Die Fürstin von Beranien (1918)

In the silent German drama Die Fürstin von Beranien/The Princess of Berania (Ernst Reicher, 1918), heartthrob Bruno Kastner plays a prince who falls for the princess of Berania, played by Stella Harf. But in this story the couple does not live happily ever after...


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2329. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien/The Princess of Berania (Ernst Reicher, 1918).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2330. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2331. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2332. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2334. Photo: Alba-Film, Berlin. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).

A Last Sidestep

In Die Fürstin von Beranien/The Princess of Berania (Ernst Reicher, 1918), Bruno Kastner starred as prince Heinrich von Waldstein aka Dr. Heinrich von Wald. Director Ernst Reicher's wife, Stella Harf, played the title role, princess Elisabeth Maria von Beranien.

Prince Ernst von Beranien (Leopold von Ledebur) announces his daughter Elisabeth will become crown princess. She asks for a last sidestep, and as a 'common countess', she is granted to take a holiday in the mountains, though escorted by the stern countess Elvira (Frida Richard) and her daughter Kitty.

The princess meets and falls in love with the sympathetic Dr. Heinrich von Wald, but when he proposes to her she flees, as the class difference would never permit such a marriage.

When her father dies, Elisabeth agrees to become the next ruler and must pick a husband of her class, her father's favourite Duke Rudolph (Kurt von Möllendorf). The military party opposes and rather sees her married to prince Von Waldstein. They assault the castle but when the prince and princess meet they recognise each other as the winter sports lovers.

Then the plot takes an unusal, tragic shift. Heinrich is captured but released. During a last farewell of Heinrich at Elisabeth's balcony, the guard misunderstands the situation and shoots him, mortally. After Heinrich's death Elisabeth marries her father's favourite.

Die Fürstin von Beranien premiered in April 1918 at the Berlin cinema Tauentzienpalast. The script was written by Richard Hutter. Sets were designed by future director Manfred Noa, and cinematography was done by Hans Bloch.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 3267. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 3266. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Leopold von Ledebur in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 3256. Photo: Alba-Film. Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 3254. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918).

Source: Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Das Herz des Casanova (1919)

Bruno Kastner was beloved as the elegant dandy and charming bonvivant of the German silent cinema. Das Herz des Casanova/The Heart of Casanova (Erik Lund, 1919) was one of the silent films on which his fame as a heartthrob was based. Ross Verlag made a series of sepia postcards for the film, of which we show four below.


Bruno Kastner. erman postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 181/2. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 622/2. Photo: Ring-Film. Bruno Kastner in Das Herz des Casanova (Erik Lund, 1919). The actress on the left is Ria Jende.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 622/2. Photo: Ring-Film. Bruno Kastner in Das Herz des Casanova (Erik Lund, 1919). The actor on the right may be Karl Platen.

Slim, good-looking, young - and unfit for military service

Bruno Kastner was discovered by Danish film diva Asta Nielsen. He made his film debut opposite her in the short comedy Engelein/Little Angel (Urban Gad, 1914), with Fred Immler and Hanns Kräly. He followed the success of this film with the sequel Engeleins Hochzeit/Little Angel's Wedding (Urban Gad, 1916).

Most men of his age were in the war, the demand for actors was bigger than the offer. Bruno Kastner was slim, good-looking, young - and unfit for military service. During the First World War, Kastner quickly became a matinee idol in Germany, especially popular with female fans. His picture decorated many bedside tables.

The German press commented on Kastner's rise to stardom and how vexed postmen were having to transport love letters from fans to Kastner in laundry baskets. Kastner cemented his romantic image by appearing as the ardent suitor to such popular actresses Dorrit Weixler, Lotte Neumann and Mia May in a number of films of the era.

Male filmgoers were less fond of Kastner's image of a handsome dandy and gave him the nickname 'Kleiderbügel' (coat hanger) - a reference to his slim build and fashionable wardrobe.

Bruno Kastner himself wrote the screenplay for Das Herz des Casanova, together with Erich Rennspies. It was one of the four films that he would star in and for which he would write the script. The others were Nur ein Diener/Only a Servant, Der letzte Sonnensohn/The Last Sun Son and Der Weltmeister/The World Champion. All were directed and produced by Erik Lund (pseudonym for director-producer Manfred Liebenau) for the Berlin-based firm Ring-Film and were released in 1919.

His co-stars in Das Herz des Casanova/The Heart of Casanova (Erik Lund, 1919) were Ria Jende, Rosa Lichtenstein and Karl Platen. Not much else is known about the film, except that the sets were created by Siegfried Wroblewsky and that Curt Courant was behind the camera.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 622/4. Photo: Ring-Film. Bruno Kastner in Das Herz des Casanova (Erik Lund, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 622/7. Photo: Ring-Film. Bruno Kastner in Das Herz des Casanova (Erik Lund, 1919).

