Hungarian postcard by K Ltd, no. 32. Photo: Corvin Film / May Film. Ila Lóth and Ferenc 'Ferkó' Szécsi in Egy Dollár/One Dollar aka Az egyhuszasos lány (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924).
Hungarian postcard. Photo: Corvin Film / May Film. Ila Lóth in Egy Dollár/One Dollar aka Az egyhuszasos lány (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924).
A filthy little pawnshop
Egy Dollár/One Dollar (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924) is situated in Hamburg. In an off-site corner of the port quarter, the rich Bagger (Lajos Réthey) lives in his filthy little pawn shop. One day a mother (Irma Lányi) steps in with her daughter. She wants to sell all her belongings to be able to set out to care for her uncle who fell ill in a distant country.
The mother is forced to even put her daughter, Maggie (Ila Lóth) in pawn to the usurper. She gets one dollar to make it for the fares.
At this time, the greedy usurer can only see a free maidservant in the girl. As years pass by and Maggie’s beauty unfolds, the old Bagger falls in love with her and wants to marry her.
Fortunately, her mother returns just in time and takes Maggie out of pawn from Bagger. So Maggie can marry her true love, Charley Brown (Gábor Rajnay), the noble youth who became demoralised and disowned due to his light-mindedness. Regretting his sins, he returned to his hometown as a seaman.
Egy Dollár/One Dollar (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924) has survived, writes Márton Kurutz of the National Film Institute in Budapest us. Only the dream scene is missing. Márton, many thanks for mailing us the plot of the film and the information about the existing copy!
Hungarian postcard, no. 2. Photo: Corvin Film / May Film. Ila Lóth in Egy Dollár/One Dollar aka Az egyhuszasos lány (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924).
Hungarian postcard, no. 4. Photo: Corvin Film / May Film. Ila Lóth in Egy Dollár/One Dollar aka Az egyhuszasos lány (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924).
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Ila Lóth was discovered by screenwriter József Pakots in 1917 and became a member of the Star Film Company. Soon she was a popular star of the Hungarian silent cinema.
Loth starred in several films directed by actor-turned-director Alfréd Deésy. She was the maid in Raskolnikov (Alfréd Deésy, 1917) and Sybil Vane in Az élet királya/The Picture of Dorian Gray (Alfréd Deésy, 1918), with Norbert Dán as Gray and Béla Lugosi,w ho performed in the film under the name Arisztid Olt, as Lord Henry Wotton. Az élet királya/The Picture of Dorian Gray was described as an "almost unprecedented success" in the local Budapest press. Sadly, no copy of the film is known to exist.
In later years, Béla Balogh directed her at Star Film. She played the miller's daughter Marta in his Hegyek alján/Under the Mountains (Bela Balogh, 1920), with Iván Petrovich. Ila Lóth also appeared as Gladys in Az ötödik osztály/The Fifth Class (Béla Balogh, 1920) and as Beatrix in Lengyelvér/The Polish Castle (Béla Balogh 1920) again opposite Petrovich.
Meanwhile, in 1919 Loth had also begun to alternate Star Film with the Corvin Film Factory, on the recommendation of Alexander Korda. She appeared in several films as a naive young girl, such as Maggie in Egy dollár/Az egyhuszasos lány (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1923), co-produced by Joe May's May Film. Future Hollywood actor Paul Lukas played a small part as a sailor. Egy Dollár/One Dollar (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924) was probably Loth's last silent film.
Beforehand, Loth had also made some films at Emelka in Munich, such as Der Verfluchte (Franz Osten, 1921), with Violetta Napierska, and Schattenkinder des Glücks (Franz Osten, 1922), with Vilma Banky. All in all, Loth acted in some 35 silent films. In 1923, Ila Lóth married Győző János Rohoczy Storer in Budapest and retired for a long time. From 1948 onward, she played again small parts in films but also acted on stage at the Madách Theater. From 1960 she also appeared in some TV movies and one series. Through her daughter Judit, she is the grandmother of the actress Sunnyi Melles, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn.
Hungarian postcard. Photo: Corvin Film / May Film. Ila Lóth in Egy Dollár/One Dollar aka Az egyhuszasos lány (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1924).
Hungarian postcard by MFSI, no 24. Photo: May. Ila Lóth in Lengyelvér/Polish Blood (Béla Balogh, 1921).
Sources: Márton Kurutz (National Film Institute, Budapest), Wikipedia (Hungarian and English) and IMDb.
No comments:
Post a Comment