Silent movies - Kohlhiesel's daughters

I practically grew up with the 1962 version of today's movie and to be honest, I hadn't even known that it was already the fifth dramatization of a play inspired by Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew".
For this post, however, I watched the first one from 1920 made by Ernst Lubitsch - Kohlhiesels Töchter (which you can find with English intertitles here some of which are translated too freely for my taste, but there aren't too many, anyway).
Maybe you have been asking yourself how I choose which movies to watch - well, if you have been following me for a while, you will not be surprised to hear that I stumble upon a title somewhere, on Google, on a blog, in YouTube recommendations, and put it on a list from which I pick randomly, not because I think I will love the movie or hate it or even find something interesting to say about it.
In this case, I obviously already had an idea of the plot from the 1962 version, but that had no bearing on my choice.

Film poster, public domain
via Wikipedia

The story set in the Bavarian mountains is told rather quickly (spoilers as usual).
Father Kohlhiesel has two daughters.
The older one, Liesel, is bad-tempered and rude which is good enough for her father if he needs her to throw guests out of his inn at closing time. She works hard and isn't interested in pretty clothes or hair.
The younger one, Gretel, is dressed nicely, laughs a lot, but seems a bit vain and not too smart.

Xaver and Seppl are smitten with Gretel at first sight. Xaver, a big bull of a man, both in looks and behavior, takes her by storm and asks her father for her hand, but Kohlhiesel tells him he will have to find a man for Liesel first or he can't marry her.
Seppl has the idea that Xaver should marry Liesel and behave so badly that she will divorce him quickly, so he can marry Gretel afterwards. Xaver thinks this is a brilliant idea, but of course Seppl just wants Gretel to be free to marry him instead.
After marrying Liesel, Xaver behaves even worse than before, for example by throwing out all the furniture until she hides under the sofa. Instead of being driven away, though, this makes her fall in love with him.

Seppl, who has successfully started courting Gretel, gives Liesel the advice to change her looks and it works. Xaver stays with her and Seppl gets his Gretel.

This is not a subtle movie. It was made to amuse the masses in the old tradition of rural comedy and that's what it did, it proved to be very popular.
A lot people said they really enjoyed the film while I was torn myself. Once again.
Yes, there were some funny moments, and yes, I'm aware Lubitsch did draw the characters as caricatures on purpose, and yes again, it was 1920.
It's the old problem. How much slack should we give an old movie or book or play? How much slack do I want to give it personally?

None of the characters was very likeable and they weren't meant to be, but of all of them I actually liked Liesel the best. Yes, she was unnecessarily rude, but she was herself - until she changed at the end to make herself attractive for Xaver. There's nothing wrong about wanting to be attractive, but not for that kind of man. I hated watching an act of domestic violence making Xaver attractive to Liesel as much as I hated the same scene in the newer movie.

I found interesting that people described the sisters as the pretty and the ugly one because I didn't think Liesel was ugly, just because she didn't wear makeup and had a messy bun on her head instead of braids.
It's even more interesting if you know that they were played by the same actress, Henny Porten, which not everyone noticed right away, also because "they" were on the screen together in some scenes. Maybe people didn't expect a split screen in such an old movie.
Porten did a really good job at creating two very different characters and it looks as if she had fun with it, especially with Liesel (actually that's the part I liked about the new version as well, Liselotte Pulver (who you may know as the secretary dancing on the table in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three) seemed to play the sisters with such joy).

So yeah, after watching this for the first time I said I wanted my hour back, but then I jumped through it again in the German original to have a look at the intertitles there and I appreciated some of the scenes I caught during it more than the first time around.
However, I still can't get over the idea that women like a "bad boy", that you have to clean up your act - in this case look nice and cook something good for your husband - and you'll live happily ever after.

So this one is not going to make on my re-watch list, but it was still an interesting experience.


Additional sources:
1. Michael Koller: Kohlhiesels Töchter. In: Senses of Cinema. Issue 112, November 2024
2. Jubiläumsfilme des Aufführungsjahres 1920. On: Stummfilm Magazin (in German)

Nostalgia - Wooden Steiff toys

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others. So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

In my post about the Teddies for tomorrow, I had mentioned that there were times when material for Steiff plush animals became scarce because mohair and felt were used for other purposes, for example uniforms (plush animals would have been so much better), and that they used substitute materials, but also produced wooden toys.
Today I want to show you just a few that I pulled from my cabinets - literally pulled which wasn't easy because of course all of them were in the back, it's going to be fun to fit them back in - and mention some others at least.

