"Actor: Emil Jannings"

• THE BLUE ANGEL | Blu Ray | (28/01/2013) from £13.35   |  Saving you £6.64 (49.74%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Blue Angel is one of the first German language sound films (filmed simultaneously in an English-language version), and the picture that represents the initial collaboration between Josef von Sternberg and his immortal muse, Marlene Dietrich. Following up his role in Sternberg's great silent The Last Command, Emil Jannings portrays a schoolteacher named Immanuel Rath, whose fateful expedition to catch his students frequenting the cabaret known as The Blue Angel leads to his own rapture with the establishment's main attraction Lola (Dietrich) - and, as a result, triggers the downward spiral of his life and fortune. Directed by Sternberg while on loan from America to the pioneering German producer Erich Pommer, The Blue Angel is at once captivating, devastating, and powerfully erotic, laced-through with Sternberg's masterful cinematography. From here, the director and Dietrich would go on to make six more films together in the span of five years, and leave a legacy of some of the most indelible iconography in the cinema of glamour and obsession. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present The Blue Angel in a new Dual Format presentation that incorporates both versions of the film in 1080p HD for the first time in the UK. Special Features: 1080p HD Presentation of both the German-language and English-language versions of the film, with progressive encodes on the DVD Newly translated optional subtitles on the German-language version, and SDH on the English-language version New and exclusive video essay on the films by critic and scholar Tag Gallagher New and exclusive feature-length audio commentary by critic and scholar Tony Rayns on the German-langauage version Original screen test with Marlene Dietrich Archival interview clips with Marlene Dietrich Substantial booklet containing writing on the film, vintage excerpts, and rare archival imagery

• Early Murnau - Five Films (Schloß Vogelöd, Phantom, Der Letzte Mann, The Grand Duke's Finances, Tartuffe) (Masters of Cinema) (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (26/09/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  One of the most influential and revered figures in all of cinema, Friedrich Wilheim Murnau came to prominence in the first half of the 1920's with a diverse string of productions ranging from buoyant satire to swirling psychological drama. Five key works are presented here: Schloß Vogelöd, Phantom, Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (the Grand Duke's Finances, Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) and Tartuffe. In the sinister mystery Schloß Vogelöd, terrible secrets from the past threaten a group of aristocrats' gathering at a country manor. In the delirious Phantom, an aspiring poet's change encounter with a beautiful woman leads into obsession and deception. The delightful Die Finanzen des Großherzogs sees a rakish-but-impoverished duke setting out to rebuild his fortune via blissfully comic high adventure on the Mediterranean coast. In Der Letzte Mann, one of the undisputed masterpieces of the silent era, Emil Jannings gives an overwhelming performance as a hotel porter with dreams of a higher station in life, and was a stylistic breakthrough for both Murnau and cinema in general. Finally, the slyly satiric Tartuffe features Jannings as Moliere's iconic creation in a morality tale film-within-a-film as only Murnau could conceive. This collection features new high-definition transfers of all five films from the finest archival elements, all on Blu-ray for the first time in a special edition three-disc set. Click Images to Enlarge

• FAUST (Masters of Cinema) (DVD & BLU-RAY DUAL FORMAT) | Blu Ray | (18/08/2014) from £13.35   |  Saving you £6.64 (49.74%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Shot in the UFA studios with a big movie star in the lead and all the special effects and production design resources any blockbuster of its time could wish for, FW Murnau's 1926 Faust represents a step up from his better-known Nosferatu. Oddly, Faust is a less familiar film than the vampire quickie and this release affords fans a chance to see what Murnau can do with an equally major fantasy story. Adapted neither from Marlowe's play Dr Faustus nor Goethe's verse drama, the script scrambles various elements of the legend and presents a Faust (Gosta Ekman) driven to summon the Devil by despair as a plague rages through the town, desperate to gain enough learning to help his neighbours. When this deal doesn't quite work out, because he is stoned by townsfolk who notice his sudden fear of the cross, Mephisto (Emil Jannings) offers Faust instead renewed youth and an opportunity to seduce a famously beautiful Italian noblewoman and then to return to his home village and get involved with the pure Gretchen (Camilla Horn). Like most versions of the story, it's episodic and some sections are stronger than others: the great stuff comes in the plague and initial deal sequences, though it picks up again for the tragic climax as Gretchen becomes the central figure and suffers horribly, freezing in the snows and burning at the stake. Jannings' devil, a gruesomely humorous slice of ham, is one of the great silent monster performances, reducing everyone else to a stick figure, and Murnau faces the challenge of topping his Nosferatu imagery by deploying a battalion of effects techniques to depict the many magical journeys, sudden appearances and transformations. On the DVD: Often seen in ragged, incomplete prints projected at the wrong speed, this is a decently restored version, running a full 115 minutes with a complete orchestral score. The original materials show some of the damage to be expected in a film of its vintage, but the transfer is excellent, displaying the imaginative art direction and camerawork to superb advantage. Aside from a nicely eerie menu, the sole extra is a full-length commentary originating in Australia: written by historian Peter Spooner but read by narrator Russell Cawthorne (who mispronounces the odd name). This provides an interesting wealth of background detail, such as Murnau's attempt to cast Hollywood's Lillian Gish as Gretchen, and delivers a balanced assessment of the film itself. --Kim Newman

