Berlin - Alexanderplatz. Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf Roman (1931)

Director:

Phil Jutzi

Writers:

Alfred Döblin (novel) and
Alfred Döblin (writer)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Heinrich George	...	Franz Biberkopf
Maria Bard	...	Cilly
Margarete Schlegel	...	Sonja / Mieze
Bernhard Minetti	...	Reinhold
Gerhard Bienert	...	Klempner-Karl
Albert Florath	...	Pums
Paul Westermeier	...	Henschke
Oskar Höcker
Hans Deppe	...	Gast bei Henschke
Käthe Haack	...	Schwester Paula
Julius Falkenstein	...	Dieb
Jakob Tiedtke	...	Gast bei Henschke
Siegfried Berisch
Arthur Mainzer
Karel Stepanek

Runtime:

Germany:90 min

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Company:

Allianz Tonfilm GmbH

Movie Connections:

Version of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980)

An epic short film?

If you've read the book, this film version comes as a surprise - how does it manage to make so little of so much? Or is it so much of so little? Döblin co-authored the screenplay, which compresses his sprawling novel into a breathless eighty-eight minutes. Of course, much is sacrificed, but the skeleton plot still compares favourably to that of many modern movies. Technically, too, this flick has aged magnificently - considering this is one of the first German films with sound, what we see and hear is a lot smoother than I'd expected. The cinematography is astonishing by the standards of the decades that followed: there's an opening sequence of our hero (played by Heinrich George, a huge bear of an actor) just out of jail, dizzied by the speed of a tram and the chaos of the surrounding traffic, which is almost as vertiginous as "Vertigo". Reminds one that 1931 was the year of Fritz Lang's "M". Was film a more experimental art form then than it is now? It was also fascinating to see how modern the Berlin of seventy years ago still looks: true, the men have moustaches, and there are horses on the streets, and there isn't a single phone call in the plot, and the actors don't look like models, at least not all of them, thank goodness; but the villains could be straight from Hollywood, as could the fast cars, the glossy ads all over the buildings, the bars, the knee-length skirts and short bobs, and above all the sheer tempo of city life. It was a hugely enjoyable experience and gave me a better idea of the times my grandparents grew up in.