Let's start with the "Pyramidenkubus" (pyramid cube), also available under the name "Satzkubus" (set cube), in its original box - a set of six hollow cubes with one side missing for nestling them in the box.
Given they probably got stacked and then knocked over, it's amazing there's any color left.

We'll stay in the builder's world a little longer.
Here we have the "Bausack" (building bag) which was linen from 1951 to 1958 and held 100 small building blocks, later it was also available with big blocks in a plastic bag.
I have never counted to see if there are all 100, by the way.

Can't afford your own shipping line yet? Start small with the "Schiffsbaukasten" (ship building set)! It's always good to be prepared.

And yet another building set, the "BiBau", probably called that because the blocks are from two different natural woods in two colors - mahogany and maple.
My guess is that the maple was never as light as on the box because I've seen another box with blocks in similar colors. As you can see, the box has never even been opened, so I think it doesn't have to do with dirty children's hands 😉

Do you have ten black thumbs just like me? No problem.
Build your own flowers from plastic stems and wooden leaves and blossoms!
Look, even I can do it.
Of course, the box is a gross exaggeration of what you can do with the set. My set is complete and I couldn't even build a one color flower. You'd probably need like three boxes to create what's in the picture.

Steiff didn't just force you to build things.
They also made beautiful wooden animals, especially pre-war, but I don't have any of those.
I do have two of the later wood burning series, however. There were many more, wisents, dogs, bears, cats, rabbits, zebras, lions, squirrels, camels, elephants, cows, and who knows what else (without looking it up) - and these two cuties.
See the metal tags instead of the "button in ear"?

That's not all of course.
Steiff made little and bigger trains, agricultural and construction vehicles, puzzles, tiny bird houses, toy boxes, hobby horses, hand wagons (I have one of those, but it's misused as a storage box right now, so sorry, no picture), small or slightly bigger scooters (I have some of those, hard to take pictures of), YoYos, horse wagons.
If you are interested, check out this page which has some wooden Steiff listed.

I think my favorite wooden Steiff is this one, though. You'll see why.

Looks harmless enough, doesn't it?
It can be very dangerous if you try to drive to your field in the morning and get ambushed, though! 😂

Random Saturday - A rose between the pages

This post is for Ida.

As a librarian, I have found a lot of things in books, some were from the library itself, old process slips, old bookmarks with ads on them, old receipts, and some of them were quite interesting because they were from even before my time. Hard to believe, I know 😉
Others were left behind - rarely on purpose, I would think - by our patrons.
Bank statements, photos, library cards, prescriptions, letters, really anything that can be used for a bookmark.
Some of those tell a very clear story that helps us to identify the rightful owner who might still need this, other stories stay in the dark, in case of photos for example ... or a flower.

Thanks to this week's silent movie and my usual snooping around for interesting details (I love my rabbit holes), I had found out about other books Jean Webster, the author of "Daddy-Long-Legs", had written, and I put her first one, "When Patty Went to College", and its later published prequel "Just Patty" on my reading list (both books are in the public domain and can be found at The Internet Archive).

I struggle with reading books on my laptop, but I told myself that it was part of my attention span training and have been getting a bit better at it since although I really prefer printed books.
One problem is getting tired more easily, but when I was just about to nod off in the middle of the story about Patty inventing a lore around a none-existent college student and turned the page, I came upon this.

There are several editions of the book available at The Internet Archive. There was no special reason to choose this one from 1903/04 (the title page says 1904, the back says published March 1903), but maybe the universe sent me a little greeting with this rose.

Mrs. Ida La Rua ... I couldn't find the name quickly, only an Ida La Rua Conrad.
Why did Ida own the book (only?) 20 years after it was published? Had it been passed on by someone else? Was it a gift or inherited? Did it come from a second-hand bookshop or a charity sale?
Why did Ida put down a street name, but no city (so I could find out something more easily)?
Was October 8, 1924 a special date or simply the day Ida got the book?
What about the rose? Had it already been in the book when Ida got it if it was a used book? Did Ida get the rose from someone special? What's the story of the rose?
Is the rose even that old or did someone put it in the book long after Ida owned it? And why wasn't it taken out when the book got scanned? Where is that book now? Is the rose still in there?

