Pollyanna (1920)

Pollyanna (1920) is an American silent film directed by Paul Powell and starring 'America's sweetheart', Mary Pickford. After her father's death, orphan Pollyanna has to live in an ill-tempered town with her stern Victorian Aunt Polly. Although Pollyanna's good deeds and incurable optimism melt all hearts in the town, Aunt Polly remains unmoved, still heartsick over an early romance with the village doctor... Pollyanna, scripted by Frances Marion, was based on a book by Eleanor H. Porter and a play by Catherine Chisholm Cushing.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 689/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Terra-Film, Berlin. Katherine Griffith as Aunt Polly and Mary Pickford as Pollyanna in Pollyanna (Paul Powell, 1920), released in Germany as Sonne im Herzen (Sunshine in her Heart).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 689/2. Photo: Terra-Film, Berlin. Mary Pickford in Pollyanna (Paul Powell, 1920). The man could be William Courtleigh as the neighbour, John Pendleton. She is stealing his apples but he forgives her. He discovers Pollyanna is the spitting image of her mother who left him for her father.

The glad game

Pollyanna (1920) opens in the Ozarks where a distraught Pollyanna (Mary Pickford) is comforting her father the Reverend John Whittier (Wharton James) as he dies. After his death, Pollyanna is sent to live on a New England plantation with her rich spinster aunt Polly (Katherine Griffith). Her aunt is extremely harsh with Pollyanna by not allowing her to speak of her father in her house and choosing the attic for her bedroom. She even takes Pollyanna shopping for new clothes. One day, while playing on the plantation, Pollyanna gets in trouble with a servant woman and runs to hide in a haystack. There she meets Jimmy Bean (Howard Ralston), an orphan her age.

Taking pity on Jimmy, Pollyanna is certain eventually Aunt Polly will let him live with them. So she hides him in the cellar. One day, Aunt Polly insists on going into the cellar, despite Pollyanna's pleas for fear Jimmy will be discovered. Jimmy is asleep and Pollyanna believes they're in the clear; until Jimmy starts shouting in his sleep, having a bad dream about turnips chasing and trying to eat him. Pollyanna is amused but Aunt Polly is not. After some pleading, Aunt Polly relents and tells Pollyanna to bring some good quilts for Jimmy.

One day, as Jimmy and Pollyanna play with the other children, they try to steal some apples from a tree belonging to John Pendleton (William Courtleigh). John catches Pollyanna in the act, but forgives her, realizing she is the exact image of her mother, a woman he once loved deeply, but she loved Pollyanna's father instead. He tells Pollyanna this as he shows her a painting of her mother. Meanwhile, Jimmy fights his way in, fearing that Pollyanna is in danger. He tries to defend her but finds that everything is normal.

As Pollyanna settles in she seems to bring optimism to those she meets. She is insistent on playing a game her father taught her called 'The Glad Game', where one counts the things they are glad for. She visits an old shut-in who is supposedly grateful for nothing. Pollyanna brings along an old blind and deaf friend who plays the accordion. Upon discovering the woman is blind and deaf, the shut-in proclaims her gratitude for still having her sight and hearing.

One day, however, Pollyanna tries to save a child from a car but is herself hit and becomes paralysed. Aunt Polly finally realises how important her niece has become to her. She learns that the only doctor who can happily operate on Pollyanna by restoring the use of her legs is Chilton, her old lover. Swallowing her pride, Polly goes to him to ask him to perform the miracle. Chilton succeeds and Pollyanna can finally walk again. The whole town rejoices as Jimmie Bean finally declares his love for her.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 689/3. Photo: Terra-Film, Berlin. Mary Pickford in Pollyanna (Paul Powell, 1920).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 689/4. Photo: Terra-Film, Berlin. Mary Pickford in Pollyanna (Paul Powell, 1920). The man could be William Courtleigh, who plays the neighbour, John Pendleton, from whose tree Pollyanna has stolen apples. He is smitten with her as she is the lookalike of her mother, whom he once loved. She makes sure he adopts an orphan boy, Jimmy Bean (Howard Ralston), who she helped find lodgings.

