Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921) is an early example of the German Kammerspiel film. Henny Porten, Wilhelm Dieterle and Fritz Kortner played the lead roles. Henny Porten's film company produced the film.
German collectors card by Ross Verlag in the series Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst - Der Stumme Film, picture no. 102. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921) with Henny Porten, Wilhelm Dieterle and Fritz Kortner.
In Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921), Henny Porten plays a maid to a rich family who lives in one of the city's poor neighbourhoods. Every evening she meets her handsome, young lover (Wilhelm Dieterle) at the door of the backstairs of her house.
The two are regularly observed by the crippled postman (Fritz Kortner) living in the basement, who secretly loves the girl. Desperate to win her love, he begins to intercept the letters the two lovers send to each other and replaces them with his own messages, which each thinks is from the other.
His plan seems to be succeeding, but then something happens that bring tragic results to them all. One day she waits in vain for her lover, his letters are also missing.
The postman brings her a letter in which her lover assures her of his love. Full of exuberance to thank him, she brings the postman a pitcher with punch in his basement apartment. She then realises that he had written the letter to comfort her.
Believing her lover has forgotten her, she finally turns to the postman. They have their romance. When she awaits him for dinner, the former lover returns unexpectedly. He was in the hospital and his mail did not arrive - the postman, namely, had embezzled her out of jealousy. A dispute between the postman and the lover starts, but the maid cannot enter the room, so she cries for help.
When the neighbours break down the door, they see the postman with an axe in his hand and the dead lover at his feet. Because of the scandal, the maid loses her position. She climbs up to the roof of the house and jumps to her death.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/1. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/2. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, 1921) is one of the first examples of the Kammerspielfilm (Chamber Drama), a German silent film genre which had the heightened sense of reality at its centre. According to IMDb, the film was co-directed by Leopold Jessner and Paul Leni.
Aside from Max Reinhardt, Leopold Jessner was considered the most-advanced director in the German theatre. He was the director of the Berlin Staatstheater. The hallmark of his stage productions was the use of stairs, and his critics coined the word, 'Jessnertreppin', as a short-club to beat him with in their newspaper reviews.
In Hintertreppe, his only film, Jessner uses stairs to dramatise both the social status of the characters and their emotional relationships. For the greater part of the film, only three people are seen, and the lighting seems to come from within the characters and is used to convey the sense of isolation. A highlight is the stage-expressionist performance by Fritz Kortner under the direction of Jessner.
Paul Leni and Karl Görge were the art directors of the film and their image-filling buildings by Paul Leni and Karl Görge, especially the narrow, angled backstairs and the towering, barely light-emitting house fronts are also responsible for the expressionistic look of the film.
The Austrian Carl Mayer scriptwriter was also the author of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), the prime example of German Expressionist horror. But for Hintertreppe, he turned away from the fantastic and towards realism. He did it for the second time, after his script for another Kammerspielfilm Scherben/Shattered (Lupu Pick, 1921).
On 11 December 1921, Hintertreppe had its world premiere in the Berlin U.T. Kurfürstendamm. Reviewer Kekseka at IMDb: "The film has a small set, virtually no titles, only three actors for most of its length but there is a great freedom allowed to the spectator to construct for him of herself the context of the action, a context that lives in the various inanimate objects that represent a presence of others never seen (the shoes, the plates, the glassware, the table-setting, the flowers, the punch) as well as in the Chinese shadows occasionally seen in the room(s) beyond.
The famous stairs are not the only powerful symbol. Another is the small half-moon shaped barred window for which, as far as I know there is no word in English but which is called in French a 'soupirail' and is a feature to basement flats throughout Continental Europe and will turn up as commonly as the backstairs in the films of the period.
It is one of the great films of the year which also saw Lang's Der müde Tod, Lubitsch's Die Bergkatze, Pick's Scherben, Murnau's Der Gang in der nacht, Buchetowski's Sappho, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Blade af Satans Bog, Feyder's L'Atlantide, the Asta Nielsen Hamlet, Sjöström's Phantom Carriage, Stiller's Johan. Altogether a very remarkable year for European cinema."
