Sodom and Gomorrah (1922 film)

Infobox Film
name = Sodom und Gomorrha


image_size =
caption =
director = Michael Curtiz (Mihaly Kertész)
producer = Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky
writer = Michael Curtiz (Mihaly Kertész)
Ladislaus Vajda
narrator =
starring = Lucy Doraine
Walter Slezak
Richard Berczeller
music = Giuseppe Becce
cinematography = Franz Planer
Gustav Ucicky
editing =
distributor = Sascha-Film
released = 13 October 1922
runtime = 180 minutes; (restored: 98 minutes)
country = (Vienna)
language =
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:153446
imdb_id = 0013619

"Sodom und Gomorrha" (subtitle: "Die Legende von Sünde und Strafe", translated "Sodom and Gomorrah: The Legend of Sin and Punishment"; English title: "Sodom and Gomorrah", or in full "Queen of Sin and the Spectacle of Sodom and Gomorrha") is an Austrian silent epic film from 1922. It was shot on the Laaer Berg, Vienna, as the enormous backdrops specially designed and constructed for the film were too big for the studios of the production company, Sascha-Film, in Sievering. The film is distinguished, not so much by the strands of its often opaque plot, as by its status as the largest and most expensive film production in Austrian film history. In the creation of the film between 3,000 and 14,000 performers, extras and crew were employed [the exact numbers vary between sources] .

Cast

* Richard Berczeller - Lot
* Lucy Doraine - Mary Conway / Lea, Lot's wife / Queen of Syria
* Walter Slezak - Edward Harber / Galilean goldsmith
* Victor Varconi - Priest / Angel of the Lord
* Kurt Ehrle - Harry Lighton / sculptor
* Georg Reimers - Jackson Harber
* Erika Wagner - Agatha Conway

The cast of thousands also included among the extras: Paul Askonas, Willi Forst, Béla Balázs, Hans Thimig, Franz Herterich and Julius von Szöreghy.

Story

Mary, a young girl exposed from her infancy to evil influences, is in love with Harry, a sculptor, but is engaged under the influence of her mother to be married to the rich banker Jackson Harber, a much older man. Harry attempts suicide, and by her abandoned behaviour Mary drives Jackson to the verge of suicide as well, and seduces his adolescent son, Edward. A terrible dream however, in which she sees herself not only in a contemporary setting but also as Lot's wife in Sodom and as the Queen of Syria, makes her realise the nature of her behaviour, and she returns in penitence to Harry. The film is composed of four sequences: the modern setting, the Expressionist dream, Sodom and Gomorrah and Syria; detailed analogies drawn from biblical motifs run alongside the incidents portrayed.

Production

The producer was Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky, who according to contemporary film magazines [as quoted by Walter Fritz: see below] came up with the idea, while on a trip to United States to discover more about the American film industry, of making an epic film with many extras in Austria, as such films - "Intolerance" seems to have been a particular model - were very popular at that time in the US and Kolowrat-Krakowsky had America in view as an additional potential market. For this purpose he founded the Herz Film Corporation in New York as a branch of his Austria company Sascha-Film.

In the film, produced between 1920 and 1922, Mihaly Kertész (later known in the US as Michael Curtiz) directed, and his Hungarian wife Lucy Doraine played the leading role of Mary Conway. Walter Slezak played Edward, the young son of her fiancé. Among the extras, according to their own accounts, were Willi Forst, Hans Thimig, Paula Wessely and Béla Balázs.

The film is unique in Austrian film history on account of its sheer scale, in which it reputedly surpassed the American epics, the Italian films of classical antiquity and the German historical dramas. Thousands of craftsmen, architects, decorators, sculptors, stuccoists, stage and set builders, pyrotechnicians, cameramen, hairdressers, mask makers and tailors, with assistants, labourers and extras, mostly the unemployed and juveniles, found employment for three years during the making of the film, in an Austria crippled by inflation and unemployment. Thousands of costumes, wigs, beards, sandals, standards, horse harnesses and other such things were made specially for the production, generally onsite. Béla Balász referred to it as "prop madness" ["Ausstattungswahnsinn"; see Walter Fritz's book below] . "Sodom und Gomorrha" cost more than five times the planned budget and in later films, on the basis of such expensive experiences, expenditure on props was drastically reduced.

