[*] Installed in an exceptional 2200 square metre (23,500
sq.ft.) building designed by the architect Renzo Piano, the Jérôme
Seydoux-Pathé Foundation is located on Avenue des Gobelins in Paris, at the
former location of the Théâtre des Gobelins with its conserved façade, sculpted
by Auguste Rodin around 1869.
The structure, with its organic design, sets itself apart with its elegant curves which espouse the Haussmann-era buildings.
This silent film rarity has turkish intertitles only. Reason is that it was restored and shown for a turkish film festival about Muhsin Ertugrul. Muhsin Ertugrul is a legendary turkish film director who was a pioneer of the turkish cinema.
He started as an extra and minor actor in early german film industry and later learned directing films at the german Ustad Film company, which was specialized in directing films based on the books of famous ( at least in Germany) adventure and travel author Karl May. Lot of his books played in then Turkish Empire and therefore Muhsin Ertugrul seemed to be predestined for these films.
However, many of these early Karl May films are lost now. This film here is something completely different. The script is based on the novel of Alexandre Dumas “The black Tulip” and has the dutch fighting for independency against french Louis XIV as subject.
Muhsin Ertugrul is named as a co-director, together with Marie-Luise Droop, one of the few female directors in german cinema at the time, and together with Muhsin, owner of the Ustad Film Company.
The film itself features Carl de Vogt, famous
for his work before in Fritz Langs “Die Spinnen”
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[2] Marie Luise Droop (b. January 15, 1890, Szczecin, Poland – d. August 22, 1959, Lahr, Germany) was a German writer, director and producer. Marie Martha Luise Fritsch was born on 15 January 1890 in Stettin. Her father was Karl Georg Fritsch, manager of a cement factory, her mother Emmeline Albertine Elisabeth Conradine Most, from a wealthy family of chocolate manufacturers. As a child she admired Karl May and founded a Karl May fanclub. In 1903 she sent May a letter and became his close friend until his death in 1912.
She married Dr. Adolf Droop, a teacher who had written about May's work. Marie Luise Droop worked as an editor for Ullstein Verlag. During World War I, when her husband served in the army, she moved to Denmark where she worked for Nordisk Film. She returned to Germany after the war.
1920 She co-founded Ustad Film with the aim to produce Karl May adaptations. Ustad Film produced Die Teufelsanbeter, Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses and Die Todeskarawane until it went bankrupt. All three films are considered lost.
Marie Luise Droop wrote almost 50 screenplays for silent movies (three were adaptations of May's work) and, speaking nine languages, worked as a translator.
Marie Luise Droop died on 22 August 1959 in Lahr.
The Ustad Film Dr. Droop & Co was a film company that produced three silent films based on texts by Karl May in 1920/21.
Producer Marie Luise Droop knew Karl May personally. She and her husband Dr. After May's death, Adolf Droop founded the Karl May Association from 1913 to 1915.She succeeded in getting Karl May's widow, Klara May, enthusiastic about a film adaptation and in March 1920 she founded the "USTAD-FILM" for this purpose (Ustad is a character from the Karl May novel Im Reiche des Silberen Löwen and a self-reflection by the author).
Marie Luise Droop intended to shoot five Karl May silent films in each fiscal year. Unfortunately, the financing of the project was not entirely successful, so that after the first three films the company was already discontinued. Two other films, "The Cursed Tribe" and "Old Shatterhand", were planned but never made.
In the summer of 1921, the company files for bankruptcy.
On March 30, 1920, a new film company was registered before the notary and judiciary Jacques Wilmersdorfer in the Berlin Superior Court. Appeared - on behalf of 15 limited partners - Dr. Adolf Droop and his wife Lu, the Turkish director Ertugrul Moussin-Bey, the businessman Fritz Knevels and the publishing director Dr. Euchar Albrecht Schmid from Radebeul, head of the Karl May publishing house. The name of the company: Ustad-Film, Dr. Droop & Co. Other commanders included Klara May, Karl-May-Verlag, Friedrich Eduard Bilz, Carl Lindeberg and Sascha Schneider).
