Lullaby

1925 14 minutes Directed by Boris Deutsch

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About Lullaby

At a noisy inn a young servant tries to sing a baby to sleep. The innkeeper and his wife abuse her when the child will not settle. A young musician is kind to her, and the innkeeper beats her. She goes out through a painted city. The baby's cry wakes the house. The closing picture of her with the musician is the dream, not the room she left.

Cast & crew

More about Lullaby

Boris Deutsch directed, and Silent Era credits him with the special effects. The English Wikipedia article on his Lullaby says he also produced it, wrote it, and photographed it, on about $500 of borrowed money, and that the cityscape was built from his own paintings. Wikidata dates the release 9 April 1925. That article dates the same title 1929.

Themes

Making

Deutsch was a painter. The dream street is not a location: it is his painted sets, with faces that do not belong to the inn.

Look

Deutsch is credited with the camera and with the effects. The inn is played straight. The walk outside is a cubist street assembled from his paintings, closer to the flats in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari than to a Los Angeles exterior.

Preservation

Silent Era locates a 35mm positive at the George Eastman Museum and material in the Blackhawk Films holdings. The short is public domain in the United States.

Notes

  • Wikidata and Silent Era cast Riva Deutsch and Michael Visaroff. The Wikipedia article names her Riva Segal and calls her Deutsch's wife, in her only film.
  • Visaroff plays the head of the house.
  • Silent Era files it as one reel, standard 35mm, and lists the subjects as a baby, a dream, a cradle, and an accordion.
  • The same entry calls the short experimental and public domain in the United States.
  • IMDb's plot line asks, after she disappears, for whom the lullaby is being sung.

Scenes

  • The servant sings over the cradle while the innkeeper and his wife shout at her.
  • She walks out into a street made of painted boards and distorted faces.
  • The baby cries. The embrace with the musician is the dream ending.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (silent-lullaby)