Variety (1925)

Prologue: The murderer "Boss" Huller - after having spent ten years in prison - breaks his silence to tell the warden his story. "Boss", a former trapeze artist, and his wife own a cheap ... See full summary »

Director:

Ewald André Dupont

Writers:

Felix Hollaender (novel), Ewald André Dupont (scenario)

Stars:

Emil Jannings, Maly Delschaft, Lya De Putti

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Emil Jannings	...	Boss Huller
Maly Delschaft	...	Frau Huller
Lya De Putti	...	Bertha-Marie
Warwick Ward	...	Artinelli
Alice Hechy
Georg John	...	Seeman
Kurt Gerron	...	Hafenarbeiter
Paul Rehkopf	...	Zuschauer auf dem Jahrmarkt
Charles Lincoln	...	Spanischer Artist
Georg Baselt
Trude Hesterberg	...	Zuschauerin imm Varieté
Werner Krauss	...	(unconfirmed)
The Flying Codonas	...	Acrobatic Ensemble (as Die Drei Codonas)
Alex Hyde and his Original New York Jazz Orchestra	...	Alex Hyde and His Original New York Jazz Orchestra
Enrico Rastelli	...	Jongleur

Storyline

Prologue: The murderer "Boss" Huller - after having spent ten years in prison - breaks his silence to tell the warden his story. "Boss", a former trapeze artist, and his wife own a cheap side-show that displays ''erotic sensations''. But he longs for his former glamorous life in the circus. When he meets the orphan Berta-Marie, he falls under her spell and leaves his wife and young son behind. He makes Berta-Marie his partner in a new trapeze number. One day, the famous trapeze artist Artinelli takes note of them and engages them for his trapeze show in Berlin. Their salto mortale becomes an immediate sensation. Calculatedly and cold, Artinelli seduces Berta-Marie and destroys "Boss'" happiness.

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Plot Keywords:

trapeze artist | son | prison | orphan | circus | 

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Taglines:

NOTHING EVER LIKE IT BEFORE! (original poster - all caps - USA)

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Release Date:

31 January 1926 (Finland)

Also Known As:

Jealousy

Box Office

Gross USA:

$709,613, 31 December 1927

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universum Film (UFA)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

112 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

American humorist S. J. Perelman was so taken with this movie he wrote about it 40 years later in an essay entitled "And, in the Center Ring, That Stupendous Death-Defying Daredevil..." He said "Alfredo Cordona, the wizard of the flying rings, and his partners doubled for the actors. I saw the picture four times, reacting so volcanically to Cordona's forward triple somersault that I almost rent the chair in front of me to matchwood."

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Connections

Referenced in Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)

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Soundtracks

Vaudeville
Theme song for British release
Music by Vivian Ellis
Lyrics by William Helmore

User Reviews

A German sexual triangle set backstage at the circus

The male flyer initially appears in cinema as a flawed hero. The prototypes are characters found in Variety (1925), directed by Ewald Dupont and based on Felix Hollaender's novel, The Oath of Stephen Huller.

This is a semi-expressionist film about a heavy-bodied catcher-husband, Boss Huller (Emil Jannings), whose wife, Bertha-Marie (Lya de Putti), is seduced from domestic bliss by the trio's lighter-bodied star flyer, Artinelli (Warwick Ward). The cather-husband imagines dropping his rival, the flyer, but murders him instead in a fight, and goes to prison. The seducing male flyer is the provocateur of extreme passion, a position subsumed by female aerialist characters in later films. But the male aerialist as a criminal, even murderer, intermittently reappears in representation because he epitomizes a capacity for extreme risk-taking, which is translated into socially risky immoral behavior. But it is the male flyer who becomes especially vulnerable to depiction as a fallen hero, literally and for losing emotional control.

Although little-known today, Variety is one of the major works of German Expressionism. It's an immorality of emotion drama with a fine performance by (the always great) Jannings and the wonderful visual film-making that is the hallmark of the Expressionist movement (extraordinary cinematography by Karl Freund). Variety was heavily censored for its American release; how it was changed makes it almost as interesting as a case study in film censorship as it is enjoyable as a movie.

In its original version, the film begins with a drawn-out portion showing how Emil Jannings falls in love with Lya De Putti, left his wife for her, and created a trapeze act with his lover. This part of the story was excised completely by the American censors, and title cards added to redefine Jannings and De Putti as the married couple of the U.S. release version. The censors' intent was to erase the plot point of casting adulterous lovers as the established couple in a love triangle. The effect was to far more radically transform the story. The unfaithful husband who is in his turn betrayed by his unfaithful lover is transformed into a sympathetic cuckold. The opportunistic temptress who catches two men only to end up with none is transformed into a young wife who succumbs to temptation. From unsparing morality play to conventional melodrama, courtesy of censorship.