Showing posts with label Francis Lederer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Francis Lederer. Show all posts

Monday, August 8, 2016

Portrait of Francis Lederer

Here is a fun, early 1930's American magazine portrait of handsome Francis Lederer, who co-starred with Louise Brooks in the German-made Pandora's Box (1929). Curiously, the piece refers to the Czech born actor as "god's gift to women," the title of a 1931 Brooks' film starring Frank Fay in the title role.




Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Francis Lederer

Franz (or Francis) Lederer, Louise Brooks co-star in Pandora's Box, is one of two actors who star in two films at this year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

As this year's centerpiece program, the Festival will screen Pandora's Box (1929) in what is being described as a frame-by-frame digital restoration. This new and true restoration has only been shown twice before in the world, once in Los Angeles (where funder Hugh Hefner was present) and once in London at the BFI.


The other Lederer film which will be screened at the 2012 Festival is also from 1929, The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna. Directed by Hanns Schwarz (1888 - 1945), and set in Czarist St. Petersburg, The Wonderful Lie is the story of the mistress (Brigitte Helm) of an upper class general who gives up her pampered life for the love of a lowly lieutenant (played by Lederer). Here is a still from that film. Lederer stands in the street, while Helm looks down from the window above.


I saw this film when it was shown at Cinecon in Hollywood the 1990s. Lederer, though very old, was there, and he took questions from the audience about his career - including a couple about Louise Brooks. I even got his autograph on my Cinecon program and had a snapshot taken with the both of us in it.

At the time The Wonderful Lie was released, both Helm (Metropolis) and Lederer were major stars in Europe. Hanns Schwarz, though little known today, was an Austrian film director of note who would go on to direct twenty four films (both in English and German) between the years 1924 and 1937. His last film was the 1937 British thriller Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He died in California in 1945.

The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna is considered Schwarz's masterpiece. Superb in every way, the film is sometimes called “Ophülsian,” after the film director Max Ophüls, who is known for his distinctive smooth camera movements, complex crane and dolly sweeps, and tracking shots which influenced later directors from the young Stanley Kubrick to contemporary Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood).


Lederer came to America in 1931, and with the worsening situation in Europe, decided to stay. According to Wikipedia: "Lederer's first American movies were fairly light fare in which he played the leading man, in films such as Man of Two Worlds (1934), Romance in Manhattan (1934), opposite Ginger Rogers, The Gay Deception (1935), opposite Frances Dee, and One Rainy Afternoon (1936). He won the lead opposite Katharine Hepburn in the 1935 film Break of Hearts, but the producers replaced him with Charles Boyer. It was Irving Thalberg's plan to make Lederer "the biggest star in Hollywood" but the death of Thalberg ended that, and Lederer never really caught on as a star in the American mode."

"Although he continued to occasionally play leads – notably when he was a playboy in Billy Wilder's Midnight with Claudette Colbert and John Barrymore in 1939 – in the late 1930s Lederer began to expand his film acting repertoire with offbeat character parts, even playing villains. Edward G. Robinson praised Lederer's performance as a German American Bundist opposite him in Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, and he earned plaudits for his portrayal of a Fascist in The Man I Married (1940) opposite Joan Bennett. He also played a vampire for The Return of Dracula in 1958."

Later films include parts in The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944), and in films such as Jean Renoir's The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), Million Dollar Weekend (1948) and later television shows such as The UntouchablesMission: Impossible and That Girl. His final television appearance occurred in a 1971 episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. I have seen Lederer in Confessions of a Nazi Spy and The Return of Dracula and liked him in both, though both were lesser films.



The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna screens at the Castro Theater on Friday, July 13. Further information about the San Francisco Silent Film Festival can be found on their website at www.silentfilm.org. The Festival takes place July 12 – 15th.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

What and Who (as in Doctor) not to miss at this year’s Silent Film Fest

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has more going for it than you might realize. Sure, they’re showing 15 features and a whole bunch of short films, but this festival is more than just celluloid. There are special guests, and musicians, and unusual programs. Where else, for instance, might you see a Russian silent, The Overcoat (1926), based on a story by Gogol, or for that matter a rare Chinese silent, Little Toys (1933), starring Ruan Lingyu, an actress known as "China’s Garbo."

This year, more than 10,000 people are expected to attend the Silent Film Festival, which is now in its 17th year. It’s grown to become the largest silent film festival in North America – and one of the largest in the world. Festival regular Leonard Maltin, who will be introducing a couple of programs, has stated “The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is in a class by itself.” And it’s true. Here are ten things not to miss at this year’s event, which is set to start on July 12th at the Castro Theater.

1) Wings – the first Oscar winner
The first thing not to miss is the Festival’s opening night film, which is also the first film to win an Oscar, Wings (1927). Director William A. Wellman’s newly restored WWI spectacle is the story of two men who go off to battle and the woman they leave behind. Made now long before he made Beggars of Life with Louise Brooks, Wings is also a rousing action film, whose truly spectacular aerial photography and scenes of air combat are the stuff of cinematic legend. Some say they have never been equaled. Also breathtaking is Clara Bow’s brief nudity, which caused a bit of a furor at the time. However, that’s not what got the film it’s recent PG-13 rating more than 80 years after its record setting premiere.  

