The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna
The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna | |
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The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna (German: Die wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna) is a 1929 German
The film was remade in France in 1937 as The Lie of Nina Petrovna.
Synopsis
Michael Rostof, a young officer serving in the Tsar's army in pre-1914
Beranoff is enraged by his lover's decision to spurn him and he plots his revenge. One night in the officer's mess he traps Rostof into cheating at cards. When Rostof is confronted, he resolves to take the honourable way out. When Petrovna is informed, in order to save her lover's career and life, she agrees to abandon Rostof and go back to Beranoff. The Colonel in turn agrees to destroy the incriminating evidence. To hide the real reason from him, Petrovna pretends to abandon Rostof because he cannot afford to supply her with expensive clothes and jewels, sneering at his well meaning gift of some shoes. Rostof is left heartbroken, while Petrovna is secretly anguished.
At the end of the film, as his regiment rides out of St. Petersburg, Rostof symbolically ignores a rose thrown to him from her balcony by Petrovna. Shortly afterwards when Beranoff arrives to call on Petrovna in expectation of resuming their relationship, he discovers she has killed herself- wearing the shoes Rostof brought her.
Cast
- Brigitte Helm as Nina Petrovna
- Francis Lederer as Lt. Michael Rostof
- Warwick Ward as Col. Beranoff
- Lya Jan as peasant girl
- Harry Hardt
- Ekkehard Arendt
- Michael von Newlinsky
- Franz Schafheitlin
Music
The German sound version featured a theme song entitled "Einmal Sagt Man Sich Adieu" with music by Willy Schmidt-Gentner and lyrics by Fritz Rotter. The English sound version featured a theme song entitled “Nina” by Herbert James (words) and Cecil Rayners (music).
References
Bibliography
- Bergfelder, Tim & Bock, Hans-Michael. The Concise Cinegraph: Encyclopedia of German. Berghahn Books, 2009.
- Hardt, Ursula. From Caligari to California: Erich Pommer's Life in the International Film Wars. Berghahn Books, 1996.
- Prawer, S.S. Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Presence In German And Austrian Film, 1910-1933. Berghahn Books, 2005.