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Staaken Studios
Staaken Studios was a film studio located in Staaken on the outskirts of the German capital Berlin. A large former zeppelin hangar, it was converted to film use following the First World War and operated during the Weimar Republic. In July 1923 it was the largest studio in the world, with floor space of around 18,000 square feet. It was used for the construction of massive sets on a series of major productions of the silent era, including '' I.N.R.I.'', ''Metropolis'', '' The Holy Mountain'' and ''The Ship of Lost Souls''. These epics were a part of the German attempt on world markets during the decade. The 1927 Anglo-German co-production '' The Ghost Train'' was shot at Staaken. In 1929, following the Wall Street Crash, the studio's owners collapsed financially and Staaken was acquired by the Deutsche Lichtspiel-Syndikat. It was equipped for sound film, but it increasingly struggled to attract new productions. Amongst the films shot during the early 1930s were ''The Threepenny O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Staaken
Staaken () is a locality at the western rim of Berlin within the borough of Spandau. Geography Staaken borders on the localities of Spandau proper, Falkenhagener Feld and Wilhelmstadt. In the west it shares border with the Brandenburg municipalities of Falkensee and Dallgow-Döberitz with the village of Seeburg, part of Havelland district. Buildings range from small detached houses and a garden city around the historic village centre in the west to larger 1960s and 1970s housing estates in the east. Subdivisions The locality of Staaken includes six sites (german: Ortslagen) or neighbourhoods (''Siedlungen''): *Dorf Staaken ("Staaken Village"), the historic settlement around the Alt-Staaken village church *Albrechtshof, a family home colony in the northwest, around Berlin Albrechtshof station *Gartenstadt Staaken ( Staaken Garden City), built from 1914 to 1917 according to plans designed by Paul Schmitthenner, today protected as a historic monument * Neu-Jerusalem, an ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Holy Mountain (1926 Film)
''The Holy Mountain'' (german: Der heilige Berg) is a 1926 German mountain film directed by Arnold Fanck and starring Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker and Frida Richard. It was the future filmmaker Riefenstahl's first screen appearance as an actress. Written by Arnold Fanck and Hans Schneeberger, the film is about a dancer who meets and falls in love with an engineer at his cottage in the mountains. After she gives her scarf to one of his friends, the infatuated friend mistakenly believes that she loves him. When the engineer sees her innocently comforting his friend, he mistakenly believes she is betraying him. Cast *Leni Riefenstahl as Diotima *Luis Trenker as Karl *Frida Richard as Mother *Ernst Petersen as Vigo * Friedrich Schneider as Colli * Hannes Schneider as Mountain Guide Production The film began production in January 1925, but then was delayed due to weather and hospitalization of three actors.Bach, Steven (2007) ''Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl'' NY: Alf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariane (film)
''Ariane'' is a 1931 German drama film directed by Paul Czinner and starring Elisabeth Bergner, Rudolf Forster and Annemarie Steinsieck. It is an adaptation of the 1920 French novel '' Ariane, jeune fille russe'' by Claude Anet. Two alternative language versions '' The Loves of Ariane'' and '' Ariane, jeune fille russe'' were made at the same time. The film was the inspiration of the 1957 Billy Wilder film '' Love in the Afternoon''.Philips p. 187 Wilder remembered the film as "touching and funny". It was shot at the Staaken Studios in Berlin. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Erich Zander and Karl Weber. Location shooting took place in Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si .... Plot The exiled Russian student Ariane Kusnetzowa passed her Abitur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Threepenny Opera (film)
''The Threepenny Opera'' (german: Die 3 Groschen-Oper) is a 1931 German musical film directed by G. W. Pabst. Produced by Seymour Nebenzal's Nero-Film for Tonbild-Syndikat AG ( Tobis), Berlin and Warner Bros. Pictures GmbH, Berlin, the film is loosely based on the 1928 musical theatre success of the same name by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. As was usual in the early sound film era, Pabst also directed a French language version of the film, ''L'Opéra de quat'sous'', with some variation of plot details (the French title literally translates as "the four penny opera"). A planned English version went unproduced. The two existing versions were released on home video by The Criterion Collection. ''The Threepenny Opera'' differs in significant respects from the play and the internal timeline is somewhat vague. The whole of society is presented as corrupt in one form or another. Only some of the songs from the play are used, in a different order. Plot summary In 19th century Lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of Short film, short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature film, feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wall Street Crash
