Howard is infected with leprosy, Mac Allen was captured by the Maharadsha, and now the Maharadsha offers Irene a deal: one night for letting healing Howard. She accepts, but when she tries to commit suicide, he lets her go. Mac Allen is being eaten by the tigers, and finally the Maharani dies.

Howard is infected with leprosy, Mac Allen was captured by the Maharadsha, and now the Maharadsha offers Irene a deal: one night for letting healing Howard. She accepts, but when she tries to commit suicide, he lets her go. Mac Allen is being eaten by the tigers, and finally the Maharani dies.

1960 film by Fritz Lang

When Kriemhild, thirsty for revenge, marries to Etzel, king of the Huns, she invites King Gunther and his court to visit them, intending to finally take the life of the man responsible of her disgrace.

Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.

After the death of his brother Georg, John Vanderheit expects to inherit his fortune. Unfortunately, just before he died Georg made a will in which he bequeathed his entire estate to his wife, Irmgard. Unwilling to yield to John, Irmgard takes flight and undertakes a hazardous journey into the mountains. Here, she meets a kindly hermit who offers her shelter. John is not far behind, however, and when Imrgard repulses him he causes an avalanche in an attempt to kill her. Trapped in the hermit’s shelter, Irmgard’s new friend removes his hood – and reveals that he is her husband Georg...
Das Wandernde Bild marked the beginning of the fruitful collaboration of director Fritz Lang with writer Thea von Harbou. They married in 1922 and the couple would become the creative force behind some of the greatest German films of the pre-WWII era, works such as Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922), Metropolis (1927) and M (1931).
Until quite recently, Das Wandernde Bild was thought to have been lost, the fate suffered by the majority of films made in the silent era. Fortunately, an incomplete print surfaced in Brazil and the film was partially restored in the late 1980s. Around a third of the film is missing, along with the script and inter-titles. Despite this, the restored film is surprisingly coherent and the lacuna are hardly noticed.
Das Wandernde Bild may not be Lang at his best (its main weaknesses being its slightly ludicrous plot and some embarrassing Perils of Pauline moments), but it amply demonstrates the director’s mastery of technique and flair for expression through the silent image. The film is most memorable for its beautifully realised location sequences, which appear to show the influence of Lang’s contemporaries, notably D.W. Griffith. (© James Travers 2009 )

Fritz Lang returned to Germany on the eve of the 1960s to direct this enchanted penultimate work, a redraft of the diptych form pioneered in such silent Lang classics as Die Spinnen; Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler.; and Die Nibelungen. Although no encapsulating title was lent at the time of release to what is, effectively, a single 3-hour-plus film split in two, the work that has come to be referred to in modern times as “the Indian epic” (consisting of Der Tiger von Eschnapur and Das indische Grabmal) proved to be one of the legendary director’s most adventurous achievements. It was also one of the most popular successes Lang was to experience in his native land.
A German architect (Paul Hubschmid) is commissioned by an Indian maharaja (Walter Reyer) to construct a temple on his palatial grounds. After saving the life of a bewitching dancer (Debra Paget) on whom the maharaja has spousal designs, the hero is pulled ever deeper into a hazardous maze of traps, perhaps the purest realisation of Lang’s obsession with a labyrinthine ‘house of death’ – that is, Man challenging Fate.
Like Lang’s following final work Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse, the Indian epic charts new territory for the director, as it strikes out into the über-melodramatic tenor of his early silents while inciting the colours of the emulsion into adopting a lurid, sometimes gaseous palette. Arriving in the wake of The River (Renoir), India matri bhumi (Rossellini), and Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger), Lang’s Indian epic stands among the remarkable mid-century contributions of Western filmmakers who have contemplated India. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Lang’s films on DVD in the UK for the first time.

Seetha and Harold Berger are rescued from the desert by a caravan and brought to a small village. However, the greedy owner of the house where they are lodged betrays the law of hospitality and reveals their location to Prince Ramigani. The couple tries to escape but is hunted and captured by Ramigani and his men. Meanwhile Irene Rhode and her husband Walter Rhode suspect that Maharaja Chandra is not telling the truth about Harold's destiny. The conspirator Ramigani forces Seetha to accept to get married with Chandra to provoke the wrath of the priests and get the alliance of Prince Padhu and his army. In the meantime, Harold succeeds in escaping from the dungeon and seeks out Seetha to save her.

