#Gustav Diessl

[addictivecontradiction]

Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933

[postcard-from-the-past]

Austrian actor Gustav Diessl on a vintage postcard

[scholarofgloom]

[randomrichards]

WESTFRONT 1918:

Four German soldiers

No comfort returning home

Driven mad by war

[byneddiedingo]

Westfront 1918 (G.W. Pabst, 1930)

Cast: Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl, Hans-Joachim Möbis, Claus Clausen, Jackie Monnier, Hanna Hoessrich, Ersa Heller. Screenplay: Ladislaus Vajda, Peter Martin Lampel, based on a novel by Ernst Johannsen. Cinematography: Charles Métain, Fritz Arno Wagner. Art direction: Ernö Metzner. Film editing:  W.L. Bagier, Jean Oser, Marc Sorkin. Music: Alexander Laszlo.  Authenticity is a problematic criterion to apply to any work of art, but especially a motion picture, considering that fakery is a given at almost every level of its creation. Even a documentary is subject to editing, narration, and various manipulations of point of view. We usually critique a film's authenticity only when it serves our own agendas, or when it is so manifestly lacking that it stretches credibility. Pabst's Westfront 1918, an exceptionally effective movie about German soldiers in the last days of World War I, just happened to be released in the same year as All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930), which won the best picture Oscar. The German soldiers in All Quiet are Americans like Louis Wolheim (born in New York), Lew Ayres (from Minneapolis), and Ben Alexander (from Nevada). Pabst's film features German and Austrian actors, one of whom, Gustav Diessl, had actually been a prisoner of war during World War I. So Westfront 1918 would seem to have the authenticity criterion sewn up. Does this necessarily make it a better film than All Quiet? The truth is, I would have to rate it a draw: What Milestone's film lacks in authenticity it makes up for with Hollywood finesse, an efficiency in storytelling and the polish brought by technical expertise. There are parts of Pabst's film that seem extraneous, such as the section in which the troops enjoy some rather corny vaudeville routines. But the movie also has an abundance of extremely well-staged combat scenes that demonstrate the confusion and terror, the "fog of war." And it has a core of fine performers -- especially Diessl as Karl, who goes home on leave to find his wife in bed with the butcher who has been supplying her with food in exchange for sex, but also Hans-Joachim Möbis as the naïve student who falls in love with a French girl, and Claus Clausen as the lieutenant who has a mental breakdown under the strain of combat. With its home front scenes, Pabst's has that undeniable depth of feeling that can only come from an awareness of what that disastrous war did to the country in which the actors and filmmakers lived. Three years after Westfront 1918 was released, to a good deal of controversy about its treatment of the war as folly, it was suppressed by the newly emergent National Socialist regime as deleterious to morale. Pabst's film concluded with the word "Ende?!" which in itself qualifies as prophetic.

[lairreparablefugadeltiempo]

Abwege (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1928)

[clarabowlover]

Louise Brooks & Gustav Diessl - In A Production Still From

Pandora’s Box (1929) Dir: G.W.Pabst

Pic Source: @ForeverLouiseB1 (Twitter)

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse) (1933) Fritz Lang

February 23rd 2022

[flammentanz]

"Sie und diese Frau werden diesen Raum lebend nicht mehr verlassen ..." Gustav Diessl als Thomas Kent und Wera Liessem als Lilli in "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse" (1933)

[ozu-teapot]

Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse | Fritz Lang | 1933

Wera Liessem, Gustav Diessl

Happy Valentines Day!

[moviemosaics]

Pandora’s Box

directed by G.W. Pabst, 1929

[chaptertwo-thepacnw]

pandora’s box |1929|

[trashvideofinland]

Tohtori Mabusen testamentti / Testament of Dr. Mabuse, The (1933) Suomen Kunnallispalvelu https://www.videospace.fi/release/tohtori_mabusen_testamentti_vhs_suomen_kunnallispalvelu_finland

[ulrichgebert]

Unter der fachkundigen Leitung von Dr. Arnold Fanck durchleben unser liebster Jack-the-Ripper-Darsteller Gustav Diessl und die spätere Propagandabeauftragte Riefenstahl nebst Gspusi Die Weisse Hölle am Piz Palü. Mit etwas Hilfe von Flieger Udet kann Bergführer Spring schließlich die meisten von ihnen retten. Es ist nicht die Handlung, die die Faszination ausmacht, sondern die Bilder, die Berge, und das Gefühl, daß die Dreharbeiten zu Fitzcarraldo sich im Vergleich zu diesen wie eine lockere Fingerübung ausnahmen.

[schizografia]

The Fear Becomes a Paroxysm

[byneddiedingo]

Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box (G.W. Pabst, 1929)

Cast: Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Francis Lederer, Carl Goetz, Alice Roberts,  Krafft-Raschig, Gustav Diessl. Daisy d’Ora, Michael von Newlinsky, Sig Arno. Screenplay: Ladislaw Vajda, based on plays by Frank Wedekind. Cinematography: Günther Krampf. Art direction: Andrej Andrejew, Gottlieb Hesch. Film editing: Josef Fleisler. 

Louise Brooks left a legend far greater than her real achievement as an actress, but even today few people have seen her films. In our own time, the fascination with Brooks seems to have begun in 1979 with a profile by Kenneth Tynan in the New Yorker, which revealed that the actress who made her last movie in 1938 was alive and living in Rochester, N.Y. Such was the power of Tynan's prose that people began to seek out her existing films, primarily this one, to discover what the fuss was about. What we see here is a healthy young woman -- she was 23 when the film was released -- with whom the camera, under Pabst's influence, is fascinated. There is a deep paradox in Brooks and her career: the American girl who found success in the troubled Europe between two wars; the vivid personality who briefly dazzled two continents but faded into obscurity; the liberated woman who had affairs with such prominent men as CBS founder William S. Paley as well as with women including (by Brooks's account) Greta Garbo but wound up a solitary recluse. And all of this seems perfectly in keeping with her most celebrated role in this film. For despite her bright vitality, her flashing dark eyes and brilliant smile, Brooks's Lulu becomes the ultimate femme fatale, careering her way toward destruction, not only of her lovers but eventually of herself. The story has it that Pabst was so infatuated with Brooks in her Hollywood films that he insisted on her for the part but Paramount wouldn't release her from her contract, so Pabst tried to cast Marlene Dietrich before Brooks up and quit the Hollywood studio. It's hard to imagine Pandora's Box with Dietrich, as the film is so built around Brooks's liveliness as opposed to Dietrich's sultry languor. The screenplay, by Ladislaus Vajda from two plays by Frank Wedekind, tosses us right into the middle of Lulu's affair with Dr. Ludwig Schön (Fritz Kortner), the executive editor for a newspaper. Eventually, she goes on trial for Schön's murder, but escapes with the help of his son, Alwa (Francis Lederer), and her trio of oddball cronies, the grotesque Schigolch (Carl Goetz), who may be her father or just her pimp (the film leaves many such questions tantalizingly unanswered), the lesbian Countess Geschwitz (Alice Roberts), and the acrobat Rodrigo Quast (Krafft-Raschig). She comes to a bad end in London, where she turns to prostitution and is murdered by Jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl). The acting is terrific throughout, as is the atmosphere created by Günther Krampf's cinematography. The film has been admirably restored, but with one reservation: The version I saw has a terribly obtrusive score by Gillian Anderson (not the actress) that's meant to reproduce what a high-end European movie house with full orchestra would play to accompany the film. That may be the case, but it's a pastiche of themes from classical music that don't always match what's being shown on screen. However,  the Criterion Collection DVD, which I haven't seen, contains three alternative scores.