• Lubitsch In Berlin | Blu Ray | (18/09/2017) from £17.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Before he arrived in Hollywood to leave his indelible (and inimitable) mark on timeless comedies like Trouble in Paradise and The Shop Around The Corner, Ernst Lubitsch created an expansive body of work in Germany that proved to be as varied in tone as it was sophisticated in its measure of man and woman. This set collects six restored works from the silent phase of Lubitsch s career, and casts new light on the director both as a fully-formed comic master, and as a virtuoso of cinematographic technique. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present these six works by Ernst Lubitsch for the first time ever on Blu-ray. BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES: High-definition restored transfers of all six films Original German intertitles with optional English subtitles Robert Fischer s 2006 feature-length documentary Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin: From Schönhauser Allee to Hollywood Exclusive concertina score for Die Puppe, by Bernard Wrigley PLUS: A booklet containing liner notes for all six features by film-writers David Cairns, Anna Thorngate, and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

• Waxworks | Blu Ray | (09/11/2020) from £13.30   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Waxworks [Das Wachsfigurenkabinett] was the final film Paul Leni directed in Germany before striking out for Hollywood and making such classic works of genre filmmaking as The Cat and the Canary, The Man Who Laughs, and The Last Warning. Its sophisticated melding of genres was in fact what inspired Universal's Carl Laemmle to invite Leni to come to Hollywood in the first place, as Laemmle was hoping to capitalise on the emerging comedy-horror craze of the 1920s. Yet Waxworks is, at heart, a pure example of German expressionism. Its stylised sets (designed by Leni), fantastical costumes, chiaroscuro lighting, and startlingly bold performances are paragons of the cinematic movement, and contribute heavily to the film's lasting appeal. The three separate episodes of Waxworks are united by the character of a young poet (William Dieterle), who is hired by the owner of a wax museum to create backstories for a trio of the museum's figures: Caliph Harun al-Rashid (Emil Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt), and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss). The stories are depicted in succession (one per episode), the poet casting himselfas well as the daughter of the wax museum's ownerat the centre of each tale. Though the poet and the daughter play different characters in the corresponding plots, they are always lovers whose relationship is threatened by the personages of the wax figures. As there is no surviving original negative of Waxworks, this newly restored editiona joint effort by the Deutsche Kinemathek and Cineteca di Bologna, L'Immagine Ritrovata (with funding from the German Commission for Culture and the Media)is composed of contemporary prints and additional film materials from archives around the world. The elements, including English intertitles, were scanned in 4K resolution and then restored in 2K. Presented by The Masters of Cinema Series and Flicker Alley in a special Blu-ray edition, there is an option of two new scores to accompany the film: one by the Ensemble Musikfabrik (commissioned by ZDF/ARTE), and the second by composer Richard Siedhoff. Features: Limited Edition O-Card slipcase [First Print Run of 2000 copies ONLY] 1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a new 2K restoration Option of two newly created scores, by Ensemble Musikfabrik; and composer Richard Siedhoff Audio commentary with Australian film and arts critic Adrian Martin Paul Leni's Rebus-Film Nr. 1-8 Courtesy of Kino Lorber, these Leni-helmed cinematic crossword puzzles were originally screened in 1920s German cinemas as featurettes accompanying the main film. Each of these animated shorts was split into two partsa clue and an answerand presented before and after the visual presentation In search of the original version of Paul Leni's ˜Das Wachsfigurenkabinett' An interview with Julia Wallmüller (Deutsche Kinemathek) based on her presentation after the premiere of the restored film at Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna 2020 Kim Newman on Waxworks An in-depth, on-camera interview with journalist, film critic, and fiction writer Kim Newman about the legacy of Waxworks PLUS: A collector's booklet featuring new essays by Philip Kemp and Richard Combs on the film's history and significance; notes on the restoration process by the Deutsche Kinemathek; and rarely seen production photographs and promotional material

• The Last Command (1928) | Blu Ray | (16/05/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Emil Jannings stars in the film which won the first ever Academy Award for best Actor for his role in this stunning early masterpiece from director Josef von Sternberg (The Blue Angel). An exiled Russian general turned Hollywood extra (Emil Jannings, in an incredibly passionate performance) is chosen by a former adversary (William Powell) to play a role that resembles his former self and gradually loses his grip on reality. Equally a sharp witted satire of the Hollywood machine and a heartbreaking drama about one man's emotional downfall, Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (his second major Hollywood picture) is one of the finest and most significant films of its era. Featuring exemplary cinematography, beautifully designed sets, and rousing Revolution sequences, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the worldwide Blu-ray debut of this wonderfully composed masterpiece.

