Sumurun

Disappointing. The chief problem, as Lubitsch was quick to acknowledge, is Lubitsch. His exaggerated, hammy acting is one that Lubitsch the director would never have permitted any of his players. In fact, he was so unhappy with his over-the-top histrionics that he vowed never to act again.

Admittedly, there are a few other major faults. All the characters are one-dimensional and the story tends to drag, especially in the comedy relief sequences provided by camera-hoggers Kronert and Graetz, who are just awful. Margarete Kupfer's repulsive old hag is also over- indulged.

On the other hand, the film does provide an almost equal number of pleasures. not only in its exotic sets and cinematography, but in the alluring presence of Pola Negri, who receives excellent support from Paul Wegener who cleverly underplays his ruthless, self-indulgent sheik and thus makes him a really terrifying figure.

And for lessons in how to play comic relief with style, I nominate Jakob Tiedtke and Paul Biensfeldt, who both do amusing wonders with seemingly impossible characters. A slave trader, a comic figure? But that's how Biensfeldt plays this despicable little heap of slime-- and it works!

This film is now available on a somewhat odd Alpha Video DVD. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to replace the original (presumably German) inter-titles. These new English titles look very swanky indeed, but unfortunately they make the movie itself look just awful, thanks to its rather muddy and extremely well-worn print.

The richness of Max Reinhardt's stage direction of Friedrich Feska's play, THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, is transferred and adapted to the screen by Reinhardt's protege Ernst Lubitsch who, in his final acting performance, as the hunchback clown Buckliger, heads a sterling internationally flavored cast which he directs with his customary vigor in this German production, one of the last films made by Lubitsch in Europe. Upon the stage a masque, SUMURUN is remedied by Lubitsch of its static quality as he prescribes a non-stop folly of exuberance which the polyglot players are quite capable of providing, in particular Paul Wegener (Germany), Pola Negri (Poland), Aud Egede Nissen (Norway) and Jenny Hasselqvist (Sweden), each of whom performs strongly and adds lagniappes of interpretation to the scenario of Hans Kraly. Lubitsch, a veteran of the Yiddish stage, generally as Meyer the Jew, is a clear guide to his actors in this melodramatic tale of a sheikh (Wegener) who desires to add an itinerant dancing girl (Negri) to his harem because of his dissatisfaction with his principal houri (Hasselqvist) who in turn desires a young wandering merchant with whom she shares a strong physical attraction. Buckliger is in love with the gypsy dancer, but the mulatta role portrayed by the diminuitive Negri is one who has learned to trust only the adornments of wealth and is therefore most willing to become a harem resident, a prospect which she finds most cordial although, of course, many complications come about involving, among others, the son of the sheikh. Lubitsch's unique style, which incorporates the frequent use of innuendo, found favor in Hollywood, principally with Mary Pickford who, because of her viewing of SUMURUN, was able to entice the director to the United States, bringing Negri with him, as they had shared many Continental successes, and after her career was macerated by her emotional excess and strong accent, the director continued on to great acclaim, praised for his "Lubitsch touch". This touch is in evidence in this silent German film as it continued to be in his subsequent English language efforts and is essentially the conjugating of the lashes of one eye.

SUMURUN proves that German films during the post-WWI era were as beautiful as American films. This film features tons of elaborate sets, lots and lots of costumed extras and a large scope. You can certainly see that this was a high-cost production. In that sense, the film really looks nice.

However, when it came to the story, I was curiously bored by the whole thing, as the film was, at times, stagy. I just didn't find the characters that interesting and unlike later films by director Ernst Lubitsch, this one lacked that "Lubitsch touch"--the artistry and brilliance in the interactions of the cast.

I also was left a bit cold by many of the performances. Lubitsch himself starred in the film in the male lead and he was practically lost under all the fake hair and costuming. It was not one of his best or sympathetic parts--and you can't see much of his comedic prowess. Ultra-famous Pola Negri plays a part that is pretty dull as well--she plays an alluring dancer. This is the type of role in which she excelled in the 1920s, but today you can't understand the sort of sex appeal she was supposed to have. She dances, gyrates and acts coy--but that's about all.

Overall, it's a nice film to look at but that's really about all.

While few of Ernst Lubitsch's very early films (so the German silents) are quintessential Lubitsch, they are still well worth watching. Especially 'The Doll' and 'The Oyster Princess'. For quintessential Lubitsch as an overall whole though, look no further than the likes of 'Trouble in Paradise', 'Heaven Can Wait', 'To Be or Not to Be' and 'The Shop Around the Corner', where his unmistakable "Lubitsch Touch" style had fully emerged and at its best whereas it was not yet properly found in his silent films.

'Sumurun' is no exception to this. It is very well made, entertaining and among the high middle of Lubitsch's early efforts, though also rather odd and do agree that it is a little cold emotionally. It is worth the look if one is a fan of this great director and to see Pola Negri in her prime. But one may want to look elsewhere if they want to see a film easier to invest in, more tonally consistent and more subtle, as well as if one wants to see what the fuss with "the Lubitsch touch" is about.

It certainly looks great. The sets especially are spectacular even and the costumes are wonderfully exotic. The photography is neither too static or overblown, the story is opened up enough while not being swamped. The music is a good fit and that it was scored for few instruments worked in its favour, maybe some may have wanted a grander approach but as for me it was great that it wasn't overscored or too constant.

