The 3 Penny Opera
Directed by G. W. Pabst
Studio: Criterion
Year: 1931
Aspect Ratio: 1.19:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0 German
Subtitles: English
MSRP: $39.95
Release Date: September 18, 2007
Review Date: September 22, 2007
Directed by G. W. Pabst
Studio: Criterion
Year: 1931
Aspect Ratio: 1.19:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0 German
Subtitles: English
MSRP: $39.95
Release Date: September 18, 2007
Review Date: September 22, 2007
The Film
4/5
The 3 Penny Opera has had a most interesting history. It was based on a 1728 British play written by John Gay entitled The Beggar’s Opera, widely considered now the first-ever musical comedy. Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 rethinking of Gay’s piece moved the setting to Victorian England, jettisoned Gay’s lyrics attached to popular ballads of the 18th century, and brought in friend and composer Kurt Weill to write new music for his adaptation of the play. The result, Die Dreigroschenoper, was not only a sensation in Germany but within months all across Europe making a film version inevitable. Once Hitler came to power in 1933, however, the play and film were banned due to its cynical view of government and corrupted authority. (Oddly, the first American mounting of The 3 Penny Opera in 1933 played only 12 performances. The six year run of the 1954 off-Broadway version has also led to three Broadway revivals starring the likes of Raul Julia, Sting, and Alan Cumming in the central role. There have also been two English language film versions of this landmark musical.)
At its heart, Brecht’s play is a savage social satire on the ruling and authoritative classes, and he also takes a sour look at man’s tendency to set up dictatorial hierarchies no matter his social status. The story hinges on the activities of the serial womanizer and all-around scalawag Mackie Messer aka Mack the Knife (Rudolf Forster). He impulsively marries Polly Peachum (Carola Neher) without the knowledge or consent of her father, the reigning Beggar King of Soho Jonathan Peachum (Fritz Rasp). Though married, Mackie continues his wayward ways with women at his favorite brothel, but his marriage has infuriated the leading whore of the establishment Jenny (Lotte Lenya), Thus, she working with the Peachums tips off police chief Tiger Brown (Reinhold Schunzel) as to Mackie‘s whereabouts thinking if he‘s in jail, no woman will have a claim on him. Meanwhile, with her husband incarcerated, Polly looks to keep herself afloat in a most unusual enterprise, especially for the daughter of a master thief.
Brecht’s disdain for authority, the homeless, and the high and mighty couldn’t be more obvious, even in this watered-down version of his acidic stage script. (The screenplay submitted by Brecht was not used by director Pabst, and Brecht was so outraged that he sued to have the film’s release blocked. He lost the case.) Composer Weill was likewise unhappy that of the 21 songs in the stage production, only nine made their way into the finished film (with a couple of others used as instrumentals during barroom sequences). Yes, the three most famous ones are here: “The Ballad of Mack the Knife,” “Pirate Jenny,” and “Cannon Song.” But with the loss of the character of Lucy Brown, the police chief’s daughter and another of Mack’s jealous conquests, two of the score’s best numbers are gone: “The Barbara Song” and “The Jealousy Ballet.”
Pabst’s direction is astonishing for an early sound film. Shot on elaborate soundstages, the film has a movement and pace that isn’t seen in many Hollywood films of the same era. Occasionally, the camera seems bolted to the floor, particularly during song numbers where the singer stands in one spot and simply warbles though even then, Pabst will sometimes intercut the songs with other shots of surrounding listeners or other movement. The look of the picture is an amalgamation of German expressionism and a more realistic conveying of familiar sites (rooftops, a harbor, a warehouse). In fact, some of the film’s most lyrical and poetic moments don’t have anything to do with the music but in shots like Mack eluding the police across London rooftops or Mack’s reflection in a milliner’s window as Polly and her mother admire a wedding dress, the screen shows a master cinematographer at work. The evocative black and white photography by Fritz Arno Wagner often takes one’s breath away.
The two main female characters are portrayed in the film by their stage creators: Lotte Lenya and Carola Neher. Both act splendidly, but what a shock after hearing Lenya’s husky baritone singing all these years on recordings to hear her so young and in possession of a surprising head voice, too. Neher speaks as much of Polly’s famous aria as she sings and sounds a trifle nervous singing live (the vocals were not prerecorded). The street singer, a kind of master of ceremonies and commentator on the action (an early precursor to the Emcee in Cabaret) is played and sung by Ernst Busch in a wonderfully sly performance. Rudolf Forster makes Mack a charming cad, Fritz Rasp is a delightfully conniving Peachum, and Reinhold Schünzel is an expertly ineffectual Tiger Brown.
