the producers, the director, the screenwriters, the composer, etc. In addition to the film title, Bosen sometimes only gave the name of the protagonist.

He designed the letters himself. Many posters also feature the logo of publisher De Brakke Grond, which was designed by him. The logo even contains his signature, on which he made small variations over the years. The result is often a calm, clear image.

The Bosen posters give a colorful insight into what was seen in Dutch cinemas in the 1920s. There are Hollywood classics among them, including the horror film The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) and films with action hero Douglas Fairbanks, for example The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924). But he also made many posters for European films, such as the religious film La Vie merveilleuse de Bernadette/The wonderful life of Bernadette (George Pallu, 1929).


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for The Triumph of the Rat (Graham Cutts, 1926) with Ivor Novello.

Gorgeous matinee idol Ivor Novello (1893-1951) was one of the multi-talents of the British stage and cinema during the first half of the 20th century. On stage, the 'British Sex God in tight pants' produced and composed a string of hit musicals, starring himself. The 'Valentino from The Valleys' also appeared in the classic Hitchcock thriller The Lodger (1927) and other successful silent and early sound films in France, Great-Britain and Hollywood.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for Wien, wie es weint und lacht/Vienna, how it cries and laughs (Rudolf Walther-Fein, Rudolf Dworsky, 1926) with Mady Christians.

Austrian-born stage actress Mady Christians (1892-1951) was a star of the German silent cinema and appeared in Austrian, French, British and Hollywood films too.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for Die geschiedene Frau/The Divorcée (Victor Janson, Rudolf Dworsky, 1926) with Mady Christians.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for An der Schönen blauen Donau/The Beautiful Blue Danube (Frederic Zelnik, 1926) with Lya Mara.

Lya Mara (1897-1960?) was one of the biggest stars of the German silent cinema. Some immensely successful silent operettas presented her as the perfect Viennese Girl. Hundreds of postcards and trading cards cemented her stardom, which was even the subject of a novel, published in 100 episodes between 1927 and 1928. Her career virtually ended after the arrival of sound film.


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for Die tolle Lola/Fabulous Lola (Richard Eichberg, 1927) with Lilian Harvey.

Ufa's biggest star of the 1930s was British born German actress and singer Lilian Harvey (1906-1968). With Willy Fritsch she formed the 'Dream Team of the European Cinema'. In 1924, Harvey made her film debut as the young Jewish girl Ruth in the silent film Der Fluch/The Curse (Robert Land, 1925). Director-producer Richard Eichberg signed her on, and under his direction she played her first leading roles in Leidenschaft/Passion (Richard Eichberg, 1925) with Otto Gebühr, Liebe und Trompetenblasen/Love and Trumpet Blows (Richard Eichberg, 1925) opposite Harry Liedtke, Die keusche Susanne/The Innocent Susanne (Richard Eichberg, 1926) for the first time with Willy Fritsch, and Die tolle Lola/Fabulous Lola (Richard Eichberg, 1927).


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for The Ghost Train (Geza von Bolvary, 1927).


Dutch poster by Frans Bosen for La Vie merveilleuse de Bernadette/The wonderful life of Bernadette (George Pallu, 1929) with Alexandra.

A silent film reconstruction of Bernadette Soubirous's life (1844-1879), a 14-year-old girl that catholics believe had eighteen visions of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in a grotto near Lourdes, France. The place became a peregrination centre since then.

For more information in Dutch on 'Haarlem Filmstad' see Haarlemfilmstad.nl

Photo by Union Film

Union Film or the Projektions-AG Union (PAGU) was a German film production company which operated during the silent era between 1911 and 1924. The company was founded by Paul Davidson, a leading cinema owner who branched out into production. One of his first major coups was signing up the Danish film star Asta Nielsen for a lengthy contract. A rising star of the company was also the actor-director Ernst Lubitsch who made a series of comedies for Union Film. From 1917 onwards the company functioned as an independent unit of Universum Film AG (Ufa), and was eventually merged into it entirely.


German small photo for the album by Dr. Oskar Kalbus, Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst, Vol. I, Der Stummfilm (Cigaretten Bilderdienst, 1935). Photo: PAGU. Asta Nielsen in Engelein/The little Angel (Urban Gad, 1914).


