Little Angel
About Little Angel
Berlin editor Schneider writes his rich, childless brother Peter in America that he has married, and Peter makes the first child of that marriage his heir. Jesta had already been born, out of wedlock, four years earlier. The Schneiders hide that and, a year later, show Peter a borrowed baby. Twelve years on, Jesta is seventeen. She is thrown out of boarding school after climbing a ladder to kiss her fiancé, Theodor Schiebstedt, over the wall. Widowed Peter comes back from Chicago expecting a twelve-year-old "Engelein," so the family dresses Jesta as a child and he takes her to his country house. Theodor's sister Meta is sent to marry Peter for the money. Jesta, now in love with her uncle, breaks that up, then tries to drown herself and finds the water too cold. Her farewell letter forces Schneider to tell the truth. Peter decides to marry her.
Cast & crew
More about Little Angel
Urban Gad wrote and directed Engelein, subtitled a mimic comedy, for PAGU. Paul Davidson produced. It was shot in the summer of 1913 and opened in Berlin on 3 January 1914. Axel Graatkjær and Karl Freund photographed it. It was the fourth film of the Nielsen-Gad series for 1913/14, and Nielsen's 24th. A ladder scene in which Jesta's leg shows a garter, argued at the time to be only a ribbon, drew a temporary ban, a fine at the Union cinemas, and then a youth prohibition.
Themes
Making
The school expulsion, with the ladder and the policeman, sits inside the twelve-years-later section, after the borrowed-baby trick has already been played on Peter.
Reviews
Lichtbild-Bühne treated Nielsen as a skilled comic in the role. Other notices at the time worried about the schoolgirl misbehavior and the leg on the ladder more than about the plotting.
Look
Axel Graatkjær and Karl Freund photographed the PAGU comedy.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
Several prints survive at different lengths. The Munich Film Museum copy includes Jesta offering a cigarette to her tutor, a shot missing from the Deutsche Kinemathek print.
Notes
- The German title is Engelein. Export titles include Little Angel and Mignonnette.
- Asta Nielsen, born in 1881, plays Jesta. Max Landa is Peter J. Schneider. Alfred Kühne is the editor Schneider. Fred Immler is Theodor. Hanns Kräly is the tutor. Adele Reuter-Eichberg is Meta.
- Lichtbild-Bühne praised Nielsen's playing in a comic part. Kinematographische Rundschau also singled out the comedy.
- A 1916 sequel, Engeleins Hochzeit, is lost.
- Gad and Nielsen were married. He wrote the part for her.
Scenes
- The Schneiders present a borrowed baby to Peter as the infant Jesta.
- Jesta leans over the school wall to kiss Theodor and is hauled down by the headmistress.
- She wades in to drown herself, decides the water is too cold, and leaves a letter that gives the plot away.
