Unser täglich Brot - Die Frau aus Chicago

Excellent actors, good music, NO STUPID DIALOGUE and a story I was really interested in. The supporting actors had personality, the bad guy was realistic, for a long time the first movie I really had to see all the way to know the ending (happy end? No? Yes? No?). Perhaps a bit too much "Pathos" in the end, but I didn´t care...

Minnesota country boy Charles Farrell (as Lem) goes to Chicago, to sell the family's wheat harvest. In the hectic city, he meets pretty coffee shop waitress Mary Duncan (as Kate), who longs for the simple life. The attractive pair fall blissfully in love. After marrying Ms. Duncan, Mr. Farrell takes her home to live with his country family. But, father David Torrence (as Tustine) distrusts the "City Girl", and is angry with his son for selling his wheat at an inferior price. A stern patriarch, Mr. Torrence drives a wedge between the happy couple. To make matters worse, Duncan becomes prey for some arriving reapers…

This is another stunner from director F.W. Murnau ("Sunrise"), who would so tragically die in a car accident (after only one more film). "City Girl" was produced by Mr. Murnau as a "silent" ("Our Daily Bread"); but, Fox Films recalled the movie, and turned it into a "talkie". At the time, Farrell's name was rising to the upper reaches of "Box Office" star lists, but, truth be told, only Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo still had the power to draw audiences to a silent movie (and, even that was fading). With re-shoots, a partially talking "City Girl" was seen briefly, and forgotten.

The unearthed full length silent version was, thankfully, preserved. It is a near-perfect film. Farrell, who many felt deserves some "Best Actor" recognition fro his role in "7th Heaven", outdoes himself. Murnau, photographer Ernest Palmer, set director Harry Oliver are also award-worthy. Although she looks too startlingly glamorous in the country portions, Duncan is hot in the city. No wonder leering Richard Alexander (as Mac) couldn't keep his hands off her. The entire cast performs splendidly, right down to David Rollins giving Duncan lift at work.

Sequences to re-play (if not the whole movie): Farrell walking the crowded city streets, Duncan in her apartment (where she blows the city dust off her suffocating plant), the couple's ecstatic run through his father's wheat fields, the arrival of grinning Guinn Williams and the reapers, and their harvesting scenes. Murnau's direction of the horse-driven wagons is especially spectacular. The lighting is brilliant throughout.

********* City Girl (2/16/30) F.W. Murnau ~ Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan, David Torrence, Richard Alexander

Murnau's third American film after Sunrise and the lost Four Devils, and his penultimate before Tabu. City Girl, of the surviving three, is the least seen. The reason for this must be its close resemblance to Sunrise, which is a masterpiece of the first order. Yes, City Girl does remind one of Sunrise in its mood and focus. A young rube from Minnesota (Charles Farrell) travels to Chicago to sell his father's wheat crop. Business-wise, the trip doesn't go well, but his romantic world blossoms when he meets up with a lonely waitress (Mary Duncan). The two marry, and the rest of the film deals with Duncan's fight for acceptance on the farm, where she faces a fierce opponent in her father-in-law (David Torrence). The film is romantic, emotionally moving and utterly beautiful. Yes, it is a lot like Sunrise, but, heck, who wouldn't want a second Sunrise? It's hardly a carbon copy, anyway, so it's like another wonderful gift. City Girl is a masterpiece, as well. I'm not the biggest fan of Murnau's German films, but his three surviving American films are probably the best proof of the sentiment that the silent cinema was at a miraculous level right when it was snuffed by sound. Murnau tragically died in an auto accident in 1931. I find it hard to imagine his work in the talkies, but I have an inkling that the cinema would be rather different if he had survived.

Was Murnau the greatest director ever? His life was cut short by a car accident in 1931, when he was 42 years old. What magical films he would have made had he lived.

"City Girl" is a fairly conventional story of a young man from the country who falls in love with a waitress on his first trip to the city. He marries her and brings her home to a hostile father. But Murnau takes this material and turns it into an expressionist exploration of sexuality, powering it with a theme of "it's not where we live but how we live". Within a world of hostile shadows and menacing crowds real people live and breathe in brilliant naturalistic performances. Farrell and Duncan are amazingly good. And even the smallest part is played with vivid life.

But the real star is Murnau's startling direction. Tracking shots years ahead of their time - watch the scene where the couple run through a field of wheat - extraordinary point of view shots, and remarkable shots of and in fast moving wagons. The frightening city seen in "Sunrise" is here again - with trains and crowds obscuring vision and soot on the pot plants. And then there is the beauty of the countryside and the harvesting of wheat.

Murnau made what I believe to be the best silent film ever with "Sunrise" in 1927. With "City Girl" he comes close to matching it. A must. I saw the original silent version which runs at 90 minutes. Apparently a shorter talkie version also exists.

True, it isn't "Sunrise" (what is?) and it isn't even the complete silent version as Murnau envisioned it, but it's still a beautifully expressive film from one of the great masters. What's more, it's the only film I've ever seen which pinpoints a pivotal moment in American history (it seems to be set before the Crash). One thing that precipitated the Great Depression was the squeeze on farmers, who had no profit margin at all, and whose only recourse was to plant more and more, unwittingly worsening their own situation. One of the conflicts is that Charles Farrell is sent to the city to sell the wheat crop at the most advantageous price (and this is a desperate necessity), and not only fails to do so but comes home with a (perhaps unsuitable) new wife. The family patriarch has planted the farm in wheat right up to the front door, and even reprimands his little girl for picking a stalk of it to play with. They are drowning in a product everybody needs but which barely supports them, and on which they are completely dependent. The contrast between an agricultural America far from idyllic and a motorized city whose drudgery for most is at least as bad is redeemed by the awakening of human feelings and re-ordered priorities. Nothing will save these people but love and family.