Furthermore, 'Sumurun' is often very amusing, silly but the humorous elements tend to be well-timed and fun. The story goes at an energetic pace and doesn't feel dull. Lubitsch had not properly found his style yet by this film but one can tell that he was engaged with the material and having fun with it. Negri is a very likeable and sultry lead, and seemed to have fun.

That is not to say that 'Sumurun' is perfect as it isn't. Will agree with those that felt that it was on the bland side, and if it allowed us to care for the characters a lot more (only a couple endear really) and simplified the storytelling a little more that would have made things better.

With the humour, it's always amusing but the more farcical moments felt a touch repetitive and most of the cast overplay their parts with a lot of exaggerated gestures going on.

Overall, good fun but not great. Lubitsch went on to much better things. 7/10

Ernst Lubitsch made a handful of historical epics in a row in the late 1910s and early 1920s, and Sumurun is the second of the four. It is more fully a melodrama than Madame DuBarry was without the benefit of real history to help inform its dramatic and tonal swings. It also boasts a rather large cast of characters, to the point that I would call this an ensemble piece, but it manages that load much more deftly than in the previous film. Dotted with moments of farcical fun but weighed down by an unfocused narrative that often gets played way too seriously, Sumurun might not be some kind of disaster, but it is Ernst Lubitsch's least successful film up to this point in his career (save The Eyes of the Mummy, which I keep trying to forget).

The film begins with Yannaia (Pola Negri), a dancer in a traveling band on its way to a city ruled by two sheiks. Along with her is the jealous Yeggar (Lubitsch), a hunchback who wants the pretty young dancer all for himself and grows violent whenever another man, especially attractive men, try to get close to her. Met by the wealthiest slave trader in the country, Achmed (Paul Biensfeldt) who instantly has plans on trying to sell her to the sheik to add to his harem, they make it to the city to put on their show. On the inside, within the walls of the harem, is the titular Sumurun (Jenny Hasselquist), the favorite among the Older Sheik's (Paul Wegener) women. She yearns for the decidedly less powerful cloth merchant Nur-Al Din (Harry Liedtke) whom she throws individual flowers to from her window. Alongside the action is the Young Sheik (Carl Clewing). I guess the two sheiks are father and son, but the film never addresses it.

The story is essentially a laborious effort to get everyone into the harem so that we can get our final bits of action where confrontations, murder, and true love all happen. However, in order to get there, you have to get a penniless dancer to catch the eye of the Old Sheik, Nur-Al Din to find a way to sneak into the palace, and for Yeggar to fake his own death in order to, I guess, make Yannaia feel pangs of guilt but accidentally get his unconscious body sent on a roundabout path, starting with the unsuspecting theft of his body by Nur-Al Din's two assistants (Paul Graetz and Max Kronert) and ending with him being deposited, in a trunk at the harem's front door. How all of this happens is a mixture between straight up melodramatic motions, like the Young Sheik discovering Yannaia on the street and falling for her or Sumurun taking her entourage of other women to the clothing shop so she can spend some time with Nur-Al Din.

I will say this: the acting in Lubitsch's films up to this point have been surprisingly naturalistic, but it's here, in Sumurun, that naturalism is cast out the window and replaced by the big motions of waving arms all over the place for the smallest of emotional cues. I might have expected that from Lubitsch's own performance considering how he played Sally Meyer in his previous feature films starring that character, but it ends up infecting everyone, making more serious moments feel like misapplied scenes from a comedy. Some of these moments are meant to be comedic, but they end up reading like mugging for a laugh more than anything.

The movie ends up at its funniest in what is probably it's most disposable section: Act V (there are explicit acts in most of these early Lubitsch films). It's here where Yeggar is unconscious and being moved around from a sack in the tent to the top shelf of the clothing shop to inside a trunk and finally delivered to the front of the harem. It's also here where Nur-Al Din transfers from one trunk to another to hide his way in (without ever noticing Yeggar's supposedly dead body in one of them). It's also where Haidee (Aud Egede-Nissen), Sumurun's best friend and loyal compatriot, distracts the eunuchs with a physical display and messing with a fountain. As soon as all of this ended, I realized that it could have mostly been cut without hurting the actual flow of the narrative, but you know what? It was amusing, which was a step up from the largely self-serious melodramatics that had been the norm of the film. It must be where Lubitsch was able to insert farce the most, which probably delighted him.

Another curiosity is really that so much of the film is centered around Yannaia. From what I understand, Pola Negri was a major German star at the time, far outpacing Hasselquist who plays the titular character. In fact, it's Negri on the posters and her name that's the most prominent, though she's billed tenth in the actual film credits (it's honestly not the most unusual thing in the world for the time period). She dominates at least half of the film, completely distracting from the eponymous resident of the harem and her troubles. The two major storylines do, of course, end up intertwining at the end, but the long sections earlier in the film create a feeling of watching two separate films at once.

So, Sumurun is not a bad movie, but I wouldn't come close to calling it good. It's something of a brute force effort by Lubitsch to squeeze as much entertainment from a stone as possible. It also made me think back to the early silent efforts by Fritz Lang and how I found those to be largely inert exercises in melodrama as well. It seems like both directors were meeting with solid, possibly even great, financial success with them, though, and it makes me wonder if early German cinema was simply suffused with conventions that simply didn't endure or age well.