Little girl pictures

Eleanor H. Porter created the character of Pollyanna in 1913 and made her the protagonist of a series of highly successful children's books. Catherine Chisholm Cushing's stage version was first staged at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway on 18 September 1916, closing in December after 112 performances. It starred the young actress Patricia Collinge, who was celebrated by audiences and critics alike for her performance.

In 1920, Eleanor H. Porter died at the age of 52. Precisely that year her character was first brought to life on screen by Mary Pickford. Pickford was then 27 years old and portrayed a 12-year-old. She had recently divorced her alcoholic husband, the actor Owen Moore and was on the verge of remarrying a second time to Douglas Fairbanks. According to the theatrical and cinematic conventions of the time, it was nonetheless common that experienced young actresses played teenage virginal leading roles, on screen as well as in the theatre.

Mary Pickford was no stranger to child roles, in fact, she had specialised in them with a long series of successful films. From Poor Little Rich Girl (Maurice Tourneur, 1917) to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (Marshall Neilan, 1917), A Little Princess (Marshall Neilan, 1917), and Daddy Longlegs (Marshall Neilan, 1919). In Pollyanna, the actress again played the role of the teenager with long blond curly hair with great ease, alongside ‘real’ child actors such as Howard Ralston or Joan Marsh. In the following years, Pickford successfully played other child roles such as in Little Lord Fauntleroy (Alfred E. Green, Jack Pickford, 1921), Little Annie Rooney (William Beaudine, 1925), and Sparrows (William Beaudine, 1926).

Pollyanna (Paul Powell, 1920) was Mary Pickford's first film for United Artists, the company she helped found. The film was shot in California, Alabama Hills, Lone Pine and South Pasadena in September 1919. The Mary Pickford Company produced it with an estimated budget of $300,000. Pollyanna has a copyright year of 1919 but was first released in 1920. Pollyanna became a major success. Ron Oliver at IMDb: "This splendid family film, based on the Eleanor H. Porter classic, is as spunky & cheerful as its innocent heroine. 28-year-old Mary Pickford is wonderfully believable as a little girl. She exhibits the sweet charm which made her the world's most famous celebrity. She dominates her every scene with star quality few others ever possessed. The rest of the cast is also very good, especially Katherine Griffith as sullen Aunt Polly & Howard Ralston as young orphan Jimmy Bean. The sets & location filming are also worthy of mention.

During its first theatrical run, the film grossed $1.1 million (approximately $16,730,000 today) worldwide. It was extremely popular, became one of Mary Pickford's most defining 'little girl' pictures and made her Hollywood's first great star. A complete print of Pollyanna is preserved at the Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education. The Pickford Corporation also owns the copyright. There is also a famous film remake, Pollyanna (David Swift, 1960), produced by Disney and starring Hayley Mills and Jane Wyman. In the following decades, several television versions followed.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 689/6, 1919-1924. Photo: Terra-Film, Berlin. Howard Ralston and Mary Pickford in Pollyanna (Paul Powell, 1920).


British postcard. Photo: Walturdaw.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, London, no. S. 62-3. Photo: Moody, N.Y.

Sources: Ron Oliver (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, Italian and English) and IMDb.

Molly Wessely

Molly Wessely (1889-1963) was a German stage and screen actress and operetta singer. Between 1914 and 1920, she appeared in seven or eight silent films.


German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 287.


German postcard by NPG (Neue Photographische Gesellschaft), no. 260. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 3203. Photo: B.I.G. Molly Wessely in 'Die Rose von Stambul' (1917).

Film Operettas

Molly Wessely also Molly Wesely was born in 1889 as Margarete Franziska Veselý in Berlin. Margarete was the youngest of six daughters of master plumber Lambert Veselý and his wife Johanna, née Sedlacek. Her parents came from Bohemia.

