L'opéra de quat'sous

I've just seen the restored 2006 German print, and while I found it entertaining, it's almost as long as the stage musical. The film medium can't support this, and after about the first half hour, it becomes claustrophobic and momentum-less, and a great disappointment. I had to fight the urge to pick up the clicker and press fast-forward. Part of the problem seems to me that the screenplay adapter or adapters didn't trust Brecht and Weill's theatrical instincts sufficiently: they left out half the songs (though the sound is remarkably good for 1931) and reordered the ones that were left. Most problematically, they rewrote the ending, with this nonsense of Polly and the gang taking over a bank. No march to the scaffold, no "Ballad of Sexual Dependency", no last-minute pardon from the King...

Many reviewers here seem to take the London location too seriously. That's just a relic of the John Gay original (The Beggar's Opera): it is most clearly meant to be a satire on Weimar Republic Germany. That's why the Nazis banned it. The real corruption is in the official institutions of power, not in the relatively benign underworld (which reappears in very similar shape and form in Fritz Lange's "M".) Those who don't know Brecht's translations of Gay's original names and texts should learn that MacHeath becomes 'Mackie Messer' (messer mean 'knife' in German, thus 'Mack the Knife'.)

The best thing about the film, is probably the documentary record it contains of just how the original audiences would have seen the story, and how the original performers would have rendered the songs. I particularly liked the Moritaet-Saenger and his incredible trilled "Rs" in the opening scene.

In the last few years before Nazi power overtook the German film industry, Kurt Weill's operetta reached the screen in this effective and well-cast version. Notable for including Lotte Lenya (Weill's wife) as Jenny, it is funny, memorable, imaginatively filmed, and despite the language barrier, does justice to the songs enshrined in popular culture such as ‘Mack the Knife'.

A giant of early European talkies, this musical has much to recommend to a viewer looking at it after seven decades. An adaptation with songs of John Gay's ‘The Beggar's Opera', it deals with the underworld of crooks, moneylenders, and cut-throats.

Chief of note in the varied cast are Rudolf Forster as Mackie, Carola Neher as Polly, Fritz Rasp as Peachum, and Ernst Busch as the Street Singer. This movie is one of bitterness and foreboding, and it is excellent.

Sometimes, if I ever feel especially depressed at something going off in the world I like to trot this one out to make me take an even more jaundiced view of things. This surely would be no. 1 in the Top 100 Most Cynical Movies Ever, even after all these years (the simultaneous French version is not so earthy, a more flowery artiness coming out instead). For me, it's the best movie I've seen of Pabst's, most of his post-WW2 stuff has eluded me so far.

The Guild Of Thieves' leader gets married to the Guild of Beggars' leader's daughter, causing friction between the two highly organised and respected professions, but inertia in the police who are in the Thieves' power. Prostitution, aberration, bigamy, thievery, extortion, bribery, corruption (and complete cynically cheerful indifference to it all), you name it it's here - after all it is all that Man can do! Laconic-looking Ernst Busch's searing inter-ditties leave you with the distinct impression that someone was rather tired with the world! The savage sounding German words spew out, whilst reading the English subtitles is sometimes heavy going in digesting all of the conceptual opinions in time to digest the next. Would that Bobby Darin had got his tonsils round a few more of the extraordinary gossamer Brecht/Weill songs from this! Lotte Lenya sparkled doing her Pirate Jenny number, being just a part of my favourite bit in the idling whorehouse.

All of the people involved in 3G are "lost to sight", except to the handful of Artheads who occasionally hold cultural revivals of Weill, Brecht or Pabst. There was a memorable series of events in London in 2000 to mark the 50th anniversary of Weill's death, but 99.99% of the general public passed it by.

Soon we will all be lost to sight too, along with all of our fractious opinions and silly vices.

Feels a bit odd being the 1st post as I would have thought Artheads would have been here years ago describing this one's social significance, contextualising it, contemporary relevances, and dissecting comparisons with the simultaneous German version. As I only happen to like "old" movies I can only offer some humble humdrum opinions on a few points instead.

I've seen Die 3groschenoper a number of times now, but this was my 1st visit to the French version, my first impressions being favourable as it is an exact scene-for-scene re-run after all - for the story refer to everyone's comments for 3G. The French runs 7 minutes faster - is that just down to the language differences? I wonder how many of the background extras acted in both (and did they get paid for 2 movies!), but the speaking parts of course were handed to French actors and actresses - the whole reason why this talkie was made. I can almost get by in French - but German is a real tongue-twister for me, so to me a lot of the earthy harshness and Weimar cynicism is lost here for a typically French airy artiness, even down to the song lyrics. Without that overpowering cynicism it becomes for me simply a very good film, not a great one like the simultaneous original. Otoh it's easier to follow, meaning it enlightened me on some aspects of the German release I'd struggled over. Here, in the English translation of the French the people in the shadows ultimately "melt away" - I prefer the "lost to sight" translation of the German. Etherial compared to material.

If you enjoyed 3G then you're sure to enjoy this. Overall, for an Englishman a very enjoyable (French) curio, but for instance if I ever feel that I need a shot of Cynical Sleazy Singing I'll be heading back to Ernst Busch, Carole Neher, Lotte Lenya and Co.

The movie isn't a filmed version of the stage play and doesn't pretend to be. It moves along at a sometimes creaky, sometimes disjointed pace. And when does it take place? There was no coronation of anybody in Victorian England, and I don't believe they had telephones. But those are quibbles. The thrill of it is the art direction - the expressionistic sets, set decoration and costumes are wonders. All those steep staircases! Those "London" streets! Terrific.

I wonder if some of the disjointed sequences and odd pacing of the movie result from the fact that it's a reconstruction, the original having gone the way of all entartete art in Nazi Germany.