Wings, now meticulously restored, will be introduced by William Wellman Jr (the director’s son) and will be accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, with live sound effects provided by multiple Academy Award winner Ben Burtt. (His credits include the Indiana Jones and Star Wars series, and notably such iconic sound effects as the hum of a light saber, the “voice” of R2-D2, the heavy-breathing of Darth Vader, etc….) What Burtt does with the roar of airplane engines and the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns should be just as memorable.

2) Doctor Who
That’s right, Doctor Who is attending this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival. But more than that, he is also participating. The celebrated English actor, silent film and Louise Brooks enthusiast, and Bristol Silents patron Paul McGann, who played the eighth incarnation of the Doctor, is teaming up with pianist Stephen Horne to present South (1919), Frank Hurley’s moving documentary of Ernest Shackleton’s failed/heroic 1914-1917 expedition to Antarctica. Now restored by the British Film Institute with original tints and toning, the film is a visually stunning record of one of the great adventures in the annals of exploration. McGann will narrate, reading Shackleton’s somber letters to Horne’s elegiac score. McGann’s many credits go beyond Doctor Who and include a bunch of BBC television (like the controversial Monocled Mutineer, which is just out on DVD in the UK) as well as feature films Withnail & I, Empire of the Sun, Alien 3, etc…. This unique presentation promises to be powerful, and moving.

Silent film enthusiast Paul McGann
Who is that: Silent film enthusiast Paul McGann

3) Sunshine and shadow
Silent films were both sunshine and shadow. This year’s Festival includes a handful of films which explore the dark, conflicted and sometimes seedy side of life. Notable among them is The Docks of New York (1928), Josef von Sternberg’s atmospheric silent which anticipates film noir in its depiction of hapless souls straight out of a police blotter. Also, don’t miss these three stories of unhappy love across class and social divides, Mantrap (1926) with “It Girl” Clara Bow, The Spanish Dancer (1923) with femme fatale and tragedienne Pola Negri, The Canadian (1926), based on the Somerset Maugham play, and Stella Dallas (1925), a riveting adaption of the popular novel made some 12 years before the more familiar version starring Barbara Stanwyck.

4) The Irrepressible Felix the Cat!
Not every film has an adult theme. In fact, there’s always a family friendly selection certain to appeal to kids. This year it’s a 70 minute program of silent era Felix the Cat cartoons which include Felix the Cat in Blunderland (1926) and Felix the Cat Weathers the Weather (1926). But what’s more, the musically wonder-filled Bay Area group, Toychestra, is teaming up with pianist Donald Sosin to accompany this sampling of rare animation. Toychestra is an all-woman musical ensemble which play toys. Some are actual instruments like toddler-sized pianos and xylophones. Others just make great sounds, like a multi-sonic Activity Center. Individually amplified and mixed live these “instruments” create a sophisticated aural experience that’s a far cry from a bunch of kids making a racket. All in all, this is a great way to introduce your youngster to early film. And what’s more, children under ten years of age are admitted free.

5) Louise Brooks
As Lulu, Louise Brooks is legend. So much so that the film for which she is best known today, Pandora’s Box (1929), will be shown twice on July 14th. The Magic Box Theater in Chicago is screening this seminal masterpiece, as is the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. If you don’t have a TARDIS and can only make one screening, I would recommend the San Francisco event. The Festival is showing a new and true restoration of Pandora’s Box, which is not available on DVD and has only been shown twice before anywhere in the world! Censored, cut, and critically disregarded when it first debuted, Pandora’s Box is today considered one of greatest of all silent films. This restoration, the Festival’s centerpiece film, was funded by silent movie enthusiast Hugh Hefner; it may be as close as Brooks' fans will ever get to director G.W. Pabst’s original vision – and Brooks’ original luminescence.

Louise Brooks plays Lulu in Pandora's Box

Louise Brooks plays Lulu in Pandora's Box

6) Music – The Sounds of Silents
Every film at the Festival, from the briefest short to the mightiest epic, is presented with live musical accompaniment. It’s the way silent films were meant to be shown, and a big reason for attending the Festival. This year, Dennis James will once again rock the house on the Castro’s mighty Wurlitzer as he accompanies both The Mark of Zorro (1920) and The Loves of Pharaoh (1922). Also set to fill the theater with lush, lyrical, sweeping, heart-swelling sounds are pianists Stephen Horne (coming all the way from England) and Donald Sosin, as well as the acclaimed Alloy Orchestra and the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. And don’t miss the Swedish ensemble led by Matti Bye, regular performers at European film festivals and a winner of the Golden Beetle, Sweden’s Oscar. They will accompany the Swedish classic, Erotikon (1920), and debut their original score to Pandora’s Box, starring Louise Brooks.