She began her stage career in 1909 with an engagement at the Gebrüder-Herrnfeld-Theater. After a stopover at the Residenz-Theater, she joined the Metropol-Theater in 1915, where she remained until after the end of the First World War. Parallel to her stage work, she took singing lessons with Ludwig Mantler.

In 1917 Molly Wessely starred in the stage Operetta 'Die Rose von Stambul' (1916, The Rose of Stamboul) in Berlin, together with Eugen Rex. This popular operetta in three acts by Austrian composer Leo Fall and a libretto by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grünwald premiered on 2 December 1916 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. It was conducted by the composer and starred Hubert Marischka, Betty Fischer, Louise Kartousch and Ernst Tautenhayn. In 1919 a German film version followed, Die Rose von Stambul/The Rose of Stamboul (Felix Basch, Arthur Wellin, 1919).

In 1914 Wessely appeared for the first time in front of the camera in the crime film Lulu, die Löwentänzerin/Lulu, the Lion Dancer (Eugen Illés, 1914) with Richard Liebesny and Vicky Werckmeister. A woman murders her husband, but it is revealed at a circus and she flees the crime. Wearing a black mask she reappears as a noblewoman, but her identity is uncovered and she kills herself. Four years after her film debut and after her stage success in 'Die Rose von Stambul', Wessely starred in Wer in der Jugend nicht küßt/Who Does Not Kiss in Youth (Karl Otto Krause, 1918), produced by Jacob Beck, Deutsche Lichtspielopern-Gesellschaft (Delog). Delog tried to establish its own genre of ‘Film Operetta’ by developing its own material and compositions.

Beck's second attempt was Die Sylvesterwette/The New Year's Eve Bet (Martin Zickel, 1919). The promise that this Film Operetta would be ‘the biggest hit of the season’, which the company made in February 1919 in an advertisement in the trade journal Der Kinematograph, no. 631, was not to be fulfilled. The film was withdrawn from the programme after just one week. The creators of the production were just as dissatisfied with the result as the critics. Composer Jean Gilbert and his librettists Wolff and Zickel distanced themselves from the film even before the premiere. The critics found the direction, acting and setting inadequate, and the music and the hits even more so. The film critic Egon Jacobsohn wrote: ‘In any case, this operetta is a failure.’


German postcard by Photochemie, no. K.2003. Photo: Riess. Molly Wessely in 'Die Rose von Stambul'.


German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 2004. Photo: Riess. Molly Wessely in 'Die Rose von Stambul' (1917).

The confession of a dead woman

Between 1918 and 1920, Molly Wessely played leading roles in six film productions. On New Year's Eve 1919, she married the director and theatre manager Martin Zickel, with whom she made Die Sylvesterwette/The New Year's Eve Bet (Martin Zickel, 1919).

Molly Wessely acted in films directed by Edmund Edel, such as Frau Hempels Tochter (1919), co-directed with Julius Dewald, and Hannemann, ach Hannemann (1919). Her regular co-actors were Georg Berg, Julius Dewald and Josefine Dora. Wessely's last film was Die Beichte einer Toten/The Confession of a Dead Woman (Martin Zickel, 1920), with Werner Krauss, Paul Morgan and Paul Graetz.

Filmportal also mentions the film Im Löwenkäfig/In the Lion's Cage (Director unknown, 1922), which like her first film was an Urbach production, so the two may have conflated, as Filmportal does not mention the 1914 film, while both Wikipedia and the German Early Cinema Database do.

In the 1920s, Molly Wessely hardly took part in any more fixed engagements, but she sang in several radio productions. From 1930 to 1932, she was a member of the ensemble of the Komische Oper Berlin under the direction of her husband, Martin Zickel.

After Martin Zickel's death in 1932, Molly Wessely seems to have increasingly withdrawn into private life. She died in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1963.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 3206. Photo: B.I.G. Eugen Rex and Molly Wessely in 'Die Rose von Stambul' (1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 289. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), German Early Cinema Database, Filmportal, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Serge Lifar

Serge Lifar (1905-1986) was a French dancer, choreographer and ballet master of Ukrainian origin. He was one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century and considered the successor to Nijinsky in the Ballet Russes. From 1930 on, he was immensely successful in his ballet creations. During three decades, he led the Paris Opéra Ballet, enriched its repertoire, reestablished its reputation as a leading ballet company, and enhanced the position of male dancers in a company long dominated by ballerinas.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris no. 272. Photo: Studio Harcourt.


