Director: G. W. Pabst
Starring: Lotte Lenya, Ernst Busch, Rudolf Forster, Carola Neher
Studio: Janus Films/Criterion Collection 405 (2 discs)
Video: 1.19:1 B&W
Audio: German, French Dolby Digital mono center channel or L & R channels
Subtitles: English
Extras: Both German and French versions on separate DVDs, Commentary track by film scholars David Bathrick and Eric Rentschler, 1953 filmed introduction by participants Fritz Rasp and Ernst Busch, Documentary on 3 Penny’s journey from stage to screen, multimedia presentations on differences between German and French versions, Archival interview with Fritz Rasp, Photos on the set by Hans Casparius, Production sketches, 26-page illustrated booklet with essay by Tony Rayns
Length: 110 minutes each feature, plus extras
Rating: *****
The 3 Penny Opera is a classic of early sound films, and though it’s quite different from a typical musical it qualifies as one of the earliest film musicals. It brings to the screen a version of the controversial Berlin production of 1928 which Bert Brecht based on John Gay’s 18th century opera parody The Beggar’s Opera. It is a courageous production by all involved, considering the growing power of the Nazis at the time, who eventually banned the film and supposedly destroyed all copies and masters. But some survived, and Criterion has made a new transfer from the restoration completed by the Bundesarchiv in Germany.
First, some technical details: The amount of “pillarboxing” may seem huge – the image on 16:9 widescreens will be basically a square box in the center with big black bars either side. This is because the variable-density soundtrack on the left of the image area took up more space than later movie soundtracks. It also seems to sound better, especially after Criterion’s audio restoration; much better than most 1931 films. Digital restoration was used on the images, with dirt and scratches removed and contrast improved over previous versions. I had on hand for comparison the 1988 Criterion release of The 3 Penny Opera on laserdisc. The images are lower resolution and look washed out compared to the DVD version. They also have a narrower range from black to white. I had forgotten the laserdisc practice on some foreign language films of putting the original soundtrack on one channel and a spoken English translation on the other. In this case there were also English subtitles so often the spoken translation was not needed. (If you wanted only the original soundtrack you could adjust the balance to that channel only.)
One of the featurettes mentions how the team of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill are regarded by some as a sort of Rodgers & Hammerstein of the Weimar Republic. This is not at all accurate, because their main collaboration only lasted about four years, and it was full of disagreements and difficulties. Brecht was not an easy person to deal with. He mostly adapted works from others rather than creating from scratch, and 3 Penny was another example of this practise. A tone of ironic disenchantment embues 3 Penny. There was much disagreement between Brecht and the movie studio, and his final treatment was more political and hard-edged than the original script. In fact Brecht actually sued the studio at one point. He persued his epic theater concept in having the street singer break in once in a while to draw the attention of the audience away from the play-acting to hopefully consider the larger points of the drama. In the German version he appears early on singing the general story via the tune Moritat (Mack the Knife); we have been following Mackie, who wanders into the crowd being entertained by the street singer and we hear the well-known song. There is little attempt to disguise the streets and buildings in the film from looking like a movie studio, which also fits well into Brecht’s epic theater approach.
The setting is a German conception of the back alleys of Victorian London. Underworld boss Mackie Messer woos and weds Polly Peachum, daughter of a man who organizes and sends out fake beggars with special clothing and props and takes a cut of their alms. At the same time, Mackie is always trying to elude the authorities, although he seems to have them in his pocket when the chief of police comes to give his congratulations at the wedding. Everything and everyone is corrupted and corruptible, and Weill’s artistically crude score underscores the mood of devil-may-care with a feeling of dread under it. Many of the songs from the original stage production were dropped by Pabst. But two of the musical highlights are Lotte Lenya’s singing of the classic Pirate Jenny, and Carola Neher’s song beginning “You can’t just let a man walk all over you.”
There are some major changes from the 1928 stage version. While Mackie is in jail, Polly and the gang somehow buy out a bank and become respectable crooks. Just how is left unexplained. And there is no royal pardon for Mackie at the end, though he gets off to continue his criminal life as a respected community leader.
The most unusual aspect of this reissue is the ability to see and compare the two versions which were shot simultaneously, using the same sets and some of the same actors, but doing one in German and the other in French. Many of the early sound films in both North America and Europe were done in this way. There are stills in the extras of the Casparius collection showing some of the actors in both versions posing together. The French version is lit at a higher level and its general mood is lighter and more humorous, without the dark intimations of the German version. Mackie himself is portrayed as a less ruthless and dangerous criminal. And it’s most interesting to hear Pirate Jenny in French.
There are naturally some crudities in the soundtrack, including some long silences. (Perhaps there were sound effects, but they got lost in the film noise background and it was thought better to just fade out the sound.) Studios were just learning how to handle sync sound for movies. It’s remarkable what they accomplished considering the noisy cameras that had to be put in soundproof boxes and the primitive mics that had to be hidden on the sets without being seen. The quality of the image transfer is very high. This special edition should have strong appeal to many viewers, including those interested in Brecht & Weill, Pabst, and the Interregnum period in Berlin.
– John Sunier
