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POLA NEGRI: THE ICONIC COLLECTION – “THE EARLY FILMS”
The 3-DVD set featured restored versions of Pola Negri's silent films “The Polish Dancer” (1917),” The Yellow Ticket” (1918), “The Eyes of the Mummy” (1918), and “Sappho” (1921). These four films were digitized and edited by Bright Shining City Productions in 2011.
THE POLISH DANCER (1917, 48 min., Poland)
Drama I Romance I Silent Film
Director: Aleksander Hertz
Writer: Aleksander Hertz
Starring: Pola Negri, Witold Kuncewicz, Jan Pawłowski, Maria Duleba, Lya Honor, Mia Mara, Aleksander Sobiszewski
Originally entitled „Bestia” (The Beast), “The Polish Dancer” has the distinction of being the first complete feature film to survive in Poland and Negri’s first ever performance on screen.
Plot:
Pola, a young and beautiful girl from a small town, likes to spend time in the company of men. After arguing with her father, she decides to run away from home. Her boyfriend, Dmitri, helps her get lodging at a hotel. Pola gets him drunk, takes all his money, and leaves. She leaves behind a note promising to pay him back. Pola gets work as a model at a modeling studio, which opens up work for her as a cabaret dancer. One of the cabaret's patrons, a married man named Alexi, is taken by Pola, and the two engage in an affair, with Pola unaware that Alexi already has a family. Once Alexi gets the courage to leave his wife, he and Pola go to Cafe de Paris to celebrate. There, her old boyfriend, Dmitri, waits on them, but does not recognize Pola. Pola repays the money she took from him, leaving it with a note on the table. When Dmitri finds the money and the note, he is enraged and plans to take revenge on Pola. Meanwhile, Alexi's wife, Sonya, grants him a divorce, and moves in with her mother, only to become deathly ill. Pola learns that Alexi is married and casts him off, not realizing that he has already left his family for her. Soon after, the vengeful ex-boyfriend Dmitri kills Pola. Alexi tries to reconcile with his wife, only to learn that she has succumbed to her illness and has died. From the opening scene featuring Pola playfully wrestling with a large dog, to her murder by a jealous ex-lover, the exuberance, sensuality, and loveable femininity that made Pola Negri an international sensation permeates the screen.
THE YELLOW TICKET (1918, 40min., Germany)
Drama I Silent Film
Directors: Eugen Illés, Victor Janson, Paul L. Stein
Writers: Hans Brennert, Hanns Kräly
Starring: Pola Negri, Harry Liedtke, Victor Janson, Adolf E. Licho, Werner Bernhardy, Guido Herzfeld, Margarete Kupfer, Marga Lind
The film is also known as: “The Devil's Pawn”
This is the first film to expose the existence of Jewish discrimination in Imperial Russia.
Plot:
This is the tale of a Polish girl, Lea, who was abandoned by her biological mother when she was just a baby. Pola Negri plays Lea, a bright adolescent girl who lives in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw with her ill father. She loves to read, and intends to study medicine at a university in St. Petersburg in the hopes of making her father well again. Her father dies suddenly and her tutor, Ossip Storki, is called away to work for the governor. When she goes to Russia, she learns that Jewish women are only allowed to work as sex workers with the benefit of a “yellow passport”, otherwise they will be taken to prison. She applies for a yellow passport and takes up residency at a brothel. Upon finding the identification papers of her tutor's deceased sister Sophie in a book her tutor gave her, Lea applies to the University with the deceased sister's identification papers and is accepted. So begins an unhappy life of studying by day and receiving scholastic honors, while reluctantly working as a party girl at night. Her fellow students, including a boy named Dimitri who is in love with her, then find her out. Dimitri in particular is crushed to learn of Lea's double life. Lea realizes that this will be the end of her scholastic career, and attempts suicide. Dimitri goes to their professor, Peter Zukowski, to tell him of Lea's double life. Prof. Zukowski then ruminates over his own double life, having fathered an illegitimate child 19 years prior with a fellow student named Lydia. He does not know what became of either Lydia or the child. Meanwhile, Lea's former tutor Storki learns that his deceased sister has allegedly received a gold medal for her studies at the University in St. Petersburg. Storki is suspicious and asks for a leave of absence from his work to investigate the matter. A meeting between Stroki and Prof. Zukowski reveals that Lea is actually the professor's long lost daughter. The next day, Lea is brought to the University for an emergency operation. The professor learns on the spot that it is Lea, his daughter, that he has to save from death. The surgery is successful, and Lea recovers, with both her father and her admirer Dimitri at her side.
