Sappho

The engineer Georg de la Croix ( Herr Alfred Abel ) suffers a nervous breakdown due to the continuous unfaithfulness of his lover, Dame Sappho ( Dame Pola Negri ). Georg ends up in a lunatic asylum. His brother, Richard ( Herr Johannes Riemann ) wants to avenge him but instead falls in love with the beautiful Dame Sappho. When Herr Richard finds out from a previous lover of Dame Sappho that she was the cause of his brother's insanity, Richard decides to put an end to his affair with her by marrying someone else but he still must see Dame Sappho, even minutes after the wedding.

"Sappho" was directed by the highly reputed émigré Russian director Herr Dimitri Buchowetzi, who during his Russian period had a special and close connection with Dame Pola and directed her on many occasions, often in his superb costume dramas. This is characteristic of the latter: excellent set design, beautiful outdoor scenery, careful cinematography ( by Herr Arpad Viragh ) and a modern approach to the material.

Besides those excellent technical aspects, "Sappho" is a remarkable film because it emphasizes the psychological aspect of the story; the sorrows and miseries of love, a mad love that doesn't listen to earthly reasons. It captures the lust and free love spirit of a decadent society, full of characters who don't hesitate to harm themselves to get what they want.

The love turmoil will have a "grand finale" at the end of the film in a magnificent and thrilling scene at the Opera ( Herr Buchowetzki at his best ) where our heroine ( Dame Pola at her best too ) will pay for her old and new love sins.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must avoid Dame Sappho's charms in order that this Herr Graf's Teutonic fat heiresses find out nothing about it.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

The drama begins when handsome Johannes Riemann (as Richard de la Croix) is summoned to an asylum, to check on insane brother Alfred Abel (as Andreas de la Croix). As we see in a later flashback, the alluring Pola Negri (as Sappho) left the innocent Mr. Abel, a lowly engineer, for his well-heeled boss Albert Steinrück (as George Bertink); this helped drive Mr. Abel insane. Presently, when Mr. Riemann finds Ms. Negri, she leaves Mr. Steinruck and moves in with Riemann…

Negri thinks she has found true love, but her promiscuous past is discovered…

After "Madame DuBarry" created an international passion for all things Pola, "Sappho" reached American shores as "Mad Love". More importantly, Negri had taken advantage of the sensation by moving her career to Hollywood. She was an instant celebrity. More importantly, she was considered by critics to be one of the finest actresses around town, and had box office support, too. "Sappho" may not answer why, exactly, but it's nicely preserved, with richly restored color tinting.

****** Sappho (9/9/21) Dimitri Buchowetzki ~ Pola Negri, Johannes Riemann, Alfred Abel, Albert Steinruck

In America when one thinks about early movie "vamps", the vampire woman, Theda Bara, Louise Glaum, and Valeska Suratt could possibly immediately come to mind. There were others, too, in early American films, but of all those named above, less than a handful of examples of their works in "vampirism" have survived the ravages of time. Europe responded to the "vamp" call, too, however, and though the world had been presented "A Fool There Was" (1915) with Theda Bara and "Sex" (1920) with Glaum and "She" and others with Suratt, Germany, in a somewhat successful attempt to top all these, in the directorial hands of Dimitri Buchowetzki, took a literary work of [Père] Alexandre Dumas and turned it into a film called "Sappho" (1921). Starring Pola Negri, Johannes Riemann, Alfred Abel, Albert Steinrück, Helga Molander, Otto Treptow, and others, the only thing missing from this campy stylized silent is the music of Wagner's "Parzifal" and watching the actors and actresses not mouth their parts, but operatically sing them! It's acted exactly as if it were an opera. Every silent non-sound can be heard in the fifth row of the balcony. Stylized, stylized, stylized - and I couldn't help but watch and be glued to the set, attached at the umbilical! The fluffy, absolute nonsense is so wonderful to watch I can't even begin to explain why. By the way, Otto Preminger HAD to have watched this before he directed Lee Remick in "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959). Pola Negri in several scenes and at certain camera angles looks EXACTLY like Lee Remick, or should I say that in exactly the opposite way? Remick's the same character in many ways, only modernized nearly 40 years later. And the guy playing Teddy, Otto Treptow, has moments when you'll swear Edward G. Robinson is playing the part. Alfred Abel, playing the mad brother, is so over-the-top you'll wish he really could crush the throats of those he chokes. You don't need me to tell you the story. It's one of those where people go crazy - literally crazy - lunatic crazy - all because of what they imagine is LOVE. Grapevine Video edition is beautifully tinted and the complete (just missing a few frames) five act (yes, it's shown in acts) film, not the old cut-down version re-named "Mad Love". This "Sappho"'s a wowzer!