Az utolsó hajnal was directed by Mihály Kertész, later known as Michael Curtiz, at a time when Hungarian silent filmmaking was at its peak. Kertész already at this time knew it well, that audiences could be hooked by spectacular and entertaining stories; and this film was exactly that. The film is set in London, India, and Paris (all staged in Budapest), following the journey of protagonist Harry Kernett. Kernett, who is tired of life, enters a devil’s bargain with Lord Harding: the indebted Lord takes out life insurance on him and he gives his word that he will leave the land of the living in exactly one year. But love interferes, while Harry meets a beautiful princess in India…
The film, based on the story by Alfred Deutsch-German and set in exotic locations amid an aristocratic milieu, became an international hit. The story of finding the film is also fascinating. A tinted nitrate print had been in the EYE archive for many decades, but initial attempts to identify the film were unsuccessful. Two other reels changed hands at the flea market in Vienna back in the 1970s and were transferred to the Austrian Film Archive. Gyöngyi Balogh, Hungarian film historian and archivist helped to identify this fragment. The screening of the Austrian fragment in Pordenone in 2005 finally provided the confirmation for the identification of the Dutch reels. The analogue reconstruction of the two materials was undertaken by EYE in 2009.
Since the first restoration, a detailed content description published in Alexander Korda’s Hungarian newspaper, “Mozihét”, turned up. Based on this irreplaceable resource, with the use of both prints, the new digital restoration was completed by the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive in 2023. As a result of the combined efforts of the three institutions, the present version stands closest to the original concept of the director. In the words of Kertész, the aim was to make the viewer forget that the film was created “in the great chaos of the sombre, superhuman ordeals, in a time of blood and mourning”.

Márton Kurutz