My mind went wandering and stories began bouncing around inside my head. It's just the way my mind works, I couldn't stop it if I wanted to.
Does the same happen to you if you find an inscription or something else in an old book?

Silent movies - Daddy Long Legs

"Daddy Long Legs", a silent movie with Mary Pickford from 1919, is based on the book of the same title written by Jean Webster and published in 1912 (the sequel "Dear Enemy" came out in 1915).
I first read the books when I was about 10. I spent a few days with my godmother at her parents' farm, and one of those days she had a hairdresser appointment and decided to take me along because everyone else was busy. As she figured I wouldn't find it very interesting there, she picked "Daddy Long Legs" from her shelf for me to read at the salon. I remember I liked the dust jacket and actually bought myself the same edition just for that years later.
I re-read the books more than once since then and did it again for this post although the movie just covers the first one.

Then I watched the movie, a challenge because it was my first try at watching a silent film without a musical score (there is also a different version which has a score and is colorized, though).

Film poster, public domain
via Wikimedia

Jerusha Abbott called Judy, found in a trash can as a baby, is the oldest orphan at the John Grier Home.
She tries to stand her ground and defend the younger children, but life under the hard and cruel rule of the matron Mrs. Lippett is tough for all the children at the orphanage (it can't have been much fun being an acting child at that time, either, from some of the scenes).
Her life changes when one of the trustees decides to send her to college. He wants his name to stay unknown to her and his only condition is for her to write one letter a month about her life and studies in college. All she has seen of him is his "grotesquely elongated" shadow on the wall which makes her give him the name "Daddy-Long-Legs".
At college, she shares a room with Sally McBride and Julia Pendleton. While telling them that she has a guardian, she can't bring it over herself to speak about the orphanage.
On the occasion of a Shakespeare play, she meets Sally's brother Jimmie and Julia's uncle Jarvis both of who are immediately smitten with her (thanks to a cupid messing up, those two scenes with the little love gods are very strange).
Sally's family invites Judy for the summer, but last minute she receives an order from Daddy-Long-Legs to spend her summer at a farm. Much to her surprise, Uncle Jarvis turns up for a visit with his old nurse, so does Jimmie eventually to see Judy, but he gets picked up by police for running into the mayor's car.
During a walk, Judy expresses how much she would like to have a family and Jarvis offers her his heart, but she declines because she's determined to write a novel, so she can pay Daddy-Long-Legs back everything.
After her graduation, Judy gets invited by the Pendletons where she meets a rich girl - Angelina - she used to know when she was still at the orphanage. She also sees Jarvis again after a year and he asks her to marry him, but the image of the orphanage is stuck in her mind, especially after overhearing Angelina saying something mean about her being an orphan, even though Sally defends her. When she declines again, Jarvis thinks it's because she's in love with Jimmie whom she asks to drive her back to the farm.
There she writes to Daddy-Long-Legs about her unhappy love and finally gets invited to his house.
Surprise (as if you hadn't guessed it from the beginning), Daddy-Long-Legs is Jarvis! The End.

First, I was a bit surprised but also a bit proud of myself for making the completely silent movie almost in one go. The one break I had to take was due to a wasp that suddenly turned up above my head, but refused to leave. For all I know it could still be somewhere and live off stolen cat food. I heard the buzzing out of nowhere and honestly thought something was wrong with my laptop at first!

Second, and you probably already expected that, I prefer the book over the movie, but that doesn't mean at all that I didn't enjoy the movie.
If you go on, be ready for spoilers as usual.

The film starts with baby Judy being found, then we jump forward 12 years.
Mary Pickford played a child more than once. I didn't necessarily expect it, but the difference between Judy being 12 in the first part and around 20 in the second one really works amazingly well.

The movie seems to be split in two parts, not just in regards to Judy's age.
The first one set at the orphanage is a mix of demonstrating the difference between rich and poor by comparing Judy's life to that of Angelina.
There are a few slapstick scenes showing Judy breaking out of the routine when she slides down the bannisters for example and her bloomers catch fire, but there are also sad scenes showing reality in the orphanage, like a dying orphan or the hard punishments.
In the book, Judy's life before college only appears in the introduction and then in her letters to Daddy-Long-Legs which make up most of the book. Also she only takes the name Judy in college, a new name for a new life.