French postcard. Photo: Lipnitzki (Gravure extraite de Arts et Littératures, T. XVI de l'Encyclopédie française). Serge Lifar in the ballet 'Icare' (1935).

An animal intensity

Serge Lifar (Сергій Лифар) was born Serhіy Mуkhailovуch Lуfar in Kyiv, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). His birth year is officially shown as 1904 (as on a 2004 Ukrainian stamp commemorating his centenary), but other sources say 1905. He was the son of a civil servant.

Lifar had a late start as a dancer. He was introduced to dance in 1920 by Bronislava Nijinska, under whom he began to study. In 1921 he left the Soviet Union to join Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Diaghilev sent him to Turin to improve his technique with the eminent teacher Enrico Cecchetti. He debuted at the Ballets Russes in 1923 and became the premier danseur of the company in 1925.

The company revolutionised ballet by merging modern dance, music and art into a dynamic whole. At first a vehicle for bringing Russian art to the West, it was ostracized by the Revolutionary Soviet government and became a platform for collaboration between Russian and Western artists. Lifar was very handsome, had an athletic body, and a great desire to be liked. He was the impresario's favourite and considered the successor to Nijinsky. At 21, he was cast in Nijinska’s 'Roméo et Juliette' (1926) opposite Tamara Karsavina, who was twice his age.

In George Balanchine’s comic ballet 'Barabau' (1925), Lifar was a police sergeant chasing an Italian peasant. He originated leading roles in three ballets by Balanchine for the Ballet Russes, including 'La Chatte' (1927) with a score by French composer Henri Sauguet and based on an Aesop fable, which featured Lifar’s famous entrance in a ‘chariot’ formed by his male companions, 'Apollon Musagète' (1928) with a score by Stravinsky depicting the birth of the Greek God, Apollo and his encounter with the three muses, Callipe, Polyhymnia, and Terpsichore, and 'Le fils prodigue' (The Prodigal Son) (1929) with a score by Prokofiev, the last great ballet of the Diaghilev era.

Anna Kisselgoff in The New York Times about his charisma: “His dark exotic looks and athletic body gave him an animal intensity. A child's eye view is unreliable, but in 1949, on a trip to Paris, I saw his portly but still-dramatic presence dominate the stage in Icare. The image remains.“


German cigarette card by Eckstein-Halpaus, Dresden, in the series 'Die Tanzbühnen der Welt', Group 2: 'The dance stages of foreign countries', no. 95. Photo: Lipnitzki. Caption: Serge Lifar, former star dancer in Diaghilev's ballets, now working as a principal dancer and occasional ballet master at the Paris Opera, in his latest creation ‘The Youth’.


French postcard no. 146. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

The re-birth of ballet in France

After the death of Diaghilev in 1929, Serge Lifar was invited by Jacques Rouché to take over the directorship of the Paris Opéra Ballet. Lifar was 24 at the time. The Paris Opéra Ballet had fallen into decline in the late 19th century. He gave the company a new strength and purpose initiating the re-birth of ballet in France and began to create the first of many ballets for that company. In 1932 he was awarded the title of 'professeur de danse' and began reforms of the Opéra’s school to enable its dancers to perform the more modern ballets. Lifar was immensely successful, essentially in his ballet creations, notably with 'Les Créatures de Prométhée' (The Creatures of Prometheus, 1929), a personal version of 'Le Spectre de la rose' (1931) and 'L'Après-midi d'un faune' (1935), 'Icare' (Icarus, 1935) with costumes and decor by Pablo Picasso, 'Istar' (1941) and 'Suite en Blanc' (1943), which he qualified as neoclassical, all created for the Paris Opera.