The outdoor shoots were made at the Laaerberg near Vienna, in the Lainzer Tiergarten, in Laxenburg, in Schönbrunn and on the Steirischer Erzberg. The Laaerberg was particularly suitable for filming, as at this time it was a waste area, with a few claypits filled with water. Just for the preliminary construction and erection of the backdrops several thousand workers were required. During filming between 300 to 500 actors were always needed, for crowd scenes as many as 3,000. In addition similar quantities of horses were required for some scenes.

At the end of the film the temple was supposed to collapse, for which pyrotechnicians were appointed to blow it up. However, there were accidents, causing injuries and deaths, which were to have legal consequences. The director was acquitted, but the chief pyrotechnician was arrested for 10 days and fined 500,000 Kronen.

Background

Many of those of worked on this film later became leading names in their fields. The cameraman Franz Planer made a career in Hollywood, as did the director Michael Curtiz and the actor Walter Slezak, who also emigrated a few years later. Gustav Ucicky, employed as a cameraman, later became a successful director in Germany and Austria. The set designer and builder Julius von Borsody worked for decades longer in this capacity in Austrian films. After the film was finished, Michael Curtiz and Lucy Doraine were divorced.

Architecture

The film's architectural masterpiece, designed by three architects, was the "Temple of Sodom", which was counted as one of the world's great film structures of the time. Under the direction of the architect Julius von Borsody his assistants Hans Rouc and Stefan Wessely worked with specialist companies such as Mautner und Rothmüller and the Österreichische Filmdienst on the monumental buildings of Sodom, Gomorrha and Syria. A noticeable feature of the architecture of the buildings was the ornament, strongly reminiscent of Jugendstil. The dream scenes featured Expressionist architecture.

Further staff

The production design was by Julius Borsidine and Edgar G. Ulmer. Remigius Geyling, costume designer at the Burgtheater, was responsible for the costumes, including the design of the headgear for Lucy Doraine, who even in the edition available today, has 11 different costumes. Arthur Gottlein was the production assistant.

Performance

For the premiere in Berlin Giuseppe Becce was engaged, probably the most prominent film composer in Germany at this period. His musical accompaniment borrowed from a wide range of classical, mostly romantic, music of all types. Next to works by famous composers such as Tschaikovsky, Bizet, Massenet, Sibelius and Verdi he used works by less well-known composers, such as the "Hans Heiling" overture by Heinrich Marschner, the overture from the opera "Yelva" by Carl Gottlieb Reissiger and others.

Versions

The original version was 3,900 metres long, representing a running time of about three hours. The film was therefore generally shown in two parts. By 1987 only 25 minutes remained in the possession of the Austrian Film Archive. Further sections of the film were obtained however from the Soviet Film Archive, and the film archives of the DDR and Czechoslovakia, as well as from Bologna and Hungary, so that although the whole film is not recovered, all four sequences have now been restored. The restored version has a running time of 98 minutes.

ee also

* Michael Curtiz filmography

Notes and references

:"parts of this article are translated from its equivalent on the German Wikipedia, retrieved on 25 November 2007"

Sources

* Walter Fritz, Götz Lachmann: "Sodom und Gomorrha — Die Legende von Sünde und Strafe". Vienna 1988.

External links

*
* [http://www.filmportal.de/df/2e/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,7F05CCBF57E44A7399C17BCCC3D6897C,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html Filmportal.de] (includes contemporary reviews in German)
* [http://www.film.at/sodom_und_gomorrha/ Film.at]