Tag: Anna Ondry

Bonn from afar (2025, day 2)

Day 2 of Bonn and already I must take a kind of detour from the programme. Today’s streamed film is Saxophon-Susi (1928; Ger.; Karel Lamač), the same restoration of which I saw via the online Pordenone festival last year. I refer readers interested in the film to that earlier post, while today my comments will primarily address the differences in presentation between the two festivals.

The first thing to note was that Bonn offered two versions of Saxophon-Susi. Aside from the version with musical accompaniment (discussed below), there was a version with Germany an audio-description version for the visually impaired. (Though another audio-description video has text and narrator credits, I couldn’t find any for this specific film.) I was curious to know if this was presented with the soundtrack beneath the descriptive text. It was not, so offers a very curious experience – at least for this non-impaired spectator. I would be very curious to know more about the audience for silent films with audio description. When I attended the online HippFest festival earlier this year, I wrote about the audio-description texts offered there. These were very elaborate, intended for live audiences as much as online spectators, and the texts described the music as well as the action. HippFest also offered brail text for the deaf to accompany screenings, though I cannot comment on the content of these. The Bonn audio description is simpler, offering a straightforward description of the action and a rendition of all the intertitles. Obviously, I am not the intended audience for these alternate presentations – but I would be very curious to know more about (or hear from) anyone who has experienced these presentations as intended.

The second thing to note was the version with musical accompaniment. My comments here require some context… Though this 2023 restoration of Saxophon-Susi has not yet been released on DVD/Blu-ray, it has already accrued at least three new scores. The first was presented in August 2024 at the “Ufa filmnächte” festival in Berlin, where it was accompanied by Frido ter Beek and The Sprockets film orchestra. (Alas, the “Ufa filmnächte” is no longer a streamed festival, so I cannot report on how this score sounded.) For the version streamed from Pordenone in October 2024, there was a piano score by Donald Sosin. As I wrote at the time, this was delightful: catchy, rhythmic, playful, and fun. That said, I regretted the fact that the titular saxophone-playing sequences in the club and on stage had no saxophone on the soundtrack. At Bonn, the musical score offered was for piano and saxophone, and was composed/performed by M-cine (Dorothee Haddenbruch and Katharina Stashik, as they are identified on the video details page). It was great to hear a saxophone as part of the musical accompaniment, since this is a film whose very plot demands this instrument by featured. But the score itself was curiously chaste, which is to say that I found it less overtly fun than Sosin’s piano score from Pordenone.

At the premiere in 1928, Saxophon-Susi was accompanied by a jazz orchestra – and the poster for the film’s release in France also includes the promise of a jazz orchestra in the cinema. The film also had a tie-in song, “Die Susi bläst das Saxophon”, composed by Rudolf Nelson. (Both Sosin and M-cine cited this song in their scores, and as I presume did that of Frido ter Deebk in August 2024.) This morning, I dug a little into some contemporary reviews to get more of a sense of the original music. It certainly seems to have been a major part of the value of the live performances. For example, Der Kinematograph (4 November 1928) cites the arranger/conductor Paul Dessau’s “musical wit” and “truly comedic touch” in his score – and live performance at the premiere. The reviewer reports “enthusiastic applause from the laughing, amused audience” at the dance sequences etc. Oh, to see the film with live music and audience…

Lacking an orchestral score in 2025, I spent the rest of this morning listening to the many recordings of “Die Susi bläst das Saxophon” made in 1928 in the wake of the film’s original release. There were various instrumental versions made, such as the peppy version by Efim Schachmeister and his orchestra. The melody was clearly an international hit, as it was exported to the British/US market via The Charleston Serenaders, who recorded a charmingly upbeat rendition outside Germany in 1928. One can also sample a version with lyrics, as sung back in Berlin by Paul O’Montis in the company of the Odeon Tanzorchester. But by far the most pleasing version is the deliciously slow, relaxed instrumental account provided by Marek Weber’s band. I absolutely adore the slow tempo, the way this gives extra space and time for the various soloists to take their turn with the melody. You get the feeling that you’re eavesdropping on a Berlin dance night in 1928. It’s a simply joyous little number in their hands.