The business premises of the new company were located at Friedrichstrasse 233, near Belle-Alliance-Platz. The other employees included the merchant Richard Draehmert and, as so-called artistic advisors, the painter and sculptor Professor Sascha Schneider. He was probably responsible for the design of the pithy company logo, a pointed wedge in the fist of a muscular and horizontally outstretched arm. There were also privy councilor Max Lehrs (1855-1938), director of the Dresden print room, and Professor Wilhelm Kreis, president of the art academy in Düsseldorf.
The company owned the sole filming rights to Karl May's works.
litigation
The William Kahn Film-Gesellschaft had already announced films based on May's templates before the Ustad was founded (including "Iron Hand") and now found itself involved in a lawsuit with the Ustad, which claimed the sole filming rights and was relying on a contract with the Karl- May publishing house. The dispute, which is mostly documented only briefly in the trade press, dragged on through the first half of 1920. On March 10, 1920, the first hearing took place before the Berlin district court. The accusation against Kahn GmbH was "violation of copyright, violation of the name and company rights of the Karl-May-Verlag and violation of the law on unfair competition." The opposing party, on the other hand, complained "that it never announced the film adaptation of Karl May's novels (...), but only a free processing of the motifs of Karl May's novels"[1], an argument that the court ultimately followed , although the Association of German Film Authors, the Association of German Playwrights and Stage Composers and the Protection Association of German Writers had also sided with the plaintiffs. In the second instance, the Karl May publishing house was right and the "Eisenhand" project was not implemented.[2]
Announcement of the "Neue Kino-Rundschau" on November 20th, 1920 - here with the "Legacy of the Inca" as the 4th film
According to the production program published at the time, five "Karl May big films" were planned with the titles:
Vom Stamme der Verfluchten
Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses
Bei den Teufelsanbetern
Die Todeskarawane
Old Shatterhand
und weitere drei may-fremde Verfilmungen.From the tribe of the cursed
On the ruins of paradise
With the devil worshipers
The Caravan of Death
Old Shatterhand
and three other non-May film adaptations.
In addition, the following travel novels are being prepared for the film: Through the desert / In the gorges of the Balkans / Winnetou / Old Surehand / In the land of Mahdi / Satan and Iscariot / The Treasure in Silver Lake / The Legacy of the Inca." [3]
Results
The following three films were actually shot and performed:
Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses (zuerst aufgeführt)
Die Teufelsanbeter (zuerst gedreht)
Die Todeskarawane
Diese Filme sind bis heute verschollen, es wurde nie eine Kopie gefunden.
The Devil Worshipers (First Filmed)
The Caravan of Death
These films have been lost to this day, and no copy has ever been found.
Resources
The "Karl May" films. In: Film-Kurier, No. 52, March 2, 1920.
Jörg M. Bönisch: "The Spiders" - The first film freely based on Karl May? In: Leipziger Karl May News Edition 2
Karl May in the movie. In: Film-Kurier, No. 65, March 30, 1920.
literature
Michael Petzel: Karl May Film Book, Karl May Verlag.
Wolfgang Jacobsen, Heike Klapdor: Merhameh. Karl May's beautiful spy. A dialogue about the author Marie Luise Droop. In: Jörg Schöning (ed.): Trivial tropes. Exotic travel and adventure films from Germany 1919 - 1939.
Hansotto Hatzig: Through desert and cinema.
Old Shatterhand's revenge. In: KMG News No. 136.
Peter Krauskopf: German characters, German heroes. Some Remarks on Karl May and German Film, Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou. In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 1996. (online version)
Jörg M. Bönisch/Gerd Hardacker: The Karl May silent films and the Ustad Film GmbH as reflected in the film magazines 1920/21. In: Announcements of the Karl May Society. (Several parts)
Michael Petzel: Karacho into bankruptcy - New insights into the Karl May silent films. In: Karl-May-Welten V, 2017. [e.g. Excerpts from the correspondence of the parties]
Jörg M. Bönisch: Four advertising drawings for the Karl May silent films of 1920. In: Karl May in Leipzig No. 125, 2021.