Hilde Warren and Death
About Hilde Warren and Death
During a rehearsal of Adolf von Wilbrandt's The Master of Palmyra, the actress Hilde Warren tells her manager, Wengraf, that she cannot understand anyone who would call for death. She refuses his proposal. She marries Hector Roger, who is hiding a criminal life. When the police come for him he fires on them and is killed, and Hilde finds she is carrying his child. Death offers to take her. She refuses. Years later their son Egon repeats his father's crimes. Wengraf will marry her only if she abandons the boy, and she will not. Grown, and wanted by the police, Egon comes back for money, throws her down, and tries to rob her. She shoots him. In prison she accepts Death, who closes her in his black cloak.
Cast & crew
More about Hilde Warren and Death
Joe May directed and produced. Fritz Lang wrote the screenplay, one of his first. Mia May, Joe May's wife, plays Hilde. Curt Courant is the credited cameraman. Carl Hoffmann is also named in some German credits, marked there as doubtful. Siegfried Wroblewsky designed the sets. Shot in June 1917, censored the next month with a ban for children and youth, and premiered on August 31, 1917, at the Tauentzienpalast in Berlin. The original length is given as 80 minutes, or four acts and 1,497 meters.
Themes
Background
It was shot and released in Germany in 1917, while wartime censors were still passing every feature. The print was barred to children and to adolescents.
In film history
Fritz Lang's first produced screenplay puts Death on the stage and then in a prison cell, four years before he directed Destiny.
Making
Lang was still a young writer just out of the war. May-Film built the picture around Mia May and a walking figure of Death, played by Georg John in a long black cloak.
Preservation
The complete film is treated as lost. Surviving fragments were restored in 2001, scanned in 2K in 2016, and issued on Blu-ray by Ostalgica in 2023 at 61 minutes.
Notes
- Georg John plays Death. Hans Mierendorff plays Wengraf, Bruno Kastner plays Hector Roger, and Ernst Mátray plays Egon.
- German cast lists give Fritz Lang a bit part as an old priest, or as a young messenger.
- Joe May was born Joseph Otto Mandel. He took the surname May from Mia May.
- Hilde is shown in rehearsal for The Master of Palmyra (1889).
- A 2023 Blu-ray from Ostalgica runs 61 minutes, the length of the surviving fragments.
Scenes
- At the Palmyra rehearsal, Hilde tells Wengraf she does not understand a wish for death.
- She shoots Egon when he tries to steal her money.
- In the cell, Death spreads a black cloak like wings and closes it around her.
Influenced by
- The Master of Palmyra (Adolf von Wilbrandt play)
Influenced
- Destiny (1921)
Also available
- Ostalgica Blu-ray (2023)
