'Das Recht auf Dasein' ('The Reality of Existence') is a German film, but the print I viewed (at a Manhattan screening, from the archives of the Nederlands Fillmmuseum, Amsterdam) had been edited for release in the Netherlands, so all the original German intertitles -- as well as several shots of handwritten letters, printed handbills and so forth -- had been removed and Dutch footage inserted. This gave me some unexpected amusement, for instance when a close-up of a handbill offering a reward of 5,000 gulden for Joseph Dermott's arrest is immediately followed by an exterior shot of a kiosk with German-language posters saying much the same thing in Fraktur type, and a handbill offering a reward of 5,000 marks. Which is it to be, then: gulden or marks?
More seriously -- and I hope that my Internet detractors are reading this -- here's a perfect example of the hazards (for me, or anyone else) of attempting to synopsise any silent film accurately, since re-edited prints are commonplace, and errors creep into translations. At one point in this print, a dialogue card (in Dutch) identifies Joseph Dermott as a 'murderer'. He is indeed wanted for a crime, but the victim of that crime is known to have survived and is expected to recover. She wasn't murdered, and nobody thinks she was. So, is this a continuity error in the German film, which the Dutch title-writer has faithfully translated? Or (more likely) is it an error that occurred during translation and production of the Dutch print? In either case, there are so many discrepancies in this film's structure -- as is the case in surviving prints of MANY silent films -- that any attempt I make to describe this film accurately will inevitably produce some sort of internal contradiction ... and, if ANOTHER print of this film turns up somewhere else, the two prints are likely to contradict each other. I can only do my humble best, knowing that somebody on the sidelines (with too much free time on his or her hands) will accuse me of errors or worse.
Right: here goes, then. A policeman hears a commotion in a house; he finds the unconscious form of the beautiful Edith (the very attractive Ilse Bois) sprawled on the stair-rails. Quite stupidly, the cop checks to see if she's alive by lifting her head! If she'd had a broken neck, this could have killed her.
From here, we go into a fascinating police-procedural sequence, depicting what were probably the latest forensic techniques in 1913. A detective makes a plaster mould of a man's bootprint in the garden. Another 'tec lifts some fingerprints, and checks them against prints in a bound volume. The prints match those of Joseph Dermott, who already has a minor criminal record. His police description mentions a distinctive circular tattoo on his arm.
SPOILERS AHEAD. In fact, Dermott (Joseph Delmont) is innocent of this particular crime. But his smallest finger on his left hand has a long fingernail, which in 1913 Germany marks him as a professional criminal. (If you want this explained, send me an email.) Plainclothes police pursue Dermott across the rooftops. Actor Delmont does a very impressive human-fly act, made even more impressive because he's wearing a stiff celluloid collar and tie. There's an intriguing shot of some hansard rooves and German architecture.
The cops chase Dermott to a railway station. He jumps into a second-class carriage just as the train leaves, forcing the cops to grab hold of the closed doors of the moving train, and hang on for their lives. Now there's an impressive pursuit sequence, with (so far as I could tell) absolutely nothing faked. Delmont climbs across the tops of the freight vans while the police edge along the exteriors of the carriages, all while the train is chuffing through the countryside. At the top of a grade, Dermott gets onto the engine coupling. The camera aboard the moving train points straight down onto the rails and the sleepers from only inches above them as Dermott unhitches the engine, leaving himself alone with the engine-driver while the rest of the train rolls downhill. Exciting! At this point, some convenient Americans come along. (IMDb reviewer Bob Lipton is mistaken: there are no boats in this chase sequence.) Earlier on, there's an interesting shot of a jitney-like German taxicab.
It's no surprise that Dermott eventually exonerates himself and wins the love of the fair Edith, who is recovering from her assault. Before he's exonerated, he risks arrest by baring his arm (and exposing his tattoo) while giving a tranfusion to his purported 'victim'. The guilty man is never caught, unless there's a reel missing that I don't know about.
Among the delights of this Dutch print are some delicate chromatic tintings. In silent-film days, it was quite common to shoot night sequences in full daylight ('day for night') and then tint them blue to simulate darkness. Here, more unusually, we have an interior sequence in a darkened room: the screen image is tinted blue until a chambermaid presses a light switch ... then the tinting vanishes, to indicate the lights coming on! Another sequence, featuring a photographer in a darkroom, is appropriately tinted a deep red. By the way: I enjoy seeing the old-fashioned maids' uniforms in vintage European films (and, less frequently, American ones) but the chambermaid in this movie has got the weirdest apron-strings I've ever clapped eyes on.
I'll rate this Dutch print of 'Das Recht auf Dasein' a very enjoyable 9 out of 10. If anybody out there thinks they've spotted any errors in my review (you know who you are), please find an original German-language print of this German movie, and then get back to me.
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