Page 224 - Sweet Embraceable You: Coffee-House Stories

212 Jack Fritscher

VIENNA FILM RESTORATION FESTIVAL

DUCHESS: shadows, pic’s story is uncom-
BERLIN 1928 plicated, simple, and made on a
low budget on the backlot at UFA
(DRAMA – AUSTRIAN – B&W) by assistant scriptgirl, Amelia
Haber man, whose feature debut
A Hapsburg Films (Vienna) re-
lease, in association with Restorische lifted her damsel-in-distress ma-
Films, with the support of Austrian terial by direction and camera
Revivifilm. (International sales: Lu into a luminous complexity here
Lu Rodenfels DVD Ltd, Stamford, restored by her grandson, Fritz
CT.) Produced by Isaac Gottlieb. Co-
producer, Amelia Haberman from Haber man and his wife Maria
her original screenplay, Zuflucht in Nagle, for Austrian Revivifilm.
Berlin. (Sound. 1932) Restoration (All original prints of the 1932
produced by Fritz Haberman and drama, reviewed at the Vienna
Maria Nagle, 2000.
Directed, written by Amelia Film Restoration Festival, were
Haberman. Camera (B&W), Bea thought destroyed during Nazi
Brooks; editor, Agnes Tschohl; music, occupation of Vienna and UFA.)
Marta Jean Solomon; art director, Scripter Haberman evidently had
Annya Deitwig; costume designer,
Helga Kuehner. Original title: Zu- a prescience about female history
flucht in Berlin. German and English because she early on paid atten-
soundtrack. Running time: 80 MIN. tion to Romanov identity rumors
With Nadja Hoenig, Hannes
Mueller, Ilsa Pilvonka. rampant in Europe in the 1920s.
Now seeming an earnest pe- Haberman-Nagle’s translation of
riod film traversing material Amelia Haberman’s simple script
recently settled (more or less) make this restoration accessible
by DNA testing of royal Ro- as historical femme fest-fare and
manov remains finally buried playable on satellite stations
decently by post-Soviet Russia, devoted to late-night romantic
“Duchess: Berlin 1928,” takes programming.
a forward-for-its-time romantic Is she or isn’t she the Grand
look at a woman’s identity crisis. Duchess Anastasia, youngest
While moody with expressionist daughter of the murdered Russian

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