Recently I found the movie in the Coralville Library and had great hopes for it. It was directed by the great G. W. Pabst and Lenya was Jenny, as in the original production, but it wasn't the same -- the production just didn't have the kick of the original, and some of the best songs were left out. But as a piece of history it was interesting; German movies of the early 1930s have a flavor that American and other European films of the time don't.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Die Dreigroschenoper
For years I've been a fan of Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill. I have a CD of an original production with Lotte Lenya (Weill's wife, for those of you who only know her in "From Russia with Love"), and I've learned just about all the German in the original 1931 script.
Recently I found the movie in the Coralville Library and had great hopes for it. It was directed by the great G. W. Pabst and Lenya was Jenny, as in the original production, but it wasn't the same -- the production just didn't have the kick of the original, and some of the best songs were left out. But as a piece of history it was interesting; German movies of the early 1930s have a flavor that American and other European films of the time don't.
Recently I found the movie in the Coralville Library and had great hopes for it. It was directed by the great G. W. Pabst and Lenya was Jenny, as in the original production, but it wasn't the same -- the production just didn't have the kick of the original, and some of the best songs were left out. But as a piece of history it was interesting; German movies of the early 1930s have a flavor that American and other European films of the time don't.
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