Pola Negri - The Iconic Collection in February

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: TITLES:

Pola Negri - The Iconic Collection February 7th Bright Shining City Retail: $39.99, Our: $29.99 The Polish Dancer (1917), The Yellow Ticket (1918), Eyes of The Mummy Ma (1918), Sappho (1921)

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Bright Shining City, a small independent film company, has announced Pola Negri - The Iconic Collection for release on February 7th.

The 3-disc set will include the four titles above, with The Polish Dancer (1917) and The Yellow Ticket (1918) making their DVD debuts. Bonus features are included (below).


Before Garbo or Dietrich, there was Pola Negri. She was the first exotic European actress imported to Hollywood during the Silent Film Era, with much fanfare and hoopla. A mesmerizing combination of the animal and sophisticate, Pola became the highest paid actor in the movie business and her glamorous lifestyle, was discussed almost daily in gossip columns worldwide. She was affianced to Charlie Chaplin, all but engaged to Rudolph Valentino until his untimely death, and was the wife to a Count then to Prince Mdvani. Yet today, oddly, she is still little known.

Born in Poland to impoverished minor aristocracy, she was classically trained in song, dance, theater and cinema. Pola originated the cinematic femme fatale. She was discovered by Max Reinhart became a protégée of Ernst Lubitsch and a favorite of Adolf Zucker. Pola made more than 60 films in Europe and America, both in drama and comedy. Her fortunes reversed many times throughout her prolific career, and she ended her days as a supporter of the arts and companion to an eccentric millionaires in San Antonio, Texas.

For the first time on DVD, four of Pola Negri’s films from the early days of her career in Europe, are now available in this three-disc DVD Collector’s Box Set Pola Negri - The Iconic Collection. This set has been a labor of love for independent film production company Bright Shining City Productions and director Mariusz Kotwoski who has been recognized in Poland and the USA for his continued dedication to this Silent Film Era icon.

The collection features two never before released on DVD films: The Polish Dancer (1917) which boasts the title of “first feature film ever made in Poland” and The Yellow Ticket (1918) the first film to expose Anti-Semitism in Imperial Russia. Complementing these two historical gems are Eyes of The Mummy Ma (1918) with co-star Emil Jannings (Radu) who won the first Oscar for best actor in 1929, and Sappho (1921) the story of a love triangle that ends in tragedy. All films have been digitally re-mastered, color corrected and edited with English title cards and set to a beautiful original piano score performed by composer Rick Dejonge.

BONUS FEATURES:

• Clips from the award-winning documentary Pola Negri: Life Is A Dream In Cinema.
• Musical tango vignette choreographed to Pola Negri’s recording of Ich Hab An Dich Gedacht.
• Pola Negri slide show & biography
• Booklet with film descriptions, photos and credits created by Ia Enstera

Ladies of the German Cinema - Sappho & Backstairs Now on DVD

Grapevine Video, known for its hundreds of rare and hard-to-find titles on DVD-R, has released its third commercially pressed DVD - Ladies of the German Cinema. The single disc double feature has two rare German films 1921: Sappho starring Pola Negri and Backstairs (A.K.A. Hintertreppe) starring Henny Porten.

It is now available for rent or purchase. Purchase price is $19.99.

SYNOPSIS:
Berlin, Germany, 1921. The new Weimar Republic was in the midst of a powerful creative renaissance that still affects the arts as we know them today. Then and now, the most celebrated medium of Weimar Germany’s artistic revolution was its movies, and some of Germany’s most loved and celebrated actresses were at the height of their popularity. Some of those names include Asta Nielsen, Lil Dagover, and the two ladies featured in these two German films from 1921: Pola Negri and Henny Porten.

Sappho (1921, 82 min.)
Pola Negri’s Sappho is a rare, largely unseen film that has been restored with its original tints and released on video for the first time ever, complete with a devastating orchestral score. The story is an ornate, contemporary costume drama about a notorious vamp whose long run of using men is brought to an abrupt halt when she meets the love of her life. However, the ghosts of her past haunt the new relationship, including the fact that she has previously driven her new beau’s brother insane. (The lunatic brother is played by Alfred Abel, best known today for his role as Fredersen, the aristocratic lord of Metropolis [1927]).

Sappho showcases Negri in many roles—a mother, a bride, a heartless socialite, a devoted lover—and each role she plays is completely and thoroughly believable. Her staredown of a former lover when he brandishes a gun jumps off of the screen; her silent scream at the film’s end is so potent that it seems audible. The film itself was censored when it first reached American shores, and was only released in an altered version called Mad Love; this is the original, uncensored European version.

Backstairs (1921, 50 min.)
Henny Porten’s Backstairs (A.K.A. Hintertreppe) is one of the earliest attempts at reproducing a pioneering and revolutionary genre of German theatre called "intimate theatre" (kammerspiel). This purposefully minimalistic film seized the imaginations of film critics, and helped pioneer a small but very influential subgenre of German film called the kammerspielfilm; this film style would come to a greater fruition in F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927).

Henny Porten’s career correlates to that of America’s Mary Pickford in many ways, except that Porten came off as a sexy mother figure, whereas Pickford was a sexy daughter figure. It should be of no surprise that Porten played many matronly characters in German movies, including an appearance as Mary, mother of Jesus, in the recently rediscovered 1924 German epic I.N.R.I. Most of Porten’s films are difficult to find and few were released in America, so this is a rare opportunity to watch her in top form.