Looking up the identities of these various musicians is itself an interesting exercise. The composer of the song, Rudolf Nelson, was a popular cabaret and theatre musician. He was also Jewish, and in 1933 was forced to flee Germany, settling in the Netherlands – where he had to live in hiding during the German occupation. This grim period of history interrupts the biographies of the recording artists of Nelson’s song, too. The Austro-Hungarian Marek Weber was a musician of the old school and purportedly disliked jazz (perhaps this explains his slow tempo in “Die Susie bläst das Saxophon”?), but nevertheless ended up recruiting some of the best jazz musicians in Germany and recording plenty of popular tunes. As a Jew, he saw which way the political tide was turning and left Germany in 1932, ultimately settling in the US. Efim Schachmeister was born in Kiev to Jewish-Romanian parents but made his name in Berlin in the 1920s. He fled the Nazis and eventually ended up in Argentina. Paul O’Montis was Hungarian by birth and made his name on the Berlin cabaret scene. Openly gay, he was forced to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power. Sadly, he was one of many who didn’t flee far enough. After finding refuge in Vienna, after the Anschluss of 1938 he relocated to Prague – but was arrested there in 1939 and, after various relocations, ended up being killed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1940. Such stories are common when researching artists of this period, but somehow the combination of such light-hearted numbers as “Die Susie bläst das Saxophon” in the context of their makers’ lives is especially sobering.

One upshot of this rather divergent morning is my desire to hear a jazz band score for Saxophon-Susi, something in the vein of Marek Weber’s recording of the theme song. If the film gets released on home media, it rather depends on how much effort (i.e. money) someone wants to put into it. What so often happens is that special scores are composed for live show(s), then no money is made available for that score to appear on home media with the film. There are many examples of expensive film restorations released with the cheapest musical option on DVD/Blu-ray. I do hope that Saxophon-Susi gets the score it deserves.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2024, Day 3)

Day 3 of Pordenone takes us to Italy, then to Germany (via Vienna and London) for a programme of immense delight. Cue laughs, pratfalls, wild dancing, and a great deal of delight…

To begin, we have the short film Per la morale (1911; It.; unknown). A moral crusade against illicit images and writing is announced in the papers, and a wealthy man seeks to join the “fight”. At another person’s home, he starts daubing black paint over the exposed flesh on paintings; in the park, he tries to cover a woman who is breastfeeding her infant, then puts his coat over a naked statue. When he tries lowering a skirt over a woman’s ankles, he is confronted, taken to court, and sent to prison for offending public morals. In a delightful coda, the Roman-style film company logo – an image of Romulus and Remus being breastfed by a wolf – is itself subject to his censorship. END.