He also worked as a choreographer for some films. Examples are Nuits de feu/Nights of Fire (Marcel L'Herbier, 1937), starring Gaby Morlay, and La Mort du Cygne/The Death of the Swan (Jean Benoît-Lévy, 1937), the first feature film set entirely in the ballet world. As ballet master of the Paris Opera from 1930 to 1944 and from 1947 to 1958, Lifar devoted himself to the restoration of the technical level of the Paris Opera Ballet to return it to its place as one of the best companies in the world. During those three decades as director of the Paris Opéra Ballet, he lead the company through turbulent times during World War II and the German occupation of France. In 1945, charges had caused him the first time to leave and become director of the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo. Lifar, cleared of the charges and given a year's suspension, returned as director of the Paris Opera Ballet in 1947. In 1958, he was forced to resign from the Paris Opéra Ballet.

During his career, Serge Lifar made an effort to revitalise dance and thought the basic principles of ballet and the five positions of the feet denied mobility for the dancer and invented sixth and seventh positions with the feet turned in not out like the first five positions. In 1935 he published his confessio fidei titled Le manifesto du chorégraphe, proposing laws about the independence of choreography. He proclaimed that dance, as an independent art, could exist without music. He also wrote a biography of Diaghilev titled 'Serge Diaghilev, His Life, His Work, His Legend: An Intimate Biography' published by Putnam, London, 1940.

Lifar brought the Paris Opéra Ballet to America and performed to full houses at the New York City Center. Audiences were enthusiastic and had great admiration for the company of dancers. According to Wikipedia, he undoubtedly influenced Yvette Chauviré, Janine Charrat and Roland Petit. During his life, he also appeared in a few films. The best known is Jean Cocteau’s Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi!/Testament of Orpheus (1960), in which he played Orphée's Friend. Two years later he could be seen in a segment of Le crime ne paie pas/Crime Does Not Pay (Gérard Oury, 1962) with Rosanna Schiaffino.

In 1977 the Paris Opéra Ballet devoted a full evening to his choreography. In 1983 he was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1983). Serge Lifar died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1986, aged 81 and was buried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery. Editions Sauret published his memoirs titled 'Les Mémoires d’Icare' posthumously in 1993. The title references one of his greatest roles in the ballet 'Icare'. “The story of the ballet is based on the ancient Greek myth of Icarus whose father Daedalus built him a pair of artificial wings. Disobeying his father’s orders, Icarus flies too close to the sun, which melts the wax in his wings and causes him to plunge to death. The Serge Lifar Foundation was set up in 1989 by Lifar's devoted companion, glamorous blonde Swedish countess Lillian Ahlefeldt-Laurvig. In 2012, jewels from the Countess' estate were auctioned at Sotheby's, with the proceeds going to the Foundation.


French postcard no. 257. Photo: Studio Harcourt. Collection: Didier Hanson.


French postcard TTG / ADAGP, Paris, 2013, no. 0183000053. Photo: Lucien Clergue. Luis Miguel Dominguin, Jacqueline and Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Lucia Bosé and Serge Lifar.

Sources: Anna Kisselgoff (The New York Times), Colin Gleadell (The Telegraph), Andros on Ballet, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Lois Moran

Lois Moran (1909-1990) was an American stage and film actress. She started her career as a dancer at the Paris Opera in France. Her film debut was in a French silent film after which she starred in French and American films till 1931. Her major claim to fame, however, was as F. Scott Fitzgerald's inspiration for the character of Rosemary in his classic novel 'Tender Is the Night'.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3833/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Fox.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5325. Photo: Fox.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3910/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Fox.

Dancing at the Paris Opera at 13

Lois Moran was born Lois Darlington Dowling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1909. She was the only child of Roger and Gladys Evans Dowling. Her father died in a car accident when she was one year old. Her mother then married Dr Timothy Moran, from whom Lois derived her later stage name.

When Lois was nine years old, her stepfather, whom she regarded as the most important person in her life alongside her mother, died of influenza. Lois grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Seton Hill Academy in Greensburg.