The second part is mainly a love story.
You don't get to see much of the college which is really important in the book.
Judy tells Daddy-Long-Legs everything, not just once a month, what she's buying now that she has her own pocket money, furniture for her room, clothes, books, a watch. She tells them about classes, about her friends, about their activities, about people she has met, about her thoughts.
The book shows how she has been given the chance to evolve from one of the orphans which have to wear their gingham like a uniform to an individual, educated and independent young woman and writer who also happens to fall in love.
You have to keep in mind that this was a time when women had not been able to vote nationwide yet.
There's nothing wrong with a happy ending. From the second book you learn that Judy becomes a mother, but is also still very much socially aware and active.

The film, however, shows life at the orphanage and the love story, yes okay, a graduation and a check for a published book, too. That's absolutely fine if you watch the movie for what it is, I just felt it left out exactly the part I like best about the book.
I understand, though, that it was probably easier and more popular to concentrate on the love story.

What I found interesting was that the film sometimes seemed to go in little hops, with quite a lot of intertitles. I wonder if that was supposed to mimic the glimpses that you get from the letters in the book. I also found interesting how well that worked.
Many of the intertitles had artwork for a background. Here's one of my favorites.

Now let's get to the elephant in the room. Both in the movie and the book, Jarvis is older than Judy, 14 years, to be exact. In this case it doesn't come across as creepy for me, though, as it has other times although I understand people might feel differently about that.
I think it has to do with Jarvis never being pushy or really controlling - except for the one time he orders her to go to the farm instead of visiting Sallie's (no typo, this is how it's written in the book) family in his role as Daddy-Long-Leg. He doesn't try to pull the rich or the gratitude card and also Judy stands up to him, like the time she takes on a summer job as a tutor against his will.
Actually, I think it's easier with the book because you just fill in your own idea of him while it's more difficult to do with the film. To me, Jarvis looks older there than 39 which is the age of the actor (Pickford was 26). In the book, Judy is 22 and Jarvis 36 when they finally get together.

At the time, the idea wouldn't have been strange at all. It has been suggested that the inspiration for the story might have come from Grover Cleveland's marriage with Frances Folsom who had been his unofficial ward. When they got married, he was 49 and she was 21.

Pickford was very funny in the slapstick scenes and elegant and mature as a grown-up, without a lot of overacting.
Up to now, I had only seen a documentary about her and her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks - the Queen and King of Hollywood who were highly influential in the business in their time.
So this was the first movie I have seen with her and I'm really looking forward to more now.

P.S. There are later versions, for example a musical with Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron (huge age gap there), but also an anime!
P.P.S. While writing this blog post, our friend the wasp came back and I managed to steer it towards the window and it left. Yay! Der Dekan is still looking for it, so little faith in my insect chasing skills.

Springtime in Paris - Hugo

One day early again, here's my post for the Springtime in Paris event that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Lisa from Boondock Ramblings have on their blogs this spring.
Today's movie is "Hugo" from 2011 which goes well with my silent movie of last week. You'll see why.

Hugo Cabret is a young orphan living behind the clocks in Gare Montparnasse, a big railway station in Paris.
His father died in a fire at the museum he worked at, so Hugo's alcoholic uncle has taken him in to train him how to maintain the station clocks. When the uncle disappears, Hugo works on the clocks alone trying to avoid the station inspector who is always on the lookout for orphans to send them to the orphanage.
All Hugo has left from his father is a broken automaton, a writing man that no one at the museum had wanted and that he and Hugo tried to fix, and his notebook with notes on the automaton.
Hugo takes toys from the little toy and candy shop in the station and uses the parts from them trying to fix the automaton by himself because he believes it will give him a message from his father. An important part missing is a heart shaped key to wind it up.

When Georges, the shopkeeper, catches Hugo, he takes the notebook from him. Hoping she will be able to help him getting it back, Hugo meets with Isabelle, Georges' goddaughter, who advises him to demand the notebook back. Georges agrees to give it back eventually if Hugo works for him to pay back for what he has taken from the shop.
Hugo and Isabelle become friends and he shows her the automaton when he notices the heart shaped key on her necklace. When they activate it, it doesn't write, but draws a picture of a space capsule hitting the eye of the man in the moon which is a scene from "A Trip to the Moon" by Georges Méliès - Isabelle's godfather!

