Introductions
Two discoveries from the ancient times of Hungarian film history
Reconstructed newsreel from Milan
A film by the first Hungarian feature film studio, Hunnia Biograph from Paris
Additions to judging the flourishing of Hungarian silent film production
The unknown Pál Sugár
A late Hungarian silent film Cage-bird (Rabmadár), 1929
Silent Film restorations in 2002
After the Storm (Vihar után)
Restoration of Cage-bird
Cage-bird (Rabmadár)
Introductions
The survival ratio of Hungarian silent
films is extremely low even on a worldwide scale. A total of only 5 percent of films shot
between 1901 and 1930 survived in more or less complete, possible-to-screen form, another
5 percent is made up of fragments impossible-to-screen, 90 percent of the films have been
lost.
In the absence of films, the Hungarian
Film Historiography of the fifties – using a bizarre palaeontological analogy –
resembles the set of dinosaur bones excavated recently, while that of the sixties
resembles a reconstructed dinosaur skeleton.
The first deliberate and systematic film
historiography efforts are associated with Andor Lajta's name, who published the 'Cinematography
Annals' (Filmművészeti Évkönyvek) between 1920 and 1949, which continue to be
indispensable sources of any film historiography research until the present time. He wrote
the first Hungarian Filmography from the beginnings until the fifties, which is available
in six volumes of manuscripts in the Library of the Hungarian National Film Archive. An
enormous advantage of this publication is that it was written by an eye-witness of the
films lost since then, having known all of their creators. The downside is that it retains
an anecdotic level while information relying on recollection are often inaccurate,
philologically unfounded. As a result of his closeness to the facts, he lacks sufficient
overview of the subject and occasionally, it is difficult for the reader to navigate
around the set of unedited data turning into a filmographic enumeration.
Systematic film historiography began in
the sixties with the efforts of István Nemeskürty and Bálint Magyar. They both
undertook the reconstruction of a film historical period disappeared almost without a
trace. It is explained in part by the absence of films that the analysis of films as works
of art and modes of expression (for example montage techniques) is lacking from their
works. Their approach had, however, been dictated by necessity, the inner logic of film
historiography does not allow for the avoiding of data gathering and sorting efforts
processing the facts of film production, which provides a solid foundation and serves as
the pre-requisite for extended research. They were the ones who took the first step
towards film historiography evolving into a science and write a multi-dimensional
institution history placed in a social, political and cultural context at the level of
contemporary foreign encyclopaedic film histories. Their interest aimed at the production
and not the creation of films. They did not examine the end product, each film work –
what they could not do – but discuss film as an institution, the organisational,
economic and legal issues of production and distribution.
The film history work of Bálint Magyar
written in 1966 often stresses the paradox of 'Film Historiography without Films': "Only
a few Hungarian films have survived, not more than a dozen from a total of five
hundred." Therefore the history of Hungarian silent films "mostly comprises film
titles and content conclusions". "These works have been destroyed, it would take
particular luck to recover one or two of them. Luck as the unexpected appearance of the
three Lumiere filmlets. Such events usually do not repeat." Bálint Magyar would
certainly be glad to hear that he was wrong and that almost three times that many
Hungarian silent films are included in the collection of the Hungarian National Film Archive as he gave an account
of.
The enrichment of silent film collection
accelerated in the nineties as films of times gone were returned to Hungary from England,
Holland, Moscow, Germany and Italy. Although we may still not claim that are reconstructed
"dinosaur" has moved, but it is certainly not a skeleton anymore.
Relying on data collected and sorted,
Zsolt Kőháti may now attempt to present film as a means of expression. His book, 'A man
moving on in a world moving on' (Tovamozduló ember tovamozduló világban),1996,
presents works recovered since the sixties with the reader.
Each work recovered alters our perception
of the particular period and creator, forces us to reconsider film history. Our judgments
and often prejudices formed about cinema on the basis of contemporary documents and
surviving photographs often prove to be unfounded when confronted with the living work,
the fresh experience of the viewing and most often place previously discovered facts in a
new perspective.
The length o this presentation does not
allow for the discussion of each and every discovery of Hungarian silent cinema history
since the sixties or even the publication of the book by Zsolt Kőháti. This time, I will
only explain the extent the few films recovered last year, as seen in the Programme of the
Conference, alter our perception of Hungarian silent films.