Lois trained in dance and moved to Paris with her mother at the age of 10 to study seriously, with funding provided by Lois's great-aunt. They lived in France between 1921 and 1925. At the age of thirteen, Lois made her first small appearances as a singer and dancer at the Paris Opera.

She had a leading role in her film debut, the drama La galerie des monstres/The Gallery of Monsters (Jaque Catelain, 1924), set against the background of a circus in Spain. It was produced by Cinégraphic, the production company of Marcel L'Herbier and it was the second film to be directed by the actor Jaque Catelain, following the relative success of his previous film Le Marchand de plaisirs/The Merchant of Pleasures (1923).

In 1925, Moran was seen in a leading role in the French silent drama Feu Mathias Pascal/The Late Matthias Pascal (Marcel L'Herbier, 1925) starring Ivan Mozzukhin. It was the first film adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's novel 'Il fu Mattia Pascal'.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag / Amag, no. 5900. Photo: Max Munn Autrey / Fox.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 293. Photo: Noël / Fox Film.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4857/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Fox.

A monumental tearjerker

After her return to the United States, Lois Moran achieved greater fame in the same year with the role of Laurel Dallas, daughter of the title character, in the monumental tearjerker Stella Dallas (Henry King, 1925) starring Ronald Colman and Belle Bennett.

Film offers came flying her way and in 1926 she co-starred as the daughter of Lon Chaney in The Road to Mandalay (Tod Browning, 1926). In the following years, Lois Moran appeared as the leading actress in numerous silent films such as the drama The Music Master (Allan Dwan, 1927) opposite British actor Alec B. Francis.

In 1927, Moran had a short-lived relationship with the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who is said to have modelled the character of Rosemary Hoyt on her in his novel 'Tender is the Night'. She co-starred with Warner Baxter in the mystery film Behind That Curtain (Irving Cummings, 1929). It was the first Charlie Chan film to be made at Fox Studios. Moran played another major role in Mammy (Michael Curtiz, 1930) alongside Al Jolson.

However, like many other actors, she was unable to make a successful transition from silent to talkies. She moved to Broadway, where she appeared in the play 'This Is New York' (1930), the George Gershwin musical 'Of Thee I Sing' and its sequel 'Let 'Em Eat Cake' (1934). In 1935, she married Clarence M. Young, then assistant secretary of commerce, with whom she had a son, Timothy.

Moran stopped acting, but she made a comeback in the television series Waterfront (1954-1955) with Preston Foster. It ran for three seasons. In later years she settled in Sedona, Arizona with her husband, who died in 1972. She ran a weekly local column for a time. In 1974, Moran returned to the big screen for the last time. In Wim Wenders' road movie Alice in den Städten/Alice in the Cities (1974), she was seen in a small role as the Pan Am booking agent at the airport in New York. Lois Moran died of cancer in 1990 in a nursing home in Sedona, Arizona, at the age of 81. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered in Red Rock Country in Arizona.


Dutch postcard. Dorothy Burgess and Lois Moran in A Song of Kentucky (Lewis Seiler, 1929).


Dutch postcard, no. 549. Joseph Wagstaff and Lois Moran in A Song of Kentucky (Lewis Seiler, 1929).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

Ross Verlag, Part 27: Luxus cards

Between 1930 and 1933 Ross Verlag published a series of film star postcards in the 'Luxus klasse' (luxury class). The Luxus cards were first advertised in the German magazine Die Filmwoche (Film Week) no. 48 (26 November 1930) as 'Die letzte Neuheit!' (the latest novelty). These new Luxus-Filmpostkarten were printed in what was called 'Weltformat' (World Size) 10,5 x 14,8 cm. Advertised were the first 24 Luxus cards, which counted from number 500, Greta Garbo. And although not mentioned in this ad, these new postcards were published in two versions, Schwarz Hochglanz (black-and-white glossy), and Schwarz Chamois (chamois matte). On the back of many cards, you can find the golden Luxus emblem. 1933 was the final year Luxus cards were published. The last Luxus card was no. 803: Lilian Harvey.