7) Philip Kaufman
Every year a contemporary filmmaker with an appreciation for film history has been invited to the Silent Film Festival to present a program. Past directors have been Guy Maddin and Terry Zwigoff, and Academy Award winners Pete Docter and Alexander Payne. This year, the Festival welcomes Philip Kaufman, whose directorial credits include The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Henry and June, and Hemingway & Gellhorn. The latter recently premiered at Cannes International Film Festival. Kaufman will introduce the ineffably beautiful The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna (1929), starring the lovely Brigitte Helm (Metropolis) and the affable Franz Lederer (Louise Brooks' co-star in Pandora’s Box). It’s visually gorgeous, very European – and another story of unhappy love across class divide.

8 ) Authors and Books
It’s not only directors and actors who attend the Festival, but also writers, historians, archivists and critics. This year, nearly 20 authors including acclaimed biographers and film historians will be on hand signing their books. Not to be missed are the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle – The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses (Stanford), former San Francisco Examiner critic Michael Sragrow – Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Pantheon), Jeff Codori – Colleen Moore: A Biography of the Silent Film Star (McFarland), San Francisco biographer Emily Leider – Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood (University of California), Los Angeles blogger Mary Mallory – Hollywoodland (Arcadia) and Wendy Marshall – William Beaudine: From Silents to Television (Scarecrow Press). Myrna Loy, as many fans know, appeared in the 1928 Louise Brooks film, A Girl in Every Port.

Wendy Marshall, by the way, is the granddaughter of Beaudine, and one of a handful of children and grandchildren of silent film personalities in attendance at the Festival. Author and film historian Jeffrey Vance, who once spoke with Louise Brooks, will also be coming to town to introduce The Mark of Zorro (1920). His splendid 2008 book, Douglas Fairbanks (University of California Press), helped inspire, and even shape, the recent Academy Award-winning film, The Artist. Director Michel Hazanavicius told him as much. Vance will also be signing books after Zorro makes his mark.

The authors of these books will attend the Silent Film Festival
The authors of these books will attend the Silent Film Festival

9) A Trip to the Moon
If you saw Martin Scorcese’s Hugo (which contained a brief visual reference to Louise Brooks), or if you ever took a film class, chances are you’re familiar with Georges Méliès’ delightful A Trip to the Moon (1902). However, you’ve never seen this version of Méliès’ masterpiece, a new fully tinted restoration which recreates the exquisite hand coloring of Méliès’ original print. A Trip to the Moon will be shown prior to the Festival’s final film, Buster Keaton’s ridiculously sublime The Cameraman (1928). Though very different, both are classics. And what’s more, Méliès’ original narration for A Trip to the Moon will be read by a very special guest, namely Paul McGann.

10) The Castro Theater
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival takes place at the historic Castro Theater, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary. (Most all of Louise Brooks American silent films showed there in the 1920s.) Built in 1922, this grand 1400 seat theater is one of the finest movie palaces in the Bay Area. It is also full of history. Just ask local theater historians Jack Tillmany and Gary Lee Parks, who will be on hand signing copies of their newest book, Theatres of the San Francisco Peninsula (Arcadia).

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival takes place July 12 through 15 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. More info, including the compete program of films and more, can be found online at www.silentfilm.org

Monday, February 14, 2011

Francis Lederer candid photo

Here's one that gives pause. 

Currently for sale on eBay is a candid photograph of the Austrian-born actor Francis Lederer. He, of course, co-starred in the G.W. Pabst-directed Pandora's Box (1929), with Louise Brooks. In the film, Lederer played Brooks' eventual lover, Alwa.

According to the seller, this candid image was taken in Hollywood in 1940 by a fan named Mary Louise (coincidentally Brooks' actual first and last name). 

It's known that Louise Brooks was in Hollywood at the time. She left in 1940 and returned to Kansas.

I am not saying that this photo was taken by Louise Brooks. It wasn't. But the string of coincidences sure does give one pause. (Insert Twilight Zone theme here.)

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I've done a fair amount of research on this period of Brooks' life - the time she was living and working in Los Angeles in the late 1930s. Lederer lived there, as did many of her  co-stars from her American films. Ruth St. Denis also came to town for performances. However, I never came across any evidence or printed record which indicated that Brooks reached out or associated with individuals from her past. Aside from a small circle of new friends, she really seemed to be a loner.

Saturday, May 6, 2006

Pandora's Box stills on eBay

A rather nice collection of scene stills from Pandora's Box is for sale on eBay. The description reads "Set of nine vintage original 3 ½ x 4 ½” (9.5 x 12 cm.) still photographs, Germany. Louise Brooks, Francis Lederer, dir: G.W. Pabst. Very rare collection of original German stills from late silent film classic in which Brooks attained immortality in the role of Lulu. Two of these show Brooks, one in profile, one from behind; the other seven depict most of the film’s other main characters. All the stills have either printed information or handwritten numberings on the backs. These all came from the private collection of Francis Lederer (1899-2000), who played the role of Alwa Schon in the film." Check it out.
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