Erna Morena. German postcard in the Film Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 79/5. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin / P.A.G. Union. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 1983. Photo: Union Film. Ernst Lubitsch in Der Blusen-König (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917). Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1986. Photo: Union-Film. Publicity still of Erna Morena in Rafaela/Wer weiss? (Arsen von Cserépy, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1990. Photo: Union Film. Erna Morena, Emil Jannings and Harry Liedtke in the German silent drama Der Ring der Giuditta Foscari (Alfred Halm, 1917).

Paul Davidson

Paul Davidson (1867–1927) was born in Lötzen, East Prussia (now Giżycko, Poland). He was the son of Moritz Davidson. Paul initially worked as a commercial traveller in the textile industry and he became the manager of a security firm in Frankfurt am Main in 1902.

On vacation to Paris, he saw his first film, a Georges Méliès production, in a cinema. Back in Frankfurt, he founded the 'Allgemeine Kinematographen-Theater Gesellschaft, Union-Theater für lebende und Tonbilder GmbH' (A.K.T.G.) on 21 March 1906 and opened Mannheim’s first permanent cinema, the Union-Theater (U.T.). Further cinemas followed in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Strasbourg, Amsterdam and Brussels.

Initially his company was based in Frankfurt, but in 1912, Davidson moved his headquarters to Berlin as it was clear that Berlin had become the centre of the German film industry.

In 1909, Davidson transformed the A.K.T.G. into the Projektions-AG 'Union' (PAGU), the first publicly traded film company in Germany. A year later, he started Germany's first distribution company, renting rather than selling outright prints of the heavyweight championship boxing fight between Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries.

On 4 September 1909, Davidson opened the Union-Theater at Berlin, Alexanderplatz. Another, even more luxurious Union-Theater was opened at Berlin's Unter den Linden on 21 August 1910. By 1910 Davidson had built up a sizeable chain of 600–1000 seater luxury cinemas.

In less than ten years, Paul Davidson had created an empire of over 56 cinemas in Germany, Belgium, and Hungary, drawing 6 million patrons in 1913.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1998. Photo: Union Film. Ossi Oswalda in Ossi's Tagebuch/Ossi's Diary (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2001. Photo: Union Film. Publicity still for John Riew (Walter Schmidthässler, 1917) with Karl Valentin, Dagny Servaes and Käthe Dorsch.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2008. Photo: Union Film. Publicity still for Wenn vier dasselbe tun (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917), starring Ossi Oswalda as the girl, Fritz Schulz (here on the left) as her lover, and Emil Jannings as her father (here on the right).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2012. Photo: Union Film. Ernst Lubitsch in Prinz Sami/Prince Sami (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918). Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2027. Photo: Union Film. Gertrude Welcker in Eine Nacht in der Stahlkammer/A night in the steel chamber (Felix Basch, 1917).

Asta Nielsen

Paul Davidson had not been thinking about moving into film production himself, but then he saw the first Asta Nielsen film, Afgrunden/The Abyss (Urban Gad, 1910). He realised that the age of short film was past. In Asta Nielsen he also saw the first artist in the medium of film. She was thus the decisive factor for his move to film producing.

In March 1910, Paul Davidson founded the Projektions-Aktiengesellschaft Union (PAGU), Germany’s first joint-stock company in film industry and the first to integrate production, distribution and equipment hire. At the time, the majority of films being shown in Germany were foreign-produced, a situation which Davidson attempted to change.

Following the success of Afgrunden/The Abyss (1910), he founded the Internationale Film-Vertriebs-Gesellschaft in conjunction with Asta Nielsen and her husband Urban Gad on 1 June 1911. The company held the European rights on all Nielsen films.

Davidson instantly felt that the Danish actress could be a global success. It was International film Sales that provided Union with eight Nielsen films per year. Davidson built her a studio in Berlin Tempelhof, later overlooking Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, and set up a big production staff around her. He was confident that Nielsen could carry it off.

Davidson used every available means – and devised many new ones – in order to bring the Asta Nielsen films to the world. It was a success. Asta Nielsen became a sensational international film star with an annual fee of 85,000 Marks in 1914 alone.