French postcard by Edition Ross in the Luxus series, no. 500. Photo: Clarence Sinclair Bull. Greta Garbo in the German version of Anna Christie (Jacques Feyder, 1930). Mark how Garbo is often portrayed with her hands around her head.

Swedish Greta Garbo (1905-1990) is often regarded as one of the greatest and most glamorous movie stars ever produced by the Hollywood studio system. She was part of the Golden Age of the silent film of the 1920s and was one of the few actors who made a glorious transition to the talkies. She started her career in European cinema and would always stay more popular in Europe than in the USA.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 501. Photo: Paramount. Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (Josef von Sternberg, 1930).

Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) is regarded as the first German actress to become successful in Hollywood. Throughout her long career, she constantly re-invented herself, starting as a cabaret singer, chorus girl, and film actress in 1920s Berlin, she became a Hollywood movie star in the 1930s, a World War II frontline entertainer, and finally an international stage show performer from the 1950s to the 1970s, eventually becoming one of the entertainment icons of the 20th century.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 502. Photo: Ufa.

Willy Fritsch (1901-1973) was the immensely popular ‘Sunny Boy’ of the Ufa operettas of the 1930s and 1940s.


French postcard by Ross in the Luxus series, no. 506. Photo: Universal.

Laura La Plante (1904–1996) was an American actress, best known for her work in the silent film era, such as Smouldering Fires (Clarence Brown, 1925) with Pauline Frederick, Skinner's Dress Suit (William Seiter, 1926) with Reginald Denny, and The Cat and the Canary (Paul Leni, 1927) with Creighton Hale. In the 1920s she acted in over 60 films, mostly for Universal, including the two-part-talkies The Love Trap (William Wyler, 1929) and Showboat (Harry A. Pollard, 1929).


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 510. Photo: Paramount.

Red-haired, cupid-bow-mouthed Nancy Carroll (1903-1965) became a very popular Hollywood star upon the advent of sound film because of her singing and dancing abilities. She was reported to have received more fan mail than any of her Hollywood peers of the same era. As she expanded her acting range from flaming flapper to ditzy comedienne to sensitive heroine, she was nominated for an Oscar for The Devil's Holiday (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 512. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Hollywood star Anita Page (1910-2008) starred in the silent era opposite Ramon Novarro in The Flying Fleet (1928) and William Haines in Telling the World (1927). Her success in Our Dancing Daughters (1928) opposite Joan Crawford and Broadway Melody (1929) opposite Bessie Love paved the way for a smooth career in sound cinema. In the early 1930s, Anita Page had a busy career in American movies opposite actors like Buster Keaton, John Gilbert, Walter Huston, Robert Montgomery, and Clark Gable (with whom she was romantically involved). After Garbo, she was the actress who got the most fan mail and Mussolini supposedly kept proposing to her.


Postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 519. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

The Austrian actor Willi Forst (1903-1980) was a darling of the German-speaking public. He was also one of the most significant directors, producers, writers, and stars of the Wiener Filme, the light Viennese musical comedy of the 1930s. On stage, he played in operettas and revues but also worked with Erwin Piscator and Max Reinhardt.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 526. Photo: Ufa. Willy Fritsch.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 531. Photo: Paramount.

Maurice Chevalier's (1888-1972) trademark was a casual straw hat, which he always wore on stage with a cane and a tuxedo.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 533. Photo: Paramount.

American actress Clara Bow (1905-1965) rose to stardom as an uninhibited flapper in silent films during the 1920s. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It (1927) brought her global fame and the nickname 'The It Girl'. Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 540. Photo: Paramount. Charles Rogers in Heads Up (Victor Schertzinger, 1930).

Charles 'Buddy' Rogers (1904-1999) was an American film actor and musician. During the peak of his popularity in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he was publicised as "America's Boy Friend". Rogers starred in such films as Wings (1927) and My Best Girl (1927), opposite his later wife Mary Pickford. He also found success as a bandleader and a musician.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 576. Photo: Ufa. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 580. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Greta Garbo in Romance (Clarence Brown, 1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 592. Photo: Paramount.