So to our main feature: Saxophon-Susi (1928; Ger.; Karel Lamač). In Vienna, Anni von Aspen (Anny Ondra) is captivated by the career of her best friend, the aspiring dancer Susi Hiller (Mary Parker). However, her father the Baron von Aspen (Gaston Jacquet) and mother (Olga Limburg) do not approve, despite the Baron’s secret interest in chorus girls. After Anni is caught at the theatre by the Baron, she is sent away to a strict boarding school in England. At the same time, the Baron is gently blackmailed into financing Susi to go to the Tiller dance school in London. On board the ship to England, Susi and Anni encounter three rich Englishmen: Lord Herbert Southcliffe (Malcolm Tod), Harry Holt (Hans Albers), and Houston Black (Carl Walther Meyer). After discovering that one of the girls is a dancer, they place a bet on which girl it is. To impress the lord, Anni lies and says she is Susi. When the ship reaches England, Anni convinces Susi to continue their identity swap. So Susi (as Anni) goes to boarding school, while Anni (as Susi) goes to dance school. The Tiller dance school is run by Mrs Strong (Mira Doré), who asks to see how “Susi” dances in Vienna. Seeing the comically bizarre improvisation that Anni concocts, Mrs Strong sends her back to the remedial class. Meanwhile, the three men place another bet that Lord Herbert cannot sneak into the dance school to see “Susi” and then bring her to their Eccentrics Club. He does, but after “Susi” impresses with her jazzy dance routine, she overhears the men discussing the bet. Assuming Lord Herbert is interested only in showing her off to win money, she leaves him. Back at the dance school, her involvement with Lord Herbert has breached the rules and she is expelled. Just as she is saying goodbye, however, she is spotted by a producer-musician (Oreste Bilancia) who wants her to lead his review in Vienna. Back in Vienna, Lord Herbert decides to ask Susi’s parents for their daughter’s hand in marriage. Ignorant of the fact that the woman Lord Herbert has fallen for is in fact Anni, Susi’s poor mother (Margarete Kupfer) is overjoyed to accept. When “Saxophone Susi” arrives in Vienna, Frau Hiller and Lord Herbert go to see the show – where Frau Hiller does not recognize her daughter on stage. After the show, the Baron von Aspen is shocked to encounter his daughter Anni back in Vienna with a troupe of other girls. Anni lies and says that the dancers are her schoolfriends on an educational trip abroad. They all go back to the von Aspen home, where Lord Herbert also finally tracks down the real “Susi”. When “Saxophone Susi” is played on the gramophone, the girls cannot disguise their dance training and burst into a spontaneous performance. Anni’s deception is revealed, but Lord Herbert’s proposal is finally accepted, and the von Aspens are all in accord. The lovers marry, much to the confusion and consternation of Harry and Houston, who are left arguing over who has won the bet. ENDE.

What a delightful film! First and foremost, Anny Ondra is superb. She is beautiful to look at, and the camera gives her some incredibly striking close-ups. But what entirely wins you over is just how funny she is as a performer. After showing her skills at the farcical hide-and-seek from her father on stage in the opening act, we are given two standout dance sequences later in the film. The first is when she arrives at the Tiller school and must improvise an entire routine from the Viennese stage. We see her concoct a fabulously bizarre range of moves: wobbling like a ragdoll, leaping backwards and forwards, scuttling sideways like a crab, stalking like a hieroglyph, flailing madly, performing gymnastic star jumps, jiving like crazy, falling over backwards, then scuffing along the ground on her backside, before dizzily stumbling to a halt. Her dancing costume (baggy shorts and short-sleeved top with a little bow), combined with her messy hair, makes her look oddly childlike. (So too the bare dance hall, with nothing to measure her scale in the room.) But there is also something cheekily adult about her gestures and posing: she’s showing off her legs, her body, her backside. Then in the dance at the Eccentrics Club, Ondry gets to show us something no less charming or silly but far more impressive as a dance. When the club dance expert starts pulling sensationally complex and graceful moves, Ondry starts to copy him. She fails at first, but soon they fall into rhythm together: she the mirror of him. She’s never quite as skilful, but the sequence is such a delight it doesn’t matter. Her timing is brilliant, even if it’s the timing of a comic more than that of a dancers. She makes the whole thing look so fun, it’s just a pleasure to watch. When she follows the dancer up the stairs, doing a kind of stop-motion walk-cum-dance, it’s both ludicrous and brilliant. The sequence then develops into a communal dance number, with the jazz band and crowd of club members (all impeccably suited anyway) becoming an impromptu troupe: Ondry is held aloft, then walks over everyone’s heads on seat covers held up for her triumphant march and descent back to earth. Ondry is clearly having great fun on set, and it’s great fun to watch. These scenes had me grinning from ear to ear. Great stuff!

