Not only Caligari could be the title of a study on Robert Wiene, whose name is forever linked with the famous founder of expresionnist cinema. Because he was without doubt one of the leading personalities of the Weimar Cinema. Even though he worked on other films of the same genre, such as Raskolnikov, Genuine and Orlac’s Hände, he was for years, before and after Caligari, the scenographer and director of dozens of films of all types. From comedies to dramas, from police stories to religious themes, from musicals to spy stories, Robert Wiene was fully involved in that unrepeatable flowering that German cinema manifested between the two wars.

Die Geliebte, entitled Passione principesca in Italy, is undoubtly a minor work in a filmography that contains much better known titles. But it is a perfect example of how to turn a modest theatral pièce into a proper and enjoyable cinema production. All the more, with a soft but at the same time well-defined photography (by Laszlo Benedek who would direct Marlon Brando 30 years later in The Wild One), with a narration that strictly followed the continuity, with not excellent but appropriate actors, among whom the famous characterist Adele Sandrock. To conclude, let’s say that Die Geliebte is a film that bears up to a comparison with any of the analogous productions from over the ocean that have always dominated the screen.

(Vittorio Martinelli)