American screen legend Gary Cooper (1901-1961) is well remembered for his stoic, understated acting style in more than one hundred Westerns, comedies and dramas. He received five Oscar nominations and won twice for his roles as Alvin York in Sergeant York (1941) and as Will Kane in High Noon (1952).


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 608. Photo: Atelier Binder. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Instituut.

Dutch actress Lien Deyers (1910-1965) - also known as Lien Deijers and Lien Dyers - was discovered by famous director Fritz Lang who gave her a part in Spione (1928). She acted in a stream of late silent and early sound films. After 1935 her star faded rapidly and her life ended in tragedy.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 609. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.

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.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 614. Photo: Paramount. Jenny Jugo in Die nackte Wahrheit/The Naked Truth (Karl Anton, 1932). It was shot at the Joinville Studios in Paris, where many of Paramount Pictures' multiple-language versions were made. It is the German version of Nothing but the Truth (Victor Schertzinger, 1929) and was also known by the alternative title of Heut' küsst Paris.

Pretty Austrian actress Jenny Jugo (1904-2001) had a prolific career in German cinema, from the late silent era well into the war years. She did particularly well as a comedienne and starred between 1931 and 1942 in eleven smart and charming comedies directed by Erich Engel.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 618. Photo: Paramount. Marlene Dietrich.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 627. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin / Ufa.

British-born, German actress and singer Lilian Harvey (1906-1968) was Ufa's biggest star of the 1930s. With Willy Fritsch, she formed the 'Dream Team of the European Cinema'. Their best film was the immensely popular film Operetta Der Kongress tanzt/The Congress Dances (Erik Charell, 1931).


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 657 (Schwarz Chamois version). Photo: Clarence Sinclair Bull / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (George Fitzmaurice, 1931).


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 657 (Schwarz Hochglanz version). Photo: Clarence Sinclair Bull / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (George Fitzmaurice, 1931).


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 669. Photo: Walter Lichtenstein.

German stage and screen actor Felix Bressart (1892-1949) had to flee Germany after the Nazis seized power. He continued his film career in Austria and later in the US, where he became a popular character actor for MGM.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxusklasse series, no. 673. Photo: Ufa.

Ethereally blonde Camilla Horn (1903-1996) was a German dancer and film star. Her breakthrough role was Gretchen in the silent film classic Faust (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926). She also starred in some Hollywood films of the late 1920s and in a few British and Italian productions.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 700. Photo: Atelier Binder. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Instituut. Lien Deyers.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 701. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Greta Garbo and Ramon Novarro in Mata Hari (George Fitzmaurice, 1931).

Mexican-American actor Ramon Novarro (1899-1968) was a popular Latin Lover of the 1920s and early 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 745. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

Popular actress Renate Müller (1906-1937) was the toast of late 1920s Berlin. She had a comet-like career in the early German sound cinema, that was abruptly ended by her mysterious early death.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 762. Photo: Ufa. Hans Albers in F.P.1 antwortet nicht/F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (Karl Hartl, 1932).

Jovial, pleasantly plump Hans Albers (1891-1960) was a superstar of German cinema between 1930 and 1945. He was also one of the most popular German singers of the twentieth century. His song 'Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins' (On the Reeperbahn at half past midnight) is the unofficial anthem of Hamburg’s neighbourhood of St. Pauli, famous for its brothels, music, and nightclubs.


German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Luxus series, no. 766. Photo: Atelier Yva, Berlin.

German-born, British stage and screen actress Dolly Haas (1910-1994) was popular in the 1930s as a vivacious, red-haired 'gamine' often wearing trousers in German and British films. Although she got a 3-year contract with Columbia and worked with Alfred Hitchcock in Hollywood, Dolly's American career mainly took place on and Off-Broadway.

Source: Hans Schnepper (Ross Postcards). Thanks to Marlene Pilaete! Our Ross Verlag tribute will be continued next week!