The rest of the cast is never less than good, though Malcolm Tod is a bid of a nonentity. His role is entirely superficial anyway, but for this reason it would have benefitted from someone with a bit more personality, more presence, on screen. Hans Albers, in 1928 not yet a major star, is wasted as one of the other rich Englishmen. Perhaps it’s because his face is so well known to me, but I felt much more drawn to him than to Tod. Albers is more than merely handsome: he has a kind of physical presence that Tod palpably lacks. Among the rest, Gaston Jacquet stood out as the most communicative: his twinkly sophistication is straight out of a Lubitsch film. (Though Lubitsch might have cast Adolphe Menjou for this role.) As the two girls’ mothers, Olga Limburg and Margarete Kupfer make the most out of their minor roles – they are, in their own way, even in their few minutes on screen, perfectly formed characters. Lord Herbert’s comic servant-cum-go-between (Theodor Pistek) also has some nice moments, as does the wary porter at the dance school (Julius von Szöreghy) – their best scene being their first together, as the servant pretends to be a hairdresser to gain entrance to the school. Finally, as Mrs Strong, Mira Doré gives a faintly sinister, faintly predatory performance as the dance teacher. At least one scene with “Susi” suggests that her interest in her charges is not without a sense of eroticism. (After all, her first scene in the film relays her ceaseless efforts to keep men away from her girls.) I suspect this character, as with many others in the film, might have been made more of by another director, or else via a different kind of script.

Having said that, the tone of the film is nevertheless gleefully irreverent. Nothing and no-one are taken too seriously, the film never tries to condemn anyone for their actions, and it is more than willing to show a little flesh, have a laugh, and raise a glass or two of champagne. Bodies are things of pleasure, to move and dance, to flirt and display, just as expectations are there to upturn for the sake of pleasure and for the pursuit happiness. Moral outrage is only ever comic and only ever lasts a moment, before common sense and acceptance win the day. There is also something pleasingly cosmopolitan about it all. The cast and crew are a mixture of nationalities: Czech, German, French, British, Austrian, Italian, Hungarian. I could lipread some of the cast speaking English, though I dare say a whole host of tongues was used across the production. The dual-language intertitles (French and German) enhanced this sensibility, and it was also interesting to compare the phrasing across these languages, as well as with the English subtitles. Having three languages on the screen made me feel like I was in some way joining in with the continental sophistication of it all. And though the film begins and ends in Vienna, it also shows off the streets of 1920s London in some fabulous exteriors – especially at night, with the streets lit up by illuminated billboards.

(As a side note, I should also point out that Saxophon-Susi survives only through various exports prints, from which this 2023 restoration was reconstructed. About 700m of the film’s original 2746m survive. Many of the characters’ names are different from the listings of the original German version.)

I must also mention the piano score by Donald Sosin, which was delightful: catchy, rhythmic, playful, and fun. Though Sosin’s music was a perfect accompaniment, I must confess that I regretted not having some more instruments – especially for the titular saxophone-playing sequences in the club and on stage. On this note, this restoration of Saxophon-Susi was shown in August this year at the “Ufa filmnächte” festival in Berlin, where it was accompanied by Frido ter Beek and The Sprockets film orchestra. I confess that I was all set to watch this screening via its free streaming service, only to discover that the festival no longer had a free streaming service! The “Ufa filmnächte” is one of the festivals that offered this service during and after the pandemic, but that has since withdrawn it. A shame, as I would love to have heard Saxophon-Susi with some actual saxophones. (At the premiere in 1928, it was accompanied by a jazz orchestra.)

So that was Day 3. I commend the programmers for pairing Per la morale with Saxophon-Susi. Both films are uninterested in moral proscriptions or resolutions, and are pleased to acknowledge but not to condemn a little human appetite. (In contrast, I’m thinking back to the censorious Santa of Day 2.) If neither film has any great depth, they have plenty of charm and wit. Saxophon-Susi was an absolute delight to watch, and – having missed the Berlin screening – I’m particularly glad that Pordenone screened (i.e. streamed) it. A joyful little film with a joyful performance by Anna Ondry. A real treat.

Paul Cuff