The Blackguard

The Blackguard
Directed by Graham Cutts
Produced by Michael Balcon
Erich Pommer
Written by Raymond Paton (novel)
Alfred Hitchcock
Adrian Brunel
Starring Jane Novak
Walter Rilla
Frank Stanmore
Bernhard Goetzke
Cinematography Theodor Sparkuhl
Production
company
Distributed by Wardour Films (UK)
Lee-Bradford Corporation (US)
Release date
  • 26 October 1925 (1925-10-26)
Country United Kingdom
Weimar Republic
Language Silent film
English intertitles
German intertitles

The Blackguard (German: Die Prinzessin und der Geiger) (1925) is a British-German drama film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Jane Novak, Walter Rilla and Frank Stanmore.[1]

Premise

Against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, a violinist (Rilla) saves a princess (Novak) from execution.

Cast

Production

The film was a co-production between Gainsborough Studios and UFA initiating a decade-long series of co-productions which ended with the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s.[2] The film was based on the novel The Blackguard by Raymond Paton, and shot at Studio Babelsberg, in Potsdam near Berlin, the first time a Gainsborough film was shot abroad. The film was one of a number of films made in this genre during the 1920s, the most successful of which was the American film The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927).[3]

While working on the film, Alfred Hitchcock was able to study several films being made nearby, including The Last Laugh (1924) by F. W. Murnau, which were a major influence on his later work.

References

Bibliography

  • Cook, Pam (ed.). Gainsborough Pictures. Cassell, 1997.
  • Kreimeier, Klaus. The Ufa story: a history of Germany's greatest film company, 1918–1945. University of California Press, 1999.
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