Two discoveries from the ancient times of Hungarian film history
Unfortunately, we have not yet discovered
any film from the period of small-scale film production following the birth of the first
Hungarian film, the Táncz (Dance). This period continues to be subject to
reconstruction from documents and bits and pieces of information from contemporary
billboards, articles, advertisements.
Reconstructed newsreel from Milan
One of the first pieces of the next
period, the early period of large-scale film production was recovered in Milan in 2002.
This valuable film history relic, the Railroad Crash in Budapest (Vasúti
szerencsétlenség Budapesten) was produced by the first Hungarian film company,
Projectograph. The company was founded in 1908 as a rental company, yet it began
production already in its year of establishment by offering the audience documentaries of
noted events (Arrival of the Bulgarian Prince in Budapest, Horse Races in Alag, The
Burning of the Kovald Factory), reconstructed newsreels (Bank Robbers in Újpest),
landscape footages (Winter Life in the Tátra Mountains, Budapest Panorama) and comic
scenes (The Drunken Cyclist, Max and Móric at the Turf).
The first cinema-goers did not wish for
fairy tales or sensation, they were satisfied with remote landscapes and gone moments
being revived in front of them on the walls of darkened cafés. The first films advertised
as "natural shots" captured real-life moments and landscapes. Only after the fading of
their sensation had sensation itself become the subject of footages. True sensation was,
however, seldom captured by a camera, cinematographers were not in the position to shoot
railroad crashes and murders, therefore Projectograph produced newsreels on events of
interest to the country subsequently, and presented the people involved in the event and
the burial of the victims; and according to the accounts, those did not seem to be
exciting. Well, this assumption of ours was proven rather wrong by the footage of the
railroad crash recovered in Milan that was shot directly after the event, which is
advertised in the 1909 Prospectus of the company as Bálint Magyar's Railroad Crash
between the Railway Stations of Erzsébetfalva and Ferencváros (Vasúti
szerencsétlenség Erzsébetfalva és a Ferencvárosi pályaudvar között ).
The film reporter did not settle for the
real sensation, the crash itself having not been captured, therefore "directed" the
catastrophe. By using simple "special effects", he succeeded in creating the illusion
as if he was a witness to the accident. The first few frames of the film present the
audience with two trains approaching one another on probably two parallel railroads in the
distance. The camera pans left and right, showing one and then the other train. Finally,
both of them appear together racing towards one another. In the moment before they meet,
that is of their faked "crash" – before they would pass by each other – there is a
cut, then the actual footage on the spot is shown, where the film reporter captured the
dramatic moments immediately after the tragedy – who must have arrived at the scene
quickly since the demolished carriages of the two trains crashing frontally as piled on
one another still release smoke. Search and rescue, the removal of corpse are still
underway. Shocked survivors are questioned by gendarmes, detectives and reporters about
the circumstances of the tragedy. This is followed again by a scene shot and inserted
probably subsequently in which three horse-driven fire-engines speed in a wide Budapest
street presumably to the scene of the accident. After this cut, we are back at the scene
and see firemen having arrived in the meantime and pumping water. As in early footages in
general, the camera does not go unnoticed, even the hard work does not prevent
fire-fighters from stealing glances at the camera. Eventually, one of the train carriages
is towed away and turns over in the process.
The film was probably screened without a
title and subtitles, it was not a simple footage shot by a camera anymore but a cleverly
cut report film edited consciously around an event, which is the sole survivor of the
genre of "reconstructed newsreels". The quality of footages is good, the images are
clear, the camera in motion focuses on its subject on several occasions, the heads of
approaching people is missing from only one cut.
A film by the first Hungarian feature film studio, Hunnia Biograph from Paris
The Hunnia Biograph Company was founded by
the Director of Vígszínház (Comedy Theatre in Budapest), Miklós Faludi in the summer
of 1911, and he built the first Hungarian film studio by the end of the same year. The
glass hall on the corner of Pannónia and Sziget streets became a new sight to see in the
capital of Hungary rapidly evolving into a metropolis. It was not long before work began
there, a whole series of 1 or 2-act (200 to 300-metre long) features films directed by
Sándor Góth were shot with the assistance of French cinematographers with the Company of
the Vígszínház.