The film includes precious footage of the former Jewish quarter of Warsaw and the people who once lived there.
EYES OF THE MUMMY MA (1918, 63min., Germany)
Drama I Romance I Horror I Silent Film
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Writers: Hanns Kräly, Emil Rameau
Starring: Pola Negri, Harry Liedtke, Emil Jannings, Max Laurence
Original title: “Die Augen der Mumie Ma”
Plot:
A young, wealthy painter named Wendland travels to Egypt, where he hears about the tomb of Queen Ma, a site far out into the desert that has reportedly driven everyone who has visited it mad. Intrigued, the painter arranges to be taken to the tomb. When he arrives, he is greeted by an Egyptian native named Radu, who leads him to a coffin in a dark room. There he sees the eyes behind the coffin slowly open and come to life, just before the Egyptian tries to attack him. The painter wards off Radu, and finds that the coffin lid is actually an entrance to a small adjacent room, where a helpless young girl, also named Ma, is held prisoner. Wendland rescues Ma from the site and takes her back to Europe with him, making her his wife. Radu, heartbroken at losing Ma, wanders into the desert and faints on the hot sands. He is found by a wealthy Prince, who nurses him back to health, and makes him his personal servant. When Radu comes to Europe, he swears vengeance on Ma for leaving him.
Wendland hires a tutor to introduce Ma to European manners and customs, and then throws a party to introduce her to his friends. When Ma begins dancing a Middle Eastern dance at the party, she attracts the interest of a vaudeville manager, who signs her to a contract. A few months into Ma's success on the vaudeville circuit, the Prince decides to go to one of the shows she appears in and takes his servant Radu with him. When Radu sees Ma on stage, he hypnotizes her from across the room, and she faints in the middle of her act.
Much later, the Prince visits an art exhibit, which includes some paintings by Wendland. He is particularly taken by a portrait of Ma that Wendland has painted, and invites the artist and Ma to visit his personal collection. After viewing the collection, the three sit down to tea, only for Ma to see Radu from behind through a reflection in a mirror. She goes into a trance, faints, and becomes ill. Sometime after recovering from the illness, the Prince gives Radu a letter to deliver to Wendland, telling Wendland he will purchase the painting of Ma, which is already in his possession. When they receive the letter, Ma tells Wendland to go to the Prince and cancel the purchase, which he does. In the meantime, Radu spots the painting of Ma, realizes it was painted by the same man he delivered the letter to, stabs the painting with his dagger and rushes to Wendland’s home in search of Ma. When Wendland arrives to discuss the matter with the Prince, they go into the room and see Radu's dagger in the painting. Immediately after this, they receive a report of a break-in at Wendland’s house. Realizing what is happening, they rush to Wendland’s home. But before they arrive, Radu enters Wendland's home, and hypnotizes Ma once more, only to accidentally kill Ma in the process. Realizing what he has done he stabs himself with his own knife. The Prince and Wendland arrive too late, find the two lying dead on the floor.
SAPPHO (1921, 82min., Germany)
Drama I Silent Film
Director: Dimitri Buchowetzki
Writers: Dimitri Buchowetzki, Alexandre Dumas
Starring: Pola Negri, Johannes Riemann, Alfred Abel, Albert Steinrück, Otto Trepkow, Helga Molander, Elsa Wagner, Ellinor Gynt
The film is also known as: „Mad Love”
Plot:
Richard De La Croix has a brother, Andreas, who has been driven insane by a notorious vamp and socialite named Sappho. After visiting his brother in an insane asylum, Richard determines he must meet her. When he meets her, the two falls in love, although he is not aware she is the one who caused his brother's insanity. Sappho break up with her lover George in order to be with Richard. George is now the rejected one but he wants to win her back. Sappho and Richard are vacationing at a seaside resort when George finds them and tells Richard that it is Sappho who is responsible for his brother's condition. Richard is horrified and immediately terminates his relationship with Sappho. He returns home to marry his childhood sweetheart, Maria. On the day of the wedding, Richard finds he can't live without Sappho. He hurries back to the city to find her. All this time, Andreas, the mad brother, is having troubled dreams about Sappho in the lunatic asylum where he is kept. When Richard starts on his search for Sappho, Andres intuitively senses that someone is going after her, so he breaks out of the lunatic asylum and also starts to search for Sappho. Richard finds Sappho at a ball with Teddy, and starts questioning her about her newest lover, before breaking down and admitting that she is the only woman he really loves. Andreas, the mad brother, barges in on this reunion, and manages to lock Richard out of the room. Alone with Sappho, Andreas attacks her, and in the process of doing so accidentally kills her.
