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The Smiling Madame Beudet

Directed by Germaine Dulac

Backstairs

Directed by Leopold Jessner and Paul Leni
Live Piano Accompaniment by Peter Freisinger
Screening on Film
  • The Smiling Madame Beudet ( La Souriante Madame Beudet)

    Directed by Germaine Dulac.
    With Alexandre Arquilliëre, Germaine Dermoz, Madeleine Guitty.
    France, 1922, 35mm, black & white, silent, 27 min.

Employing techniques of early French impressionistic style, Germaine Dulac’s The Smiling Madame Beudet is often viewed as an early feminist film. Romantic Madame Beudet is married to a dull, insensitive oaf. She dreams of taking lovers and killing off her husband, but her plans to do him in are ironically twisted in the end.

  • Backstairs (Hintertreppe)

    Directed by Leopold Jessner and Paul Leni.
    With Henny Porten, William Dieterle, Fritz Kortner.
    Germany, 1921, 35mm, black & white, silent, 65 min.

This expressionistic example of Kammerspielfilm is a three person drama that involves a housemaid (Porten), her lover (Dieterle), and a partly paralyzed postman (Kortner) who obsessively desires the girl.  Behind the scenes were some of Germany’s shining stars: scenarist Carl Mayer, who wrote the script for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Murnau's Last Laugh, Sunrise, etc.; Leopold Jessner, one of the most progressive stage directors of the period; and Paul Leni, who later made Waxworks (1924) in Germany and The Cat and the Canary (1927) in Hollywood. Print courtesy of George Eastman House.       

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