To find out more, the children go to the Film Academy Library where they meet René Tabard, a film expert, who is delighted to hear that Méliès is still alive.
They invite him to Georges' apartment where they watch "A Trip to the Moon" with Georges' wife Jeanne who has acted in a lot of his films. When her husband comes into the room, he gets lost in memories and mentions the automaton he has built.
Hugo runs to the station to fetch the automaton. He's held up by the station inspector who has learned that Hugo's uncle is dead and wants to take him to the orphanage. Hugo escapes, but drops the automaton on the tracks. The inspector saves him when he jumps on the tracks to retrieve it.
Now Georges arrives and claims that Hugo belongs with him.
In the end, Georges becomes a professor at the Academy and they celebrate, then you see Isabelle starting to write down Hugo's story.

If you read last week's post about "A Trip to the Moon" and Méliès, you'll know how fascinating I think he was, and how sad it was that he ended up the way he did, in poverty.
You could feel this movie was made by a fan of this work and the history of film making. In the Making Of, you could also  tell that from the way Scorsese spoke about it.

But I didn't like it. My head could appreciate the technology going into it, the details of the pictures for example in the clock, the little Easter eggs in the film. My favorite was the automaton because I think automatons are absolutely wonderful in the truest sense, they are works of wonder to me, an utterly unmechanical person.
No matter, though, how many people - people I know, critics, award juries - tell me how magical this film is, that magic didn't work on me.
Deep breath - I found it boring and the acting rather stiff at times. Sorry, can't help it. I liked some of the components, but brought together it didn't do anything for me. I got more excited about the Méliès documentaries I have seen before or the videos I listed in the sources of the last post. I even found the Making Of more interesting than the film itself.
Also, there's only so much French accordion music I can listen to.
And yes, I was disappointed because I had absolutely expected to be enchanted.

Oh well, win some, lose some, right?

Has anyone read the book, by the way? If so, how did you like it?

Springtime

One of my favorite flowers are Bleeding Hearts (they are actually perennials). The most popular name here is "Tränende Herzen" - Crying Hearts.
Where my grandmother lived, there was a small meadow with three buildings around it, and along the walls of those buildings, there were Bleeding Hearts. I still see myself sitting down beside them to admire the little pink hearts which were so perfect.
Probably my memory deceives me and there wasn't the mass of blossoms I seem to remember, but that doesn't change anything about my thinking of my grandmother every time I see one of those plants.

Picture via pxhere

Then one day I stumbled upon a picture on deviantArt which surprised me, not sure why it did because I love looking at flowers, but don't know the next thing about them.
It was a white Bleeding Hearts plant and it looked beautiful. I had seen black and blue ones on the web before and knew those weren't real, but white ones are and I immediately fell in love. So when I met the neighbor the next day and he told me he was off to the garden center, I jokingly asked him to bring me white Bleeding Hearts and he did!

It has been in our little garden for some years now and while it's not blooming in abundance, it makes me smile every year.
Last week Monday, there were no blossoms yet, but when I went down two days later to fill up the bird feeder, I was happy to see two little rows of white.
From what I read, April is rather early for Bleeding Hearts to bloom. Part of the blossoms were still quite delicate and I just hoped the predicted rain wouldn't be too hard on them because it was already too dark to get a good picture.

The next morning I checked from the window and saw a blossom peek out from under the green, so I went down - without much hope because it was a really grey day, just how I love it, but not good for pictures with my little old camera - and found them alive and well.
Welcome spring!

If you want to know more about Bleeding Hearts, where they come from, and an old tale behind the name, check out
Bleeding heart: origin, properties and flowering time

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Three years ago we got our egg delivery via bunny post for the first time. This was the promo picture and we were sold right away. Who could resist such a sweet smile?
Actually, he's an old friend of mine.

This year, however, there's a new kid in town because Mr. Gnome is on Easter vacation - Floppy the Bunny who has moved in here not long ago (it was a sale and I blame my sister, this time because she gave him to me 😉), just in time to take over. You have to give young people a chance, don't you?

I just hope Floppy hasn't got overwhelmed ... it was a lot of work.

Mr. Gnome made by my lovely friend Jennifer ❤
Running bunny made by Steiff
Floppy by Steiff (actually his name is Hoppy, but he reminded me so much of the rabbit Bluey's sister Bingo has)
Chocolate by Lindt
Wire knit and bead eggs made by me

I'm not affiliated with Steiff or Lindt in any way.