DIE HOSE

Hans Behrendt

R.: Hans Behrendt. Scgf.: Heinrich Richter e Franz Schroedter. F.: Carl Drews. In.: Jenny Jugo, Werner Krauß, Rudolf Forster, Veit Harlan, Christian Bummerstedt, Olga Limburg. P.: Phoebus-Film A. G., Berlino. 35mm. L.: 2163 m. D.: 107’ a 18 f/s.

info_outline
T. it.: Italian title. T. int.: International title. T. alt.: Alternative title. Sog.: Story. Scen.: Screenplay. F.: Cinematography. M.: Editing. Scgf.: Set Design. Mus.: Music. Int.: Cast. Prod.: Production Company. L.: Length. D.: Running Time. f/s: Frames per second. Bn.: Black e White. Col.: Color. Da: Print source

Film Notes

“First and foremost, the film is called Werner Krauss. It was a great evening; his greatest film success.
I have never considered upon him as a protagonist in a film. He was often very interesting, often quite dreadful; but he never has the two thousand viewers in a cinema palace firmly in his grip. He has never been able to really carry a film.
Yesterday he gripped them straight away, and held them in that iron grasp for two hours, as Theobald Maske. It was stupendous, comparable maybe to Chaplin.
Nothing ‘true to life’; instead a puzzling mutation into a comic, terrifyingly comic, animal. The great Franz Kafka once described the feelings of a man who wakes up one morning and discovers he has turned into an insect – but without portraying how the world reacts to such a miracle, that is, on the fictional assumption that something like that could happen any day: and that is what’s so uncannily funny about it. In this case, the humour is similarly devastating. Beforehand, the Ufa weekly review showed monkeys playing a strange half human, half animal game with a mirror. These zoo monkeys did not seem anything as ‘zoological’ as Krauss in the role of Theobald Maske: he’s a scientific monstrosity, a tadpole, quite a formidable beast that crows and hisses and quacks and struts around the homely coop with comb raised; as if a ghost suddenly rose up out of a blend of beery haze, the ambience of a male choral society evening, and the warmth of the marital bed, the spirit of the petit bourgeois, l’esprit du Monsieur Jourdain. He only has to move a finger and you fall over laughing (…). Jenny Jugo is as nice, appetising, and silly as her role demands. When she looks at the world with her large questioning simple childish eyes, she sometimes seems irresistible. Never, not even by a long chalk, has she been so well cast. When selecting future roles for her they will do well to keep this experiment in mind, if they really want to promote her, that is. (Willy Haas, Film-Kurier, Nr. 197, 22.8.1927, in Wolfgang Jacobsen [et al.] (Hg.), Willy Haas. Der Kritiker als Mitproduzent. Texte zum Film 1920-1933, 1991)

“Jenny Jugo (Eugenie Walter, 1905-?). After a series of pleasant but minor films, usually directed by a good craftsman called Fred Sauer, Jenny appeared in Die Hose (1927) directed by Hans Behrendt, amusing cinema version of the titillating comedy by Carl Sternheim, where she held her ground with her partners, Werner Krauss and Rudolf Forster, old stage and set hands.
The following films – let us recall here Die blaue Maus, Die Carmen von St. Pauli and Sechs Mädchen suchen Nachtquartier – are all focussed on her verve progressively becoming livelier and more spontaneous. Directed again by Behrendt at the closing of the silent period, Jenny was the leading actress in three films where her lively spirit was at her best: Der Bund der drei, Die Flucht von der Liebe and Die Schmugglerbraut von Mallorca; in these films, shot all over Europe for their outdoor scenes, Jenny had as her partner Federico Benfer, an actor of Neapolitan origins but mostly working in Germany, who became her husband.
The sound films of the actress were not so different from the silent ones but they were often animated by musical sequences. In 1935 Jenny played probably the most important role of her career, Eliza Doolittle in a version of Pygmalion, a role she mastered with skilled self-possession. In 1936 other costume films soon followed, Die Nacht mit dem Kaiser and Mädchenjahre einer Königin, both directed by Erich Engel who was her attitré director in the thirties. Her verve was played in a minor key in her following interpretations, one of which was also in Italy, Non mi sposo più. After that and a few other acting roles, Jenny retired in Switzerland, never to be heard of again”. (Vittorio Martinelli)

Copy From

This print had been made by using a picture dupe negative/acetate. The origin and the source material of this negative is unknown.