Die Finanzen des Großherzogs

Any film directed by F.W. Murnau merits serious attention, but "The Grand Duke's Finances" is especially noteworthy because it's one of Murnau's rare attempts at comedy. Based on this one film (the only Murnau comedy I've seen to date), Murnau's comedic skills were far less developed than his flair for drama and melodrama. However, there are some good points throughout this film.

The plot is not especially credible nor especially funny, and each chapter of the story is prefaced with an introductory title which (except for the climactic one) features a long, long description of who these people are and what they mean to accomplish.

The best performance in the film is given by Alfred Abel. I've seen Abel in a few other comedies, and I usually find him stolid and stiff. Here, surprisingly, he's quite funny as a wealthy eccentric who resorts to various scams and false identities to enrich himself even more. Wearing long sideburns and an unusual makeup, in this film Abel looks remarkably like Eddie Foy Junior! Abel also gets the funniest dialogue in the film, courtesy of the silent intertitles. When beautiful Mady Christians wants to evade her pursuers, Abel deftly makes her look extremely unattractive and then he remarks: "This is how I expect my wife to look." When she faints at Abel's table in a bistro, he suavely asks the waiter for a glass of cognac, apparently to revive her ... and then Abel drinks it himself. I anticipated as much, but then Abel uses the cognac's lingering fumes to revive her.

Although long stretches of this comedy are unfunny, nevertheless "The Grand Duke's Finances" contains the earliest example I've ever encountered of a perennial sight gag that I call "the punctuated stampede". We've all seen this gag in dozens of cartoons: a mob of figures rush across the screen, followed by a pause, and then one last little straggler brings up the rear. In this film, for no discernible reason, a top-hatted Abel contrives to send a pack of wolfhounds racing through his own mansion ... with a little dachshund bringing up the rear to punctuate the stampede.

In the central role of Don Ramon the Twenty-Second, Grand Duke of the Mediterranean nation of Abacco, Harry Liedtke is only vaguely amusing. Fans of "Nosferatu" will be intrigued to see Max Schreck's name in the cast list here. Schreck plays one of a quartet of political agitators. He wears a long straggly beard and looks impressively gaunt but has almost nothing to do, except for one amusing bit of physical business when a maidservant chases him out of the Grand Duke's castle. A far more impressive (and much more physical) performance is given by Hans Schaufuss as Schreck's hunchbacked co-conspirator. Schaufuss leaps, capers, goggles at the camera, swings from a rope, and gives a performance even more athletic than Lon Chaney's Quasimodo.

The exterior photography is excellent, and I felt a nostalgic twinge during a shot of a tram moving through a city's streets at night. Several sequences were shot on shipboard, and I was pleased to see the horizon heaving up and down realistically, unlike in so many Hollywood films which feature stationary cameras in "shipboard" sequences. Near the end, there's a funny shot of a woman chasing a man into the distance ... but Leo McCarey would have done it better. Murnau was a great director of dramas, but his comedic efforts fall very far short of Ernst Lubitsch's comedies. I'll rate "The Grand Duke's Finances" 6 out of 10.

In F. W. Murnau's prior movie just before "The Last Laugh," the director exhibited the opposite restraint in his narrative by producing his only comedy, January 1924's "The Grand Duke's Finances." The story consists of a duke, leader of a small European country, who's in dire financial straights. His proliferate ways are creating for his tiny kingdom a situation where his main creditor is on the verge of kicking him out and taking control of the country. A marriage to a rich Russian grand duchess could solve the duke's debt crises. But revolutionaries and the creditor attempt to thwart the union, cascading the movie into a series of chases and conspiracies.

The script, written by Fritz Lang's wife, Thea von Harbou, and filmed by Karl Freund, was shot on location on the Adriatic coast as well as at the UFA Tempelhof Studios. "The Grand Duke's Finances" is a compilation of serial episodes and contains, unusual for Murnau, a series of bizarre gags and a cliffhanger of an ending.

Cinematographer Freund, whose career in film went back to 1916, later teamed up with Fritz Lang and scriptwriter von Harbou to produce the 1927 'Metropolis' before moving to America, where he shot 1931's 'Dracula.' He earned an Oscar for his cinematography in 1937's 'The Good Earth.' Freund's credited in designing flat lighting in the 1950s 'I Love Lucy' television series, allowing for the revolutionary three-camera studio setup that prevails in today's sitcom productions.

I am not sure silent films are still considered as a pilgrim's treasure among cinephiles, yet the frustrating truth is that one could never ever watch all the masterpieces he/she desires during one lifetime, the more I grow older, the more I cannot endure wasting my insufficient time on films neither harbor awful reviews nor cannot ignite my interest. Thus, I cannot help oscillating whether silent films should fall into the latter category or not. This film actually is my second silent film I have watched since a rather long time, the previous one is SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927), Murnau's work as well, of which actually I am deeply fond.