Sources: Hans-Michael Bock (Filmportal.de - German)Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Bruno Kastner

German actor Bruno Kastner (1890 - 1932) was one of the most beloved stars of the 1910’s and 1920’s. His parts as the elegant and charming dandy made him a heart throb of the German silent cinema.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 434/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Heinz Rosenberger, Berlin.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 181/4. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 436/2, 1919-1924. Photo: A. Eberth, Berlin.

Equipped With A Winning Smile
Bruno Richard Otto Kastner was born in Forst, Lausitz, Germany, in 1890. He was the son of a collector. After grammar school Kastner went in the army, but he was expelled after only 17 days. He then took acting classes from the actor Paul Biensfeldt in Berlin, and was engaged by the Stadttheater Harburg. From 1911 till 1921 he worked as a choir singer and actor at the Meinhard-und Bernauer-Bühnen in Berlin. After the start of the First World War the unfit-for-service Kastner had his breakthrough in the cinema, while most of the other actors were serving at the front. In 1914 he was discovered by the Danish director Urban Gad, who gave him a part in the film Engelein/Little Angel (1914, Urban Gad), and the sequel Engeleins Hochzeit/The Marriage of Little Angel (1916, Urban Gad) next to Asta Nielsen. He also appeared opposite the other German diva, Henny Porten in Das Schicksal der Gabriele Stark/The Destiny of Gabriele Stark (1915, Rudolf Biebrach). Kastner, young, handsome and equipped-with-a winning-smile, became a  heart throb, who received laundry baskets full of love letters of his female admirers. He was the partner and female lust object in the series of stars like Dorrit Weixler (Dorrits Eheglück/Dorrit’s marital Bliss (1916, Paul Otto)), Lotte Neumann (Die Bettlerin von St. Marien/The Beggar-woman of St. Marien (1916, Alfred Halm) and Mia May (Hilde Warren und der Tod/Hilde Warren and Death (1917, Joe May) written by Fritz Lang). The male public gave Bruno less flattering names as Kleiderbügel (clothes hanger) and had lively discussions in journals and film magazines about Kastner.


German postcard by Rotophot, no. 220/1. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin. With Ida Wüst.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 191/2, 1916-1919. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 181/2. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Money Spinners
Bruno Kastner also appeared with Alwin Neuß in detective films like the Joe Deebs series (Die Hochzeit im Excentricclub/Wedding in the Eccentric Club (1917, Joe May) again written by Fritz Lang). All his films were money-spinners. In 1918 he married actress Ida Wüst, with whom he played in films and also wrote screenplays. From 1918 on he worked for the Ring-Film GmbH often under direction by Erik Lund (pseudonym for producer and director Manfred Liebenau) in such films as Nur ein Diener/Just an Attendant (1919, Erik Lund) written by Kastner and Wüst. In 1921 he was chosen as the best (in fact most popular) actor of Germany - he was even ahead of Harry Liedtke and Max Landa. The following year he started his own film company, which produced films like Masken fallen/When the Mask Falls (1922, Erik Lund) and Die Lüge eines Sommers/The Lie of a Summer (1922, Erik Lund).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 191/1, 1916-1919. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 138/3, 1916-1919. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne Series, no. 190/4. Photo:  Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Fallen Star
In 1924 Bruno Kastner had a serious accident with his motorcycle in Lugano and he had to take a break for one year. The accident left him depressed while the the accident caused that he wasn't a man any longer, literally. He was able to continue his film career, and appeared in Der Mann, der sich verkaufte/The man Who Sold Himself (1925, Hans Steinhoff) with Vivian Gibson, Die vom anderen Ufer/Those of the Other Side of the River (1926, Arthur Bergen), Die Brüder Schellenberg/The Schellenberg Brothers (1926, Karl Grune) with Conrad Veidt, and Wehe, wenn sie losgelassen/Woe, when they let go (1926, Carl Froelich) with Henny Porten. In the mid-1920’s his star started to fall. His last important roles were Du Stollst Nicht Stehlen/The Love Commandment (1928, Victor Janson) with Lilian Harvey, the biography Luther (1928, Hans Kyser) and Angst/Fear (1928, Hans Steinhoff) with Gustav Fröhlich. Kastner had a stammering problem and the sound film made it hard for him to keep his fans. He made two sound films, Das Land des Lächelns/The Land of Smiles (1930, Max Reichmann) with Richard Tauber, and Tingel-Tangel (1930, Jaap Speyer) with Ernst Verebes, but these roles were no successes. He had become too old for the part of the young and charming dandy and bonvivant. In 1932 Bruno Kastner committed suicide by hanging himself in his hotel room in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, only 42 years old. He had been married to Ida Wüst from 1918 till 1927.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 346/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker  & Maass / RF.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3163/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3124/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Aafa Film.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.