Lothar Stark-Film

a silent movie by Heinz Paul

In the year 1810, the Tyrol is suffering under French occupation. A servant, who believes himself oppressed and disenfranchised by the peasants, dreams of being allowed to play Christ in the yearly Passion Play. Instead, he is forced to play Judas and soon the lines of reality blur: he betrays the location of Andreas Hofer, hidden by the farmers, breaks under the weight of his guilt and suffers Judas' fate.

The eccentric owner of a chateau, Lord Wilford, is fond of everything that is connected with criminal cases. His passion takes up so much time that even his secretary hardly has time to see her fiance. When mysterious letters arrive, announcing that a certain Mister X wants to steal a valuable statuette, the Lord is very enthusiastic. Apparently he himself will now experience a real criminal case! His secretary persuades him to hire a famous detective from London - none other than her fiance. But he is far from being a talented detective, and when a valuable pearl necklace disappears, the fiance falls under suspicion to be the thief.

A young women causes a fatal accident. She flees the country, only to get caught in the net of brasilian traffickers.

This movie, directed by Richard Oswald, is based on the operetta "Les contes de Hoffmann" by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), which is a genial musical potpourri from various short stories and novels by the Prussian writer, composer, painter, lawyer and judge E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). While Hoffmann's literary work was longtime considered to be merely fantastical, it was finally researched, in the last years, according to its metaphysical background. Characteristic for Hoffmann's work is his life-long fight against rationalism and for the revelation of nature morte, culminating mostly in carnival-like scenes anticipating literary techniques only described in the works of Bachtin and Bachelard.

One of the popular Weimar-era musical comedies not released in the US until after the Nazi takeover, this one has a Cinderella-type plot.

Set in the Ottoman Empire during the Nineteenth century, the film portrays a series of oriental adventures of the two travellers Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar.

rich count, who is an avid collector of antiques, buys an antique box. However, he does not know that this artifact is under a terrible, centuries-old curse. Since the purchase, he has been constantly haunted by a ghostly apparition in the form of a medieval knight's wife. One day, the count visits a friend at his castle. When a fire breaks out there, the count discovers the secret of his enchanted box. He discovers an ancient document called "Notes of the Court Jester of the Castle" and reads this document. Now he discovers the reason for the curse.