Another amazing find from our friends at Cine-Clasico, "Vier um die Frau" is a 1921 Fritz Lang film found in the Brazilian film archives. The period intertitles are in Portuguese but the plot is not difficult to follow, particularly with the assistance of the invaluable Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien, whose blog entry on the film (link) follows :
The merchant Yquem buys his dear wife a beautiful jewel with matching earnings in a place where the city's underworld trades in fake and stolen jewelry. By chance, Yquem spots a man with whom his wife had an affair in the past. Yquem follows him to a hotel where he will write him a letter imitating his wife's hand writing. The letter invites the man to a public place where Yquem can spy on them and try to discover whether there is still something between them.
This early Fritz Lang film, "Vier Um Die Frau" (Four Around a Woman) was found by chance some years ago at the "Cinemateca De Sâo Paulo", a great present for the German aristocracy and even for the longhaired moviegoers, because it prefigures much of "Dr. Mabuse", (corruption in the upper class-a very habitual practice-unscrupulous upstarts, blackmail, low class criminals, social tension.) and in the opinion of this German aristocrat, provides one of the most outstanding titles of Lang's first period. This film has excellent editing that gives vigour, speed and emotion to a story of an underworld rife with treachery and betrayal as well as a complex tale of unrequited love. The film builds to a crescendo of narrative strength that reminds one of episodes of "Die Spinnen" made by Herr Lang a year before.
The acting is exceptional and the performers resist the temptation to overacting that might be expected in such melodrama. As the heroine, Carola Toelle is especially good and admirably conveys the doubts, secret desires and frustration that her character suffers. An excellent counterpoint is provided the character of her friend and confidant, a perfect vamp, who provides bad advice and is without scruples, quick to use flirting to build up her social position... Rudolf Klein-Rogge has to be mentioned, as his performance makes one recall the exceptional character Dr Mabuse, that he will immortalise two years later. The excellent main actors are given equally good support in the minor roles.
It is worth mentioning as well the great photography of Otto Kanturek and the film production by Ernst Meiwers and Hans Jacoby. The importance of "Decla-Bioscop"'can be seen in the first rate production values that are so abundant in the film (great manors, hotel lobbies, the stock exchange, etc) and on the other hand the realistic depiction of less auspicious surroundings: ragged and wretched slums streets filled with the kind of characters you might expect in such places. A minor point but also a real curiosity is the inclusion of a poster for another "Decla Bioscop" production that can be glimpsed in a theater lobby.

The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State's debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy. The marriage with Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia, would solve everything, but a crucial letter of hers about the engagement has been stolen. Besides, a bunch of revolutionaries and a dubious businessman have other plans regarding the Grand Duke. With the intrusion of adventurer Philipp Collins into the Grand Duke's affairs, a series of frantic chases, plots and counter-plots begins...

1924 film by Carl Theodor Dreyer

After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum, he observes the professor's preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist. When Mabuse's notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor's whereabouts, and capture him for good.

1928 film by Fritz Lang

Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.

1922 film by F. W. Murnau

When Kriemhild, thirsty for revenge, marries to Etzel, king of the Huns, she invites King Gunther and his court to visit them, intending to finally take the life of the man responsible of her disgrace.

Dr. Mabuse and his organization of criminals are in the process of completing their latest scheme, a theft of information that will allow Mabuse to make huge profits on the stock exchange. Afterwards, Mabuse disguises himself and attends the Folies Bergères show, where Cara Carozza, the main attraction of the show, passes him information on Mabuse's next intended victim, the young millionaire Edgar Hull. Mabuse then uses psychic manipulation to lure Hull into a card game where he loses heavily. When Police Commissioner von Wenk begins an investigation of this mysterious crime spree, he has little to go on, and he needs to find someone who can help him.

As a young couple stops and rests in a small village inn, the man is abducted by Death and is sequestered behind a huge doorless, windowless wall. The woman finds a mystic entrance and is met by Death, who tells her three separate stories set in exotic locales, all involving circumstances similar to hers.

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.