No inter-frame titles were applied in
Hungarian film production at the time, films relied exclusively on images and the gestures
of actors. The stage-like long shot was the preferred setting, mimics did not prevail,
actors tried to explain the story through wide gestures and pantomime. Since this style is
more apt for triggering laughs than catharsis, 75 percent of Hunnia Biograph films were
comedies, only one drama (Jehova), the rest in the genres of conversation pieces and
tales.
One of the earliest piece in our
collection of Hungarian feature films Bitter love (Keserű szerelem) was
produced in 1912. The title refers to the bitter water brand "Hunyadi János"
ridiculing the old beau, Ferenc Vendrey. Based on accounts published in contemporary
technical press, our film historians assumed that the films produced by the branch-works
of Vígszínház had been rudimentary, technically unassuming and unmarketable, and they
explained the brief lifespan and fall of Hunnia Biograph essentially by such lack of
quality. This, however, was proven wrong by the recovery of Bitter love from
France in 2002 under the French title Le Purge (Purger). This slightly trivial
story found customers abroad and even posterity praised it since the French archive
keeping the film found it worthy of restoring the tinted copy in its original copies.
In spite of the short length of Bitter
love it is a fully-fledged farce, the forerunner of the film comedies of later
periods. The story's plot is organised around wooing for a girl, with a happy ending and
the presence of the typical motifs of Hungarian film comedies of the thirties such as the
girls of an age to marry, the solid and tyrannical mother worrying about the marrying of
her daughters, the lenient and scheming father, the well-to-do but aging and chubby beau,
and the penniless but good-looking cavalry officer. In the absence of intertitles, the
artists' style is over-gesturing and pantomimic, as written in the film histories, but
should rather be regarded as worthy of acknowledgement than of being ridiculed with a view
to the smooth communication of complex situations to the audience in this manner. The
technical quality of the film is higher, its cinematography is more exquisite and its
settings are more varied than thought before. In addition to the stage-like long shot, it
features second shots and close-up shots with decorative sets, variation of exterior and
interior shots, that it was not shot solely in a studio but also in the streets of
Budapest and in a garden. Consistent colour dramaturgy was applied throughout the
colouring of the film.
A true and exquisite piece emerged for
films buffs of the old cinema, the enthralment of which is attributable to meeting a long
gone version of the film language. It is quite an experience to see the actors of the
Vígszínház company of that time, such as Ferenc Vendrey, the 20-year-old Margit Makay
and the 16-year-old Ica Lenkeffy, whose debut was in this very film.
Additions to judging the flourishing of Hungarian silent film production
In 1917-18, Hungary followed Denmark, the
United States, Germany and Italy immediately in the ranking of film production powers. In
1918, more than one hundred Hungarian films were screened to audiences home and abroad
within one year. Above all, the war boom and the ban on American film imports boosted our
film production. It is difficult to judge the quality of films of this age of flourishing
due to the small number of surviving films. On the basis of contemporary documents, our
film historians mostly praise the efforts of a few Hungarian filmmakers attempting to
create literary prestige films (Sándor Korda, Jenő Janovics). There is hardly any
mention or not flattering mention of the majority, the followers of Nordisk melodramas,
the makers of American-like mass films. Bálint Magyar is rather critical about the
original film ideas "invented for films" even when their authors are renown and
prestigious writers. Ferenc Molnár's sketch under the title Gold Digger (Aranyásó)
is referred to him as a caricature of paperback literature. While he comments on the
script-writer of Márta, Sándor Nádas "as soon as he decided to write films,
he created a mincing and pretentious anti-reality." He comments similarly on
dramatist Imre Földes in connection with Imprisoned Soul (Rablélek): "as a
film writer, he did not feel any bonding or obligation to reality, and produced one of the
unrealistic stories constituting the mainstream of film drama of the time." Bálint
Magyar turns against feature films as a genre because of the proliferation of unrealistic
elements, and regards the capturing of reality as the true mission of films, hat is what
he finds more long-lasting: "Images of real life, newsreel footages have been damaged,
destroyed and have become technically unfit for enjoyment, but not obsolete. Their
relationship to changing time was peculiar, but survived. The problem of obsolescence in
connection with films arose to an extent in which play elements proliferated and dominated
them, and finally dispossessed them. Feature films have become obsolete, old-fashioned and
ridiculous." His opinion on contemporary film drama was confirmed by detailed synopses
published in the columns of the technical press, not even the feature films surviving on
the shelves of the film archive succeeded in convincing him on the contrary.
Following the ban on American film
imports, he found the secessionist melodramas aimed at their replacement and the Hungarian
penny-a-line films conquering Hungarian, Balkan and German markets as dead-end roads. He
discusses a caricature of the synopsis of Coaxer (Csábító), a film produced in
1918 by the Star film factory engaged the most actively in international film mass
production that survived in the technical press to illustrate that there had been no
progress since 1913.
Bálint Magyar did not have the
opportunity to see any of the films of Star: "only about one-hundred-and-fifty metres of
Casanova survived from a total of forty-eight films, the rest was lost"–
explains Magyar in his film history. Since then, three films from the flourishing period
of Star have been returned to Hungary, Aphrodite from London, Unmarried
Mother (Leányasszony) from Amsterdam and last year, After the Storm (Vihar
után) from Vienna. The fact that after all these years, they were discovered in different
parts of Europe presents a certain guarantee of quality that not only proves their
valuation on the international film market in their own time but also that they stood the
test of time since they have been preserved and two of them have even been restored. The
first two are films by Alfréd Deésy, the third one was directed by Pál Sugár, they
were all produced in 1918. All three were typical popular films of their time with their
imitation of the ideal of American mass films and ideas borrowed from paperback
literature. These stories often of wild romance and melodrama could well be criticised but
when the come to life in an exquisitely photographed secession milieu with decoration
rivalling works of fine arts, it is simple impossible to imagine a naturalist drama being
screened in such dreamlike atmosphere. The unrealism of such films criticised by our film
historians suddenly become acceptable. We might also have become more lenient since
ancient cinema is completely revaluated in an age when film as a carrier medium is
disappearing, the making of films becomes pure construction and a computer animated game
under the spell of IT. Motion photography capturing the moment, the dreamlike world of
shadows passing by without any sound and body, the magical cinema that once was part of
mass culture upon its birth gained prestige and then relegated in the elite culture. The
hits of late cinemas of bad odour and thus odorised by perfumes are screened today at
international silent cinema festivals in elegant theatre halls. Renown composers produce
modern music for such screenings, the creme of connoisseurs gather from all parts of the
world.
The unknown Pál Sugár : After
the Storm, Cage-bird
After the Storm (Vihar után), 1918
The After the Storm (Vihar után)
was received from the Austrian Film Archive in 2002. Had we known only the synopsis of the
film and not its entirety, we might make the same mistake as Bálint Magyar made in
connection with Coaxer (Csábító). Fortunately, we have the opportunity
to view it and not just read its synopsis. Director Alfréd Deésy produced the super
productions of the film company, these were mostly romantic adventurer stories and
artistic melodramas shot at elegant seaside resorts. Directors working for Star include
Cornelius Hintner, Josef Stein and Emil Justitz in 1918. It is likely that Pál Sugár
only received in this competition the small budget assignments, yet this did not prevent
him from meeting the main requirement of Star films, that is decorativeness. The
picturesque streets of Tabán, Lake Balaton and the elegant secessionist middle-class
interiors offered an expressive and decorative framework for Sugár's love career
stories as the Dalmatian landscape for Deésy's films.
Earlier on, we believed that extensive
growth in quantity took place in the 1910s, which would have eventually led to a quality
leap if our film production had not collapses in the twenties. Now, upon looking at the
second-rank films of Star Films it may be claimed that there was nothing wrong with the
quality standards even in the 1910s.
We have to learn new names, above all
those of Pál Sugár and of Elga Beck, the talented – probably Austrian - actress
playing Hedda.