The major issue I cannot think highly of silent features is that without the voices from the characters, I feel literally detached from the story involved, which eventually will elicit some weariness of my attention on the screen, if it's a comedy, maybe the situation is better as long as all the gags function as expected, otherwise, if the plot is a tad complex, it will lose me quickly. Actually this is exactly what this film has done to me, but in a lesser extent, I failed to distinguish each and every character (no idea which one is the main villain, no idea what's the relationship between the professor and the princess Olga, just strangers or a couple indeed? Also the Chinese subtitle is lousy) and not well acquired what actually happened to the letter (what's its importance on earth?). The accompanying piano score overshadows the narrative outright (I remember taking a short but comfortable nap with it).

The two-faced hue of the film (ochre and blackish green) could be the product after the film being restored, which serves favorably to remind audience be aware of the in-door/out-door milieu (have no idea it's an intentional contrivance or something later-decorated).

Overall, compared with the utterly earnest SUNRISE, the film doesn't impress me too much, the basic proof is that as a comedy, I didn't generate any laughter from A to Z. Maybe the perversive but intriguing score should take the blame, and at least I feel so blessed thanks to the progress of technology, which has allowed the motion picture evolving into a more audience-friendly status as it is now (3D technology is excluded).

A multi-part story of a grand duke who has run out of money. He is being pushed by wealthy to men to sell off certain property, but he fights back through an alliance with a foreign woman.

Some have made something of the homoerotic opening with boys swimming, especially with Murnau being gay. I will not comment on it further than just to mention it here.

The film specifically referenced paintings, which is no surprise -- Murnau was an art historian. It has been said some directors view film as artists and some as cameramen. Murnau was an artist. This works well, and it is added to by the fact the sets were painted with shadows rather than using lights. A similar technique was used in "Caligari" by Weine's set designers... was this a strictly German invention? Allegedly, only half the original film exists today. Yet, the part that does exist still makes complete sense. Odd. Also allegedly, the anti-Semitism is toned down from the book, even though the character of Markovitz remains. The book is not available in English so this would be hard to verify. The inclusion of any anti-Semitism strikes me as odd, though, as I believe there were Jews working on the set.

While the big name here is director Murnau, pay attention to actor Max Schreck (better known from Murnau's "Nosferatu"), and notice this script was adapted by Thea von Harbou, the wife and creative partner of Fritz Lang.

David Kalat's audio commentary is brilliant and he ought to write a book on Murnau, though he does play down the role of Oscar-winning cinematographer Karl Freund, which is a mistake.

The Grand Duke of Abacco ( Herr Harry Liedtke ) is settled on a Mediterranean island living an altruistic, distracted and careful life. In reality, he's full of debts but that's a situation that could change thanks to an unexpected sulphur deposit found on his small duchy. The Duke, besides his financial problems, is threatened by his villainous principal creditor, who soon stirs up a plot. The dastardly plans count on some of his malicious subjects. Meanwhile other strange characters become involved in what and in will be a peculiar plot full of financial conspiracies and politics concerning the Grand Duke.

Many geniuses in different Arts are also humans. So, due to this, they have virtues and defects. As it happens sometimes with inhuman aristocrats, their major virtues are their defects and minor sins from time to time are revealed. And believed or not, such human weakness was suffered also by the great German film director, Herr Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, who directed in 1924… a comedy!!.

Herr Murnau's only comedy, "Die Finanzen des Großherzogs" it is certainly a rare oeuvre in his magnificent career ( although it is possible to appreciate some slight signs of humour in previous films as "Schloß Vogelöd" - others Herr Murnau's early film are not well remembered by this German count... ) "Die Finanzen des Großherzogs" is a unique and special silent comedy piece stretching Herr Murnau's parameters in what certainly is a bizarre film dealing with idealized and romantic subjects developed in a caricaturized way.

The story of the film is centered around the financial problems of the Grand Duke of Abacco. Together with the different characters involved in such odd story that Herr Murnau describes in a parallel way until little by little everyone comes together in what it is a special comedy of financial intrigue. It's a peculiar "totum revolutum" leading to an over-elaborated story.

After having directed "Phantom" (1922) from a script written by Frau Thea von Harbou ( in turn taken from a dense novel by Herr Gerhard Hauptmann ), this time Frau von Harbou and Herr Murnau considered it necessary to select a completely different literary option than the previous one. The choice was a light novel by Herr Frank Heller that in its adaptation to the silent screen has as a result a mixture of folkloric and stereotyped elements with an air of modern serial.

The film deals with idle and bankrupt aristocrats, a rich duchess, angry servants ( certainly, nothing new under the aristocratic sun ), blackmail, swindlers and even a Revolution. Everything is filmed in beautiful Yugoslavian places that give to the film an aesthetic aspect paralleling the story of the film in itself. That is to say, charming but at the same time irrelevant.., a Herr Murnau "divertimento", certainly.

"Die Finanzen des Großherzogs" is a transitional experiment, an exception in Herr Murnau's superb silent career than in spite of its flaws has interest for any silent fan. It should be watched and considered simply as a weird and peculiar comedy of financial intrigues, a decadent passtime, ja wohl!.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must flee from his debts.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien