Exhibit the Third: (For Jay, M. Shayne, and Panni)
LEGENDS OF HOLLYWOODPoetry in motion
Powerful images and timeless tales of reality versus dreams mark F.W. Murnau's films. VIDEO
By Kevin Thomas
Times Staff Writer
March 21 2004
In "Sunrise," F.W. Murnau's 1928 poetic fable of guilt and redemption, the filmmaker transports the audience, via a trolley ride, from the innocent pastoral beauty of the countryside to the city with its bright lights and glittering amusement zone. Murnau captures in striking detail the impact of this world on a farmer (George O'Brien) and his wife (Janet Gaynor) — the lure of the city ultimately a seductive threat to the couple and their happiness. It remains one of the most striking moments in the silent cinema.
Murnau reverses direction in "City Girl," a 1929 talkie in which a waitress (Mary Duncan) in a busy Chicago café imagines that life on a farm would be paradise in contrast to her hardscrabble urban existence with all its noise and pushing and shoving.
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On Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has an exhibit of Murnau posters and photos, will screen "Sunrise," a joint restoration project with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. The film, which has a synchronized score, brought Gaynor the very first Oscar for her performance and for those in "Seventh Heaven" and "Street Angel" and one for its pioneering cinematographers, Charles Rosher and Karl Struss.
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Photographed by Ernest Palmer, the dynamic, sweeping "City Girl" screens April 3 as part of LACMA's series "Halo of Dreams: The Films of F.W. Murnau."
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The LACMA series commences Friday with the sprawling and melodramatic "Phantom." Adapted by Thea von Harbou from Gerhart Hauptmann's novel, "Phantom" is remarkable for the intensity of Murnau's expressiveness and psychological insight. Unfolding in flashback, it tells of a humble city clerk (Alfred Abel, later the master of "Metropolis") already deluded that he possesses poetic genius when he is struck by a phaeton driven by the angelic-looking daughter (Lya De Putti) of a rich family. He becomes haunted and undone by his recurring images of the radiant young woman in her phaeton passing through the town square like a goddess in a chariot. Reflective of the times, "Phantom" examines a society in such desperate straits that it is in danger of valuing money above all else.
A triumph of production design (by Hermann Warm of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"), "Phantom" has remarkable sequences depicting the clerk's fevered imagination and a cast of vivid characters, including Anton Edthofer as the oily gigolo of the clerk's prosperous pawn broker-money lender aunt (Grete Berger). The film will be presented with live organ accompaniment by Robert Israel, who will be performing the eloquent score he composed for the film.
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Exhibition: "F.W. Murnau: Film Pioneer," Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, 4th Floor Gallery, 8949 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills. Through April 14.
Screenings: "Sunrise," Thursday, 8 p.m., Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. (310) 247-3600. Retrospective, "Halo of Dreams: The Films of F.W. Murnau," Friday through April 10, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. (323) 857-6010.
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The article fills four four Word document pages with details of Murnau's films.
Comment 1. It seems Robert Israel had a career before writing TV Quiz Show theme music.
Commen 2. An actressss named "Lya De Putti"!
"...and I can tell you now, she is by birth, HUNGARIAN, and of Royal Blood!..."
IMDB reports:
Biography for
Lya De Putti
Birth name: Amalia 'Lia' Putty
Mini biography Daughter of a Hungarian Baron and Countess she went on to perform classical ballet in berlin after a breif stint in Hungarian Vaudeville. She later made several films at the German UFA Studios most notably VARIETY (1925), before going to Hollywood in 1926. While in America she starred in several movies, mostly in vamp roles.
Now, if my surname was "putty" I can see changing it - but to "putti"? Sounds like a little spanish harlot!
der Brucer (wondering if no editor at IMDB knows to capitalize Berlin and put the "i" before "e" in brief)