The name of director Pál Sugár is
neither included in any Hungarian film lexicon nor mentioned in any film histories. We are
not aware of his biographical facts. His career may only be reconstructed in outlines
along the few traces found in filmographies. He began his career in Hungary at Thalia
Films with an ambitious venture in 1918, the adaptation of Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas for
the screen My Queen, you are the light of the Sun - The Wanderer ( Királynőm,
te vagy a napfény- A csavargó), in which Jenő Törzs, Lia Putty and Ilona Bánhidy had
the leading roles. He was contracted by Star Films in the same year, where he directed
three comedies in addition to After the Storm: Rented Castle (Bérelt
kastély), Fugitives (Szökevények), Anti Love Potion
(Szer a szerelem ellen). The latter was banned in 1920. During the Council Republic,
he produced two other films also at Star Films: The Sculpture (A szobor)
and Tragedy in the Alps (Alpesi tragédia). He left the country probably
in the same year, first he went to Austria and then to Germany. In 1921, he worked in Carl
Boese's Der Gang durch die Hölle in Munich then in 1927 he directed Die
glühende Gasse in Berlin. In 1929, he returned to Hungary where he directed Cage-bird
(Rabmadár ) his film recovered last year. 1934 found him in Berlin again, where he
directed a short film, then wrote the script for La Paloma directed by Karl Heinz
Martin. In 1935, he wrote the script for George Jacoby's Lieutenant Bobby, der
Teufelskerl in Vienna. Unfortunately, we have no information on his further career.
We do not know where he studied and from
whom, yet After the Storm testifies that he was already a fully-fledged director
in 1918. He was aware and used the then current means of expression on films. He was
confident in using parallel montages, the displaying of dreams and visions and of special
effects. Among the views, he preferred long shot and seconds in which backgrounds, rich
interiors, planes of space and decorativeness of landscapes could prevail. Yet
decorativeness in his works is not for its own sake, it does not impair dramatic effect,
close-ups are not scarce in his film either, in which the main theme is "repenting
Magdalena" face of Elga Beck.
If it is possible at all, we know even
less of Elga Beck. In 1918, she played in three Star and one Corvin films.Chit
(Csitri) directed by Josef Stein, Star; Two-souled woman (A kétlelkű asszony)
directed by Miklós M. Pásztory; After the Storm directed by Pál Sugár, Star; The
Triumphal Road of Art (A művészet diadalútja) directed by Emil Justitz, Star.
Between 1919 and 1922, she worked in Austria and played her first leading role in Lilith
und Ly, the script of which was written by Fritz Lang and is regarded as one of the
first vampire films of the world. The female sculpture coming alive due to a ruby, Lilith
(Elga Beck) sucks the blood of humans to stay alive. This was followed by Der Rebell,
Sie Könnten zusammen nicht, Das Goldene Vliess, Die Jagd nach dem Glück and Das
Spiel ist aus. We have no biographical data on her.
The excellent cinematographer of the film
may only be guessed, too (Károly Vass and Dezső Nagy were employed by Star as
cinematographer in that year.)
A late Hungarian silent film Cage-bird (Rabmadár), 1929
After World War I, Hungarian film
production was strangled by competition before it could have revived. The distributors of
large American and German film companies got hold of the network of cinemas in Hungary,
thus Hungarian film did not get through to its audience as a step-child in its own
homeland. Difficulties of distribution prevented the return of investments that would
allow for the production of new films. A flourishing film industry fell into occasional
business ventures, the number of productions dropped year after year, only four feature
films were produced in 1922, two in 1925, and one in 1928. This crisis had not changed
with the Film Act of 1925 or the Film Industry Fund set up to support film production. In
1926, the major film production companies, Corvin and Star went bankrupt. The Film
Industry Fund bought and upgraded the bankrupt Corvin Films in 1927. This is where Hunnia
Films Co. Ltd. was founded in 1928 with the aim to produce feature films. The moment in
which technical, economic and legal conditions required to re-launch film production had
been established, the Great Depression of 1929 and then sound film struck. Hunnia's
studios produced only a few co-productions and foreign productions, feature film
production practically came to halt by the end of the decade.
Cage-bird (Rabmadár),1929 was
produced in such a crisis, the surviving fragment of which we received for restoration
from Jan Zaahlberg, a Dutch private collector last year. This film was also directed by
Pál Sugár.
Andor Lajta reckons this film in the 'Cinematography
Almanac' (Filmművészeti Évkönyv) as follows:
"Independently from the Film Fund,
completely at its own cost, the film company of Géza Steinhardt produced this film
distributed under the title Cage-bird. Géza Steinhardt produced this film in the studios
of Pedagogical Films (Pedagógiai Filmgyár) with several weeks of enduring and hard work,
in which both foreign and Hungarian actors played."
