Quick

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As those of you who have encountered me on Facebook know well, Lilian Harvey (German film actress best known for her early musical films) is one of my obsessions. I love the pre-war, early sound musicals she starred in, am amazed at how much faster the Germans developed in the sound era. Her films are not easy to see in English translation, although they are all there for the most part. Her popularity in Germany never fully diminished and many of her movies are available, tantalizingly widely available in German. Kim and I were lucky to see a number of her films, and others from the period, during a satisfyingly long festival at the Museum of Modern Art a few years ago. It played over the course of several months and we devoted as much free time as we could to seeing as many as possible – we were never disappointed. (The excellent catalogue, Weimar Cinema 1919-1933 is still available on Amazon.)

The other great thing about Lilian Harvey – and I will just touch on this briefly because there are a number of future posts to be done about it – is that she seemed to have a deep personal affection for wonderful stuffed animals, black cats and Felix in particular! Unlike many of the other photos I have shown of Felix and actresses (such as Mistinguett – Felix Goes to the Dogs and Felix Makes the Picture Better) you get the decided feeling that you are seeing Lilian among her very own stuffed animals. Here is another photo from the collection of Tom Conroy which he sent to us a while back. I’ve included details of Felix and Bonzo from the photo.

During the Weimar Cinema festival we also saw a truly outstanding film (sans Lilian) called Abschied and it was directed by Robert Siodmak. It is the first sound film made by UFA and the mix of music and sound in it is fascinating and really thoughtfully and beautifully done. (In fact, Kim dubbed it one of the best films he has ever seen.) It is about life in a boarding house and one of the characters is a piano player and it is his playing that informs much of the sound track of the film. Leaving Germany, Siodmak finds his way to the United States, as does Harvey briefly, although he sticks and she does not. He goes onto make films such as Phantom Lady and The Spiral Staircase.

Shown in the photo above, hot off of eBay, we see them together, on the set of a film called Quick. In addition to the reproduction and credit information (it is a UFA film) it merely reads as follows: dans le nouveau film Ufaton “Quick” dans la production Erich Pommer Mise en scene par R. Siedmak. Direction de la production: M. Pfeiffer Supervise par Andre Daven. Below is a reproduction of the poster and a brief description of the film. I see it with changeable English titles here: Germanwarfilms.com (a site that now seems to go by the more politically correct name rarefilmsandmore.com) with a tiny snippet, in German, that you can view. I will report back after I acquire it!

Quick – 1932 Lilian Harvey plays Eva, a young girl taking some time in a health spa and spending her evenings in the town’s vaudeville theatre enamoured by a heavily made-up clown called Quick. Quick takes a shine to her and tries to woo her without make-up and masquerading as the theatre’s manager. Unable to resolve her feelings for Quick and the theatre manager, Eva is angered when she finally learns that they are one and the same.