The Moon of Israel
The Moon of Israel Die Sklavenkönigin | |
---|---|
Gerhard Gruber (in the modern reissue) | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 103 minutes |
Country | Austria |
Language | Silent (German intertitles) |
The Moon of Israel (German: Die Sklavenkönigin, or "The Queen of the Slaves") is a 1924 Austrian epic film. It was directed by Mihaly Kertész (later Michael Curtiz). The script was written by Ladislaus Vajda, based on H. Rider Haggard's 1918 novel Moon of Israel, which in its turn was inspired by the Biblical story of the Exodus.
It was this film that brought Kertész to the attention of the studio head Jack L. Warner, who invited him to Hollywood in 1926, where he rapidly became Michael Curtiz and made a career with the Warner Studios.
Shooting took place in Vienna with about 5,000 extras, in the studios of Sascha-Film, and outdoors in the Laaer Berg park area. The premiere was on 24 October 1924. The restored complete version of the film, which was thought to be entirely lost for many years, was first shown on 26 February 2005 in the Wiener Metro Kino.
Story
In about the year 1230 BC the
Production
One of the most outstanding scenes is the
The actors were filmed in the dry and overwhelmed by the "sea" later, during the editing. When, a few weeks after the Sklavenkönigin opened, the competing film was also in the cinemas, it came as a surprise that the parting of the Red Sea was considerably more realistic in the Austrian production. It was not only the Viennese critics who noted this: even Hollywood colleagues expressed their amazement that in this regard Laaer Berg had outdone Hollywood.[citation needed]
The director of Sascha-Film,
The film is supposed to have cost 1.5 billion
Cast
- María Corda as Merapi, The Moon of Israel
- Adelqui Migliar (as Adelqui Millar) as Prinz Seti
- Arlette Marchal as Userti
- Ferdinand Bonn as Ana
- Oskar Beregi Sr.as Amenmeses
- Adolf Weisse as Pharaoh Menapta
- Hans Marr as Moses
- Reinhold Häussermann as Pampasa
- Georges Haryton as Laban
- Emil Heise as Khi, the High Priest
- Boris Baranoff as Merapi's father
- Hans Thimig
Sets and costumes
The sets and buildings were created by
Background
Like other films of the period the Die Sklavenkönigin was inspired by the Egyptomania that was sweeping the world after the discovery of the intact tomb and treasures of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The female lead, for once, was not the director's wife, as in most of Michael Kertész's previous films: Lucy Doraine was by this time divorced from him, and so the starring role went to María Corda, the wife of his competitor Alexander Korda, who was also making epics in Vienna at this time.
The premiere took place in the Eos-Kino, in which Sascha-Film had an interest. For the occasion the cinema was done up in Ancient Egyptian style and decorated with pictures of gods and statues of warriors.
Versions
The black-and-white silent 35 mm film, 2,300 metres long, had a sound track added in 1932 by the Selenophon Licht- und Tonbildgesellschaft; without the intertitles it was only 2,074 metres long.[1][2]
In 2005 using a positive print on a
Critics
- Paimann's Filmlisten, October 1924: "In the foreground is the lavish and totally successful composition of the image, its impressive crowd scenes and the impressive structures which are made real by a photography beyond all reproach. The subject is dramatically effective, with many beautiful moments, while the direction is not exhausting in tempo."[4]
- Paimann's Filmlisten gave another, indirect, critique in its edition of 11 September 1925 while discussing the US epic The Ten Commandments: "the technical execution, particularly in the coloured scenes, is highly praiseworthy, although we have already seen the Crossing of Red Sea done better in a Viennese film."[5]
- The New York Times, 29 June 1927: "There is naturally much that is mindful of Cecil B. DeMille’s Film The Ten Commandments in The Moon Of Israel, but Mr. Curtiz fortunately has no modern story to tack on to his Egyptian passages. This is an excellent production."
See also
Notes
- ^ CINE MUDO / Silent movies (21 June 2017). "La esclava reina (1924 Austria) Sklavenkönigin / Moon of Israel". Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2017 – via YouTube.
- ^ robert fells (17 April 2017). "MOON OF ISRAEL (1924) an Austrian film of the Exodus". Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2017 – via YouTube.
- ^ On 22 April 2006 in the context of the "Austria - Japan Silent Film Duo Projects" Gruber accompanied on piano a screening of Die Sklavenkönigin with the Japanese benshi Midori Sawato. This was both the Japanese premiere of the restored version of the silent film and also Gruber's first appearance in Japan.
- ^ "Im Vordergrund steht die großzügige und durchaus gelungene Aufmachung des Bildes, seine eindrucksvollen Massenszenen und die imposanten Bauten, welche von einer in jeder Hinsicht einwandfreien Photographie zur Geltung gebracht werden. Das Sujet ist dramatisch wirksam, mit vielen schönen Momenten, die Regieführung im Tempo nicht erlahmend."
- ^ „Die technische Ausführung ist, besonders in den farbigen Szenen sehr zu loben, lediglich den Durchgang durch das Rote Meer haben wir in einem Wiener Film schon besser gesehen.“
References
- Gottlein, Arthur, 1976: Der österreichische Film - ein Bilderbuch. Vienna: Österreichische Gesellschaft für Filmwissenschaft, Kommunikations- u. Medienforschung
- Imaginierte Antike - österreichische Monumental-Stummfilme, Historienbilder und Geschichtskonstruktionen in Sodom und Gomorrha, Samson und Delila, Die Sklavenkönigin und Salammbô. Vienna: Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, 2002
External links
- Moon of Israel at IMDb
- Deutsches Filminstitut: censorship decisions on Die Sklavenkönigin (in German)
- The Moon of Israel on YouTube