The producer of the film, Géza Szekeres
Steinhardt was a successful entertainer. He played in two comedies earlier on (Dodi's
Career -Dódi karrierje – in 1915, Link and Flink in 1927). He
probably aimed to multiple the revenues of his vaudeville theatre (Steinhardt Stage) in
film production. This is when he met Pál Sugár, who returned from Berlin with a plan for
a film and brought the majority of the cast along with him. There venture, however, did
not succeed. By the time the film was ready, the first sound films appeared across
cinemas. What is more, their late silent film was also banned by censorship and was only
authorised for audiences above 16 years of age after its successful premiere in Berlin.
Zsigmond Lenkei recalls "even if he lost
a fortune in the film trade in 1929 when he marketed a bad silent film on the advice of
wrong advisors too late, he still liked us as he continues to drop by every day at the
Film Club even today and wins or loses the small amount allocated to this end. He has not
lost his spirit, which is proven by the crowded house of the Steinhardt Stage every day.
So with God's help, he will recover some of his losses. The Schlettows, Charlotta Susa,
El Dura and other foreigners lived a good life for a while owing to our friend, Géza. He
was left a pleasant memory and our continued love."
The genre of this film is a combination of
crime stories and passion dramas, the influence of puritan and buoyant American films and
of German expressionism can both be felt on its style. The evolution of film language and
film style did not stop in Hungary in spite of the crisis. It may be seen that the second
half of the twenties does not show any traces of the colourful secessionist imagery of the
previous decade. Elegant interiors were replaced by stark everyday milieus, fine details
by sharp contrast between light and shadow, close-ups by emphatic mimicry and analytic
montages. Melodramatic fate tragedies flowing in a dreamlike manner are replaced by
down-to-earth naturalist stories the ordinary characters of which can only attract
interest through crimes at best.
Silent film restorations in 2002
Restoration of After the Storm
The tinted nitrate copy of the After the
Storm survived in the collection of Film Archive Austria. The restored copy was produced
on its basis. The copy was received under the exchange agreement concluded with Film
Archive Austria for the period of restoration.
The Austrian distribution copy in German
survived in a heavily scratched and shrunken status with a lot of damaged sprocket holes.
Tinted copies usually feature a lot of splices immersed in colour baths and then compiled
by cut.
The first substantial problem in the restoration of the After
the Storm was caused by the splices of the surviving copy. Some of these splices were
produced by fitting two full frames on one another, these on the one hand were so thick
that they would have rendered duplication impossible and on the other hand would have
disturbed the visual experience, therefore they had to be replaced, this operation
unfortunately entailed the loss of frames. Other splices became loose, as a result of
which the film stock was practically in pieces, with three intertitles being misplaced at
the end. This worked lasted for several weeks. The misplaced intertitles had not been
included in the video copy produced by Film Archive Austria on the nitrate. It would have
been a shame to leave them out, so we tried to insert them by using the above video copy
at the most appropriate positions. The next difficulty arose during the duplication phase.
The damages and wear caused to the sprocket holes on the side used in the process of
screenings changed the position of the frames in the printer gate, strong frame vibration
appeared during the first tests. It seemed to be feasible to duplicate it in an inverse
direction using the more intact side of sprocket holes. This method allowed for sufficient
reduction of frame vibration. The treatment of shrinkage was hindered by a stronger degree
of shrinkage in the intertitles than in the footages. The vibration of frames have been
eliminated, yet the movement of intertitles still remained disturbing. We finally opted
for freezing the intertitles. The term "The End" on the (Czech and German) nitrate
copy was probably added subsequently, therefore we have replaced it with the new "The
End" label produced digitally in the Focus Fox Studios by using the original intertitles
at the end of acts. We intended to reconstruct the tinted colours by using the Desmet
method, therefore Creator 4 Ltd. produced a black-and-white safety internegative on the
improved nitrate positive on our Oxberry Oxberry special effects machine. The colour
viewing positive, then the correction copy was produced in the Kodak Laboratories, where
Viola Regéczy, as the grader, was the first to try the Desmet method out in Hungary to
save tinting.