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/3. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/4. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
Sources: Kekseka (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
German collectors card by Ross Verlag in the series Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst - Der Stumme Film, picture no. 102. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921) with Henny Porten, Wilhelm Dieterle and Fritz Kortner.
Intercepting the letters of two lovers
In Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921), Henny Porten plays a maid to a rich family who lives in one of the city's poor neighbourhoods. Every evening she meets her handsome, young lover (Wilhelm Dieterle) at the door of the backstairs of her house.
The two are regularly observed by the crippled postman (Fritz Kortner) living in the basement, who secretly loves the girl. Desperate to win her love, he begins to intercept the letters the two lovers send to each other and replaces them with his own messages, which each thinks is from the other.
His plan seems to be succeeding, but then something happens that bring tragic results to them all. One day she waits in vain for her lover, his letters are also missing.
The postman brings her a letter in which her lover assures her of his love. Full of exuberance to thank him, she brings the postman a pitcher with punch in his basement apartment. She then realises that he had written the letter to comfort her.
Believing her lover has forgotten her, she finally turns to the postman. They have their romance. When she awaits him for dinner, the former lover returns unexpectedly. He was in the hospital and his mail did not arrive - the postman, namely, had embezzled her out of jealousy. A dispute between the postman and the lover starts, but the maid cannot enter the room, so she cries for help.
When the neighbours break down the door, they see the postman with an axe in his hand and the dead lover at his feet. Because of the scandal, the maid loses her position. She climbs up to the roof of the house and jumps to her death.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/1. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/2. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
A very remarkable year for European cinema
Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, 1921) is one of the first examples of the Kammerspielfilm (Chamber Drama), a German silent film genre which had the heightened sense of reality at its centre. According to IMDb, the film was co-directed by Leopold Jessner and Paul Leni.
Aside from Max Reinhardt, Leopold Jessner was considered the most-advanced director in the German theatre. He was the director of the Berlin Staatstheater. The hallmark of his stage productions was the use of stairs, and his critics coined the word, 'Jessnertreppin', as a short-club to beat him with in their newspaper reviews.
In Hintertreppe, his only film, Jessner uses stairs to dramatise both the social status of the characters and their emotional relationships. For the greater part of the film, only three people are seen, and the lighting seems to come from within the characters and is used to convey the sense of isolation. A highlight is the stage-expressionist performance by Fritz Kortner under the direction of Jessner.
Paul Leni and Karl Görge were the art directors of the film and their image-filling buildings by Paul Leni and Karl Görge, especially the narrow, angled backstairs and the towering, barely light-emitting house fronts are also responsible for the expressionistic look of the film.
The Austrian Carl Mayer scriptwriter was also the author of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), the prime example of German Expressionist horror. But for Hintertreppe, he turned away from the fantastic and towards realism. He did it for the second time, after his script for another Kammerspielfilm Scherben/Shattered (Lupu Pick, 1921).
On 11 December 1921, Hintertreppe had its world premiere in the Berlin U.T. Kurfürstendamm. Reviewer Kekseka at IMDb: "The film has a small set, virtually no titles, only three actors for most of its length but there is a great freedom allowed to the spectator to construct for him of herself the context of the action, a context that lives in the various inanimate objects that represent a presence of others never seen (the shoes, the plates, the glassware, the table-setting, the flowers, the punch) as well as in the Chinese shadows occasionally seen in the room(s) beyond.
The famous stairs are not the only powerful symbol. Another is the small half-moon shaped barred window for which, as far as I know there is no word in English but which is called in French a 'soupirail' and is a feature to basement flats throughout Continental Europe and will turn up as commonly as the backstairs in the films of the period.
It is one of the great films of the year which also saw Lang's Der müde Tod, Lubitsch's Die Bergkatze, Pick's Scherben, Murnau's Der Gang in der nacht, Buchetowski's Sappho, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Blade af Satans Bog, Feyder's L'Atlantide, the Asta Nielsen Hamlet, Sjöström's Phantom Carriage, Stiller's Johan. Altogether a very remarkable year for European cinema."
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/3. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 649/4. Photo: Henny Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, Paul Leni, 1921).
Sources: Kekseka (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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