Film Archive

Threepenny Opera, The (Dreigroschenoper, Die)

London’s underground world: the elegant gang boss Mackie Messer falls in love with the beautiful Polly, daughter of beggar king Peachum, and plans to marry her. In a dusty underground warehouse - the room lavishly prepared with goods stolen from London's top shops - the wedding is attended by a crowd of beggars and thieves, as well as Tiger Brown, police chief and Mackie’s best friend. Peachum, however, strongly opposes the marriage. He puts pressure on Tiger Brown to send Mackie to the gallows, threatening to organize a beggars' revolt to disrupt the queen's upcoming coronation if the police chief does not accede to his wishes.

Georg Wilhelm Pabst was born in 1885 in Raudnitz (former Czechoslovakia) and died in 1967 in Vienna. He worked as a theater set designer and theater actor before he began his film career. In 1921, he appeared in Carl Froelich's Im Banne der Kralle, after which he served as assistant director on Froelich's next two films. Pabst's debut film was The Treasure (Der Schatz, 1923). His critical analysis of bourgeois society and moral of the time is evidenced in The Street of Sorrow (Die freudlose Gasse, 1925) as well as in his films Pandora's Box (Die Buechse der Pandora, 1928) and Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, 1929). In 1930, he became president of the "Dacho" organization of German filmmakers, and together with H. Mann, E. Piscator and others, he founded the Association of Film Arts. A selection of his most well-known films includes: The Western Front 1918 (Westfront 1918, 1930), Comradeship (Kameradschaft, 1931), The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper, 1931), Queen of Atlantis (Die Herrin von Atlantis, 1932), Don Quichotte (1933), The Comedians (Komoedianten, 1941), Paracelsus (1943), The Trial (Der Prozess, 1948), The Last Act (Der letzte Akt, 1955), It Happened on July 20th (Es geschah am 20. Juli, 1955), and many more.
 

Genre Literature
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 1931
Director Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Screenplay Leo Lania, Ladislaus Vajda, Béla Balázs
Director of Photography Fritz Arno Wagner
Editor Hans Oser
Music by Kurt Weill
Production Design Andrej Andrejew
Producer Seymour Nebenzahl
Production Company Nero-Film/Berlin
Principal Cast Rudolf Forster, Carola Neher, Reinhold Schuenzel, Fritz Rasp, Valeska Gert, Lotte Lenya, Hermann Thimig, Ernst Busch, Wladimir Sokoloff, Paul Kemp, Gustav Puettjer
Length 112 min, 3,077 m
Format 35 mm, b&w, 1:1.19
Original Version German
Sound Technology Optical Sound
Festival Screenings Bilbao 2005
German Distributor Filmverleih Die Lupe/Goettingen

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