After the Storm (Vihar után)
German Title: Nach dem Gewitter
Drama in 3 Acts, 1918
Produced by Star
Distributed by Star
Press Release October 7th, 1918 (Corso)
Premiere: January 6th, 1919 (Corso); 987 m
Shot in the streets of Budapest, Tabán, Lake Balaton, Star Studios
Directed by Pál Sugár
Script by Dr. Pál Forró
Actors: Mrs. Szatmáry (w. Mrs. Saárdy), Elga Beck (Hedda, her daughter), Gusztáv Halmy
(András), István Ónody (Count Relle), Annie Gaál (Alice, former sweetheart of the
Count)
Synopsis: The story begins with an
uptown idyll. Widowed Mrs. Saárdy and her daughter, Hedda live in seclusion. András, a
decent carpenter apprentice courts to the girl. Their idyllic relationship is disturbed by
an unexpected storm. Hedda longing for splendour and glory meets young Count Relle one
day. The adventuresome young man coaxes the girl, sets up an elegant apartment for her.
Hedda's happiness, however, does not last for long because the count is re-conquered by
his former sweetheart, Alice. The abandoned girl returns to the parental house, but her
mother and András do not accept her back. She only says one way out of her misery, death.
She throws herself into the water, but fishermen rescue and take her back to her mother.
Caring saves her life. In the meantime, the count's destiny catches up with him, he
loses all his fortune on card games and Alice abandons him as well. This is when he
remembers Hedda, and feels that her pure love could give meaning to his life. Hedda,
however, thinks of her sinful past only as a bad dream and sticks up to András, who has
not deserted her even during her biggest hardships. The rejected count shots himself in
the head.
Source: Mozgófénykép
Híradó (Motion Picture Newsreels), 1918/34, 35, 41, 1919/1; Mozihét (Cinema Week),
1917/15, 1918/14, 15, 35, 41; Mozivilág (Cinema World), 1918/35, 37, 40, 1919/1;
Színházi Élet (Theatrical Life), 1918/40; Paimann's Filmlisten, 1918/126
Literature: Andor Lajta: A magyar film
története II. Kézirat (The History of Hungarian Film, Manuscript II) – Library of the
Hungarian National Film Archive, p. 95; István Nemeskürty: A mozgóképtől a
filmművészetig (From motion picture to cinematography) Budapest, 1961, p. 354; Bálint
Magyar: A magyar némafilm története (The history of Hungarian silent cinema) 1918-1931
Budapest, 1967 p. 25.
Photo: Mozgófénykép Híradó
(Motion Picture Newsreels), 1918/34 (1 photo); Mozihét (Cinema Week), 1918/35 (1 photo),
Mozi-Világ (Cinema World) 1918/35, 37 (1 photo)
Billboard: OSZK Plakáttár (Billboard
Repository, 1 billboard, graphic artist: Imre Földes, Lipót Sátori)
Copy: Hungarian National Film Archive,
950 metres, colour with German intertitles
The film was restored by the Hungarian National Film Archive in 2003 on the basis of a
tinted nitrate print which survived in the collection of Filmarchiv Austria.
Restoration was supported by Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary.
Optical Restoration: Creator 4 Ltd.
Color Timer: Viola Regéczy
Technician: Katalin Fillinger
Laboratory: Kodak Cinelabs Hungary
Restoration of Cage-bird
Cage-bird survived in the private
collection of Jan Zaalberg in Holland. The film was found and borrowed for restoration
purposes by Nikolaus Wostry of Film Archive Austria. It was then lent from Vienna to the
Hungarian National Film Archive upon consent from its owner.
Jan Zaalberg's collection preserved the
fragment of black-and-white copy intended for distribution in Holland in German, with a
German title and German subtitles on Agfa stock. The act markers were in Dutch, act
endings match those in the intertitle list recovered in the Berlin censorship materials.
The length of the original version in German was 2280 m, the surviving copy is 1350 m.
Acts 4, 5 and 8 are missing from the 8-act copy intended for distribution in Holland.
The copy is in good physical condition,
sprocket holes are only managed in a few places. Shrinking is 2 sprocket holes per metre.