• Lubitsch In Berlin | DVD | (10/02/2014) from £18.98   |  Saving you £13.00 (76.52%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Before he arrived in Hollywood to leave his indelible (and inimitable) mark on timeless comedies like Trouble in Paradise and The Shop Around the Corner Ernst Lubitsch created an expansive body of work in Germany that proved to be as varied in its tone as it was sophisticated in its measure of man and woman. This set collects six recently restored works from the silent phase of Lubitsch's career and casts new light on the director both as a fully-formed comic master and as a virtuoso of cinematographic technique. Ich Möchte Kein Mann Sein (1918)One of the first collaborations between Lubitsch and the exuberant Ossi Oswalda Ich möchte kein Mann sein [I Wouldn't Like to Be a Man] is a concise sketch of society life in three acts. When Ossi's uncle goes away on a business trip a new guardian steps in to tame the distractable niece. But Ossi finds a way out of the house and into a grand ball... by way of a brazen cross-dressing scheme - and triggers what is perhaps Lubitsch's most twisted finale. Die Puppe (1919)Four amusing acts from a toy-chest - so reads the opening title of the comic masterpiece Die Puppe. [The Doll.] adapted by Lubitsch and co-scenarist Hanns Kräly from a libretto by A. M. Wilner (based in turn on a tale from E. T. A. Hoffmann). Ossi Oswalda stars in a double-role as both the mischievous daughter and automatonic creation of a wildly coiffed dollmaker. When a wealthy baron decides the time has come for his prudish nephew to take a wife an uproariously ribald plot unwinds into what is perhaps the world's first-ever sex-doll comedy. Die Austernprinzessin (1919)As Die Austernprinzessin. [The Oyster Princess.] Ossi Oswalda makes another turn as a plutocrat's rambunctious daughter - now the heiress of a global oyster empire devoting her wiles once again to the service of manipulation. A comic high-point in the master's oeuvre Die Austernprinzessin. showcases the trademarks of the Lubitsch Touch and its ten-fingered dexterity resulting in a film that is simultaneously clever concise and risqué. Sumurun (1920)By turns melodramatic and grotesquely comic Sumurun brings together performances by star-players Paul Wegener (Der Golem.) Pola Negri Harry Liedtke and Ernst Lubitsch himself (in the role of an ultra-pathetic hunchbacked minstrel) for this ensemble tale pulled from the milieu of The Arabian Nights. Featuring hundreds of extras milling through open-air set-pieces and dusky harem-chambers alike Sumurun demonstrates Lubitsch's ability to transfigure rote romance into vibrant pageant. Anna Boleyn (1920)Emil Jannings plays King Henry VIII in the story of Anne Boleyn's movement from the outskirts of the court to the royal boudoir and off to the chopping-block. Suffused with an atmosphere of entrapment that would not be out of place in later films by Fritz Lang and prefiguring the stately contretemps in John Ford's Mary of Scotland Anna Boleyn proceeds with a deathward momentum unique in Lubitsch's oeuvre. Die Bergkatze (1921)Set in one of Lubitsch's hallmark mythical kingdoms Die Bergkatze [The Mountain-Lion / The Wildcat] finds Lubitsch in exuberantly expressionistic mode employing a host of optical masks to create perhaps the most visually audacious comic spectacle of his career. Pola Negri plays the daughter of a band of thieves; seduction of army commander (and audience) ensues. Lubitsch's personal favourite work of all his German films Die Bergkatze represents a peak in both Lubitsch's silent oeuvre and the silent cinema as a whole. Special Features: Six Features Across Five Discs A Sixth Disc Containing Robert Fischer's 2006 Feature-Length Documentary Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin: From Schönhauser Allee to Hollywood Exclusive Concertina Score for Die Puppe Liner Notes for all Six Features by Film-Writers David Cairns Anna Thorngate and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

• MADAME DUBARRY | Blu Ray | (22/09/2014) from £8.75   |  Saving you £11.24 (128.46%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Before Ernst Lubitsch created his eminently sophisticated Hollywood sex comedies he was at work in Germany perfecting his earliest entries into the genre alongside sweeping ironic dramas based on historical events and often set in exotic locales. One of his earliest successes merged elements of both modes: Madame DuBarry. A recounting-à-la-Lubitsch of the torrid affair between the title character (Pola Negri) and France's King Louis XV (Emil Jannings who would go on to portray Henry VIII in Lubitsch's Anna Boleyn of the following year – a film that neatly bookends Madame DuBarry) the picture spans scandalous intrigue at the court and the ring of the guillotine among the riotous mobs of the Revolution. Also included in this edition is Lubitsch's earliest surviving film the 1916 Als ich tot war [When I Was Dead] which stars the director himself in a lead role that involves his faked suicide and (prefiguring the later Die Puppe.) an infiltration of the domestic space whilst in disguise (not as an automaton but as a servant). The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Madame DuBarry and Als ich tot war in a special Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition for the first time. With Madame DuBarry Lubitsch proved himself as a director of all-around ability fluent in several genres including the historical epic. These vast