Davidson was also notable for his success in breaking a boycott of German playwrights, who were refusing to allow their works to be adapted for the screen. He was even able to persuade the leading German stage director Max Reinhardt to make two films, shot in Italy, for the company. On 2 August 1913 the Union-Palast, Kurfürstendamm, one of the first buildings of Berlin exclusively built as a cinema, premiered with Max Reinhardt’s Die Insel der Seligen/The Islands of Bliss (Max Reinhardt, 1913).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2033. Photo: Union-Film. Leo Peukert in the German silent film Baronin Kammerjungfer (Leo Peukert 1918)


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2765. Photo: Atelier Eberth / Union. Pola Negri as Carmen in the German silent drama Carmen (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2931. Photo: Union. Reinhold Schünzel in Das Karussell des Lebens (Georg Jacoby, 1918). According to German Wikipedia Schünzel's presence in the film is unsure, but this postcard seems to prove it.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 611/5. Photo: Union / Ufa. Julius Falkenstein and Ossi Oswalda in Die Austernprinzessin/The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 614/1. Photo: Union. Publicity still with Asta Nielsen and Alfred Abel in Rausch/Intoxication (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).

Ernst Lubitsch

A financial crisis at the beginning of World War I forced Paul Davidson to sell his cinema chain to the Danish Nordisk Film Company in August 1915.

Davidson decided to focus on film production. His Union Film engaged such actors as Paul Wegener, Fern Andra, Pola Negri, Ossi Oswalda, Emil Jannings, and Harry Liedtke.

The rising star of the company became the actor Ernst Lubitsch who starred in a series of comedies for Union Film. Lubitsch soon also became a director. The position of Union Film was boosted when German government restricted the screening of non-German films because of the war.

Davidson produced propaganda films at the request of the German Military High Command such as Das Tagebuch des Dr. Hart/Dr. Hart's Diary (Paul Leni, 1917). By decree of the German Military High Command, Union became a founder of the new government-backed conglomerate Universum Film A.G. (Ufa) in November 1917.

Many of German's leading production companies were merged into a single organisation which would dominate German cinema for the next thirty years. So, the Nordisk's Union-Theater chain, as well as Davidson's Union were re-united under one roof.

Davidson worked as the Ufa’s artistic director and head of production. Lubitsch and Davidson's films continued to fill the coffers of the Ufa. Now functioning as one of several production units of Ufa, the company made further propaganda films such as Der gelbe Schein/The Yellow Passport (Eugen Illés, Victor Janson, Paul L. Stein, 1918).

Germany's film industry boomed after 1918 and was increasingly artistically respected, partly due to the films produced by Davidson's Union production unit featuring Pola Negri and Emil Jannings, such as Madame Dubarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918), Sumurun (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), and Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 627/8. Photo: Union. Pola Negri in Madame Dubarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 635/3. Photo: Union. Ossi Oswalda in Die Puppe (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Union Film. Publicity still for Sumurun (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) with Pola Negri, Paul Wegener and Jenny Hasselqvist.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 410/1. Photo: Union-Film. Emil Jannings as Henry VIII in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 645/2. Photo: Union Film. Henny Porten as Anna Boleyn in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920).

Paul Davidson

Davidson was unhappy with his subordinate position at Ufa. He made an attempt to buy back Union Film from Ufa, but this was rejected - partly because it was believed he was backed by the large Hollywood studios who wished to gain a foothold in the German market. Soon afterwards Union's existence as a notionally separate company was brought to an end.

In 1920 Paul Davidson left the Ufa to produce Lubitsch’s Das Weib des Pharao/The Wife of the Pharaoh (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) and Die Flamme/The Flame (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) within the short-living Europäische Film-Allianz (EFA). When Ernst Lubitsch moved to Hollywood in 1922, Davidson had produced 39 films directed by Lubitsch.

On 7 April 1921, Davidson resigned from his positions as production head and member of the Board of Ufa. Ufa lost its most successful producer, eventually finding a worthy replacement when Erich Pommer joined the studio after the merger with Decla-Bioscop AG in early 1922.

After the failure of the EFA, Davidson founded the Paul-Davidson AG on 17 September 1924, producing films 'independently' within the Ufa.

In the Spring of 1927, he cancelled his contract and entered a mental institution. It was not the first time he had experienced a breakdown. A few months later, on 18 July 1927, Paul Davidson committed suicide at the institution.

Sources: Jan-Christopher Horak (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.