Considering that it was a distribution copy, it of course has scratches, but only to a
limited extent. (This indicates that this latecomer Hungarian silent film was quickly
taken off the program in Holland just like in Hungary.) Act 2 displays a relatively long
scratch on the emulsion side, which is probably attributable to reeling and not screening,
because it has waves. A few moulds, rusts and burns are here and there. It is neither oily
nor dirty. The technical condition of the film is good, only a few minor corrections had
to be made before copying.
Considering that the film is a fragment,
the decisions made in the course of its restoration had also been affected by financial
considerations as a result of which the work on the film should be regarded as backing up
and not as restoration; the primary aim of which was to render this work created at the
slump of the Hungarian silent film period and once believed to be lost available for film
history research. This worked began with sampling. Following the comparison of samples
produced with the Debry printer and with the Oxberry special effects machine, it seemed
that the sample produced with the Oxberry special effects machine does not show better
results therefore a decision was made in favour of the less expensive solution, the
black-and-white safety internegative was produced on the Debry printer. The viewing copy
was produced accordingly, it proved to be satisfactory, thus no correction copy needed to
be made. Explanatory intertitles replaced Acts 4, 5 and 8 by using the intertitle list
found in the Berlin censorship materials.
Cage-bird (Rabmadár)
Also known as From midnight to dawn / From midnight to
morning
German title: Achtung! Kriminalpolizei!
Drama in 6 acts, 1929 Märy Film
Produced by Géza Steinhardt
Distributed by Steinhardt Film Premier: January 1st, 1930 /December 30th,
1929 (Omnia); February 10th, 1930 (Vienna) 2280 m; Censorship: 272/1929,
banned, 2283 m, 395/1929, PG-16,
Export licence: 320/1929; 2283 m
Shot in locations in Budapest and studios of Pedagogy Films
Directed by Pál Sugár Script by Lajos Lázár, Walter Reisch
Cinematographer: A. Oskar Weitzenberg, [József Bécsi ]
Production designer: István Lhotka Szironthai
Actors: Hans Adalbert Schlettow (waiter in the hotel), Lissy Arna (female prisoner),
Charlotte Susa (prison physician), Szidi Rákosi (guard), El Dura (Malayan dancer), Ida
Turai (Birdie), Mariska H. Balla (hotel manager), Olga Kerékgyártó (new chambermaid)
Synopsis: This crime story centres
around Anna, the prisoner, who was drawn into stealing by her lover and that's what got
her in prison. The girl would like to meet Jenő, her sweetheart again. She begs the
prison physician until she lets her out for one night. She visits the man, but the
womaniser hotel waiter has long forgotten her. He has already coaxed the naive do-all
girl, Birdie, courted the chambermaid, and is now planning to rob the cash-register with
his new lover, an acrobat. The acrobat falls on the run with an elevator out of order and
dies. Anna forgives the disloyal Jenőnek, whom she still loves, but when she learns of
Birdie expecting a child from him, she convinces Jenő to marry the girl and then returns
to the prison.
Source: Filmkultúra (Film Culture),
1929/5, 6; Magyar Filmkurir (Hungarian Film Courier) 1929/47; Magyar Mozi és Film
(Hungarian Cinema and Film), January 5th, 1930; Moziélet (Cinematic Life),
1929/21, 39, 43; Mozivilág (Cinema World), 1930/1; Filmművészeti Évkönyv
(Cinematography Almanac), 1930 (edited by Andor Lajta) p. 193; Paimann's Filmlisten
1931/775
Literature: István Nemeskürty: A
mozgóképtől a filmművészetig (From motion picture to cinematography) Budapest 1961,
pp. 190, 226, 362; Bálint Magyar: A magyar némafilm története (The history of
Hungarian silent cinema) 1918-1931 Budapest, 1967 p. 267; Zsolt Kőháti: Tovamozduló
ember tovamozduló világban (A man moving on in a world moving on) Budapest, 1996.
Hungarian Film Institute p. 307.
Copy: Hungarian National Film Archive,
1350 m, black-and-white, German intertitles
The film was restored by the Hungarian National Film Archive in 2002 on the basis of a
black and white nitrate print which survived in Jan Zaalberg's collection (the
Netherlands).
Restoration was supported by Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary.
Colour Timer: Miklós Benyó
Laboratory: Hungarian Film Laboratory Ltd.
