Of interest to many DRs, I would think. From the NY Times 8/15/04:
DVD
By Lang and Sirk, En Route
by DAVE KEHR (exerpts)
FAMILIAR to most Americans in its musical version, "Carousel," Ferenc Molnar's Hungarian play "Liliom" has been filmed half a dozen times — but never more effectively than by Fritz Lang in 1934. This neglected masterwork, which Lang directed during a Paris stopover on his way from Nazi Germany to Hollywood, has at last been released on DVD by Kino on Video, and though the transfer is not ideal (it appears to be from a tape source rather than a film print), it's a crucial addition to any cinephile's library.
Charles Boyer, in a rough-edged, sexually charged performance miles away from the smooth Continental seducer he played in his Hollywood career, is the title character, a carnival barker who falls under the spell of the saintly housemaid, Julie (Madeleine Ozeray). Lang casts the first part of the film as dark social realism, detailing Liliom's narrow existence in a marginal Parisian night world of empty lots and louche bars. The second part, in which Liliom is lifted up to heaven by a pair of celestial policemen to answer for his mistreatment of Julie, is an art deco fantasy. Lang's formal genius is evident throughout, both in his impeccably composed individual images and in the editing, which includes some very modern jump-cut effects.
As a companion piece to "Liliom," Kino is also releasing "La Habañera," a 1937 melodrama made in Germany by Detlef Sierck, who changed his name to Douglas Sirk when he arrived in Hollywood...
A vehicle for the Swedish-born star Zarah Leander (who today is Germany's foremost camp icon, a Garbo type who could also sing), the film is set in a German fantasy of Puerto Rico....
Though Sirk's style was not yet mature, the film intriguingly anticipates his high Hollywood period with its balance of dramatic excess and aesthetic distance, expressed through a dense weave of shadows and mirrored surfaces.