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. It was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its aftereffects. The Great Crash is mostly associated with October 24, 1929, called ''Black Thursday'', the day of the largest sell-off of shares in U.S. history, and October 29, 1929, called ''Black Tuesday'', when investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. The crash, which followed the London Stock Exchange's crash of September, signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. Background The "Roaring Twenties", the decade following World War I that led to the crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Building on post-war optimism, rural Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ghost Train (1927 Film)
''The Ghost Train'' (german: Der Geisterzug) is a 1927 German-British crime comedy film directed by Géza von Bolváry and starring Guy Newall, Ilse Bois and Louis Ralph. It is an adaptation of Arnold Ridley's play '' The Ghost Train''. The film was a co-production between Gainsborough Pictures and Phoebus Film and was shot at the latter's Staaken Studios Staaken Studios was a film studio located in Staaken on the outskirts of the German capital Berlin. A large former zeppelin hangar, it was converted to film use following the First World War and operated during the Weimar Republic. In July 1923 it ... in Berlin. The film was released in France as ''Le Train Fantome''. Some sources have reported over the years that the film was directed by famed Hungarian director Michael Curtiz but, according to critic Troy Howarth, "he's not credited on the prints, nor is the title attributed to him in any reputable source". The story was filmed again (with sound) in 1931. Plot Some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Co-production (film)
A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companies from different countries (typically two to three) are working together. Co-production also refers to the way services are produced by their users, in some parts or entirely. History and benefits The journalist Mark Lawson identifies the first use of the term, in the context of radio production, in 1941, although the programme to which he refers, ''Children Calling Home'', "Presented in collaboration between the CBC of Canada, NBC of the U.S.A., and the BBC, and broadcast simultaneously in all three countries", was first broadcast in December 1940. Following the Second World War, US film companies were forbidden by the Marshall Plan to take their film profits in the form of foreign exchange out of European countries. As a result, sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ship Of Lost Souls
''The Ship of Lost Souls'' or ''The Ship of Lost Men'' (German: ''Das Schiff der verlorenen Menschen'') is a 1929 German silent thriller film directed by Maurice Tourneur and starring Fritz Kortner, Marlene Dietrich and Robin Irvine. It was Dietrich's last silent film before ''The Blue Angel'' made her an international star. It was shot at the Staaken Studios in Berlin, and partly on location around Rostock. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Franz Schroedter and Fritz Maurischat. It premièred on 17 September 1929 at the Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz The Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz was a cinema located at 4 Nollendorfplatz, Schöneberg, Berlin. Built in 1912–13 and designed and decorated by leading artistic practitioners of the day, it was the German capital's first purpose-built, f ... in Berlin. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolis (1927 Film)
''Metropolis'' is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name. Intentionally written as a treatment, it stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). The silent film is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction movie, being among the first feature-length movies of that genre. Filming took place over 17 months in 1925–26 at a cost of more than five million Reichsmarks, or the equivalent of about € million. Made in Germany during the Weimar period, ''Metropolis'' is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city master, and Maria, a saintly figure to the workers, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes in their city and bring the workers together with Joh Frederse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent states, Berlin is surrounded by the State of Brandenburg and contiguous with Potsdam, Brandenburg's capital. Berlin's urban area, which has a population of around 4.5 million, is the second most populous urban area in Germany after the Ruhr. The Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions. Berlin straddles the banks of the Spree, which flows into the Havel (a tributary of the Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel and Dahme, the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee. Due to i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silent Era
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of title cards. The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