If one is looking for a faithful rendition of the stage play, this 3 Penny Opera will not be for you. The ending is very different, characters and subplots are absent, and the tone of the entire piece is softened. And, of course, you’re missing about half of the score. If, on the other hand, you want to see one of the jewels of early German sound cinema (to rank right along with M, The Blue Angel, and others), you owe it to yourself to see this movie.
Video Quality
3/5
The original aspect ratio of 1.19:1 is one of the narrowest film ratios you’re likely ever to see, and the Criterion disc presents it with extra wide pillarbox bars. For a 76-year old film, the transfer looks extraordinarily clean and quite beautiful. Of course, without a frame by frame restoration, it’s nearly impossible to remove every bit of dirt, every scratch, and the occasional spotting, so you’ll see evidence of all of them here. The grayscale is very nice though whites seem stronger than blacks in the transfer. Shadow detail is good, and sharpness varies from average to very good. The bright white subtitles are easy to read. The film has been divided into 26 chapters.
Audio Quality
2.5/5
The Dolby Digital 1.0 German mono track is precisely what you’d expect in a film of this age with the primitive nature of sound recording at the time. Criterion has obviously cleaned up the audio as best it could, but there remains low level hiss throughout, and there is almost no low end to speak of in the recording. Still, despite some occasional flutter, there are no pops or obvious distortion to mar the aural experience.
Special Features
5/5
An audio commentary is provided for the German language version of the film. The participants are two university professors with expertise on Brecht and German cinema, David Bathrick and Eric Rentschler. The scholars have an easy rapport with each other, and the discussion is lively if a tad dry, especially when the discussion turns to Brecht’s Marxist leanings.
A 1956 archival introduction to the film by actors Ernst Busch and Fritz Rasp is presented in a black and white 4:3 subtitled transfer that shows its age. The two actors seem justifiably proud of the film.
Brecht and Pabst is a 48-minute documentary detailing the history of The 3 Penny Opera from the original 1728 play down to the legendary 1954 off-Broadway revival. This outstanding featurette is presented in anamorphic video and features subtitles where needed.
Disc two presents a great surprise: the very rare French language version of the film (titled L’opéra de quat’sous) filmed simultaneously with the German version. No clean-up has been done with the source, so the transfer is overly bright and fairly loaded with scratches, dirt, and debris. The sound is likewise in rougher shape than the German language version. Still, as a shot-for-shot copy of the German version with a different star cast, one can only say that the German version fulfills the Brechtian notions of satire much more pointedly than the French version. The French cast seems younger and lacking in irony (though they’re better singers than their German counterparts). It’s presented in a 1.33:1 transfer with English subtitles which can’t be turned off and 26 chapter stops.
Film Scholar Charles O’Brien does an 18-minute video comparison of the two versions of the movie in a fascinating side by side look at the similarities and differences between Pabst’s two versions.
Legendary still photographer Hans Casparius took over a thousand stills during the making of the two productions, and the disc offers a 40-minute anamorphic video compilation of hundreds of them with accompanying captions. The pictures are stunning in their clarity and depth and offer rare looks at the two casts often together on the same sets.
Actor Fritz Rasp shot an interview in 1972 reminiscing about his early career on stage and film. The 3 Penny Opera is only mentioned near the end of the featurette. This black and white subtitled 4:3 film interview runs 17½ minutes.
The disc concludes with nine very expressionistic production sketches by the film’s art director Andrej Andrejew.
The set also offers a 26-page booklet containing a wealth of stills and a lengthy essay on The 3 Penny Opera in its various stage and screen incarnations by filmmaker Tony Rayns.
In Conclusion
4/5 (not an average)
At long last, the first film version of The 3 Penny Opera, one of the musical theater’s seminal works, in now available for viewing. As a reproduction of the stage musical, the film has weaknesses and lapses, but as a film in its own right, it’s something pretty special, and a movie that lovers of the genre owe it to themselves to seek out.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
