robinakaaly

I agree with most of the previous review, though I think it did deal with important issues, even if from a "Communist" perspective. Not least Guste's realisation that working in a munitions factory while her husband was at war was contributing to the profits of the munition makers. However, she was lucky that her husband survived the Great War. The German hyper-inflation in the twenties was cursorily dealt with, possibly because of its contribution to the rise of the NSDAP. This was insidiously treat: the realisation that nasty things were happening: speaking out becoming dangerous, the way the Jewish family next door suddenly vanishing, the reaction to Guste's attempts to stop their possessions being sold: "They won't be coming back." The sets and settings were well done, not least the interiors of the rich houses and those of the poor. Notable moments were the troops singing the Horst Wessell Lied, the Head teacher shouting "This is a Prussian school!" when Guste asks if anything can be done to ensure children have breakfast before they come to school, the nice doctor treating Guste's dying husband who turns nasty when she expresses Social Democratic views, and Guste's reaction when told her one of her children and two grandchildren were not burnt to death in an air-raid but drowned in their cellar when a water-main broke. (As an aside, I think the short clip of bombs being dropped from plane did not show an Allied plane.

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed but I was struck by the similarities between the Thief's fight with a dragon, and that of Siegfried's in Fritz Land Ring of the Nibelungs. In both the hero makes a frontal assault on the dragon, then stabs it on its underside. Blood then rushes out, though wisely the Thief makes sure he doesn't touch it. There is then a sequence in both films where the dragon dies. Of course in the German film the dragon is asleep and not bothering anyone, so Siegfried has to wake it up and gratuitously kill it. In the American film, the dragon is barring the Thief's way so he has (slightly) more justification in killing it.

Both films were released early in 1924, so are these scenes pure co-incidence or was one influenced by the other? One commentator mentions that Kevin Brownlow says Fairbanks went to Germany and was influenced by their techniques, so did he get the idea from Lang? I personally think that both dragons deserved to be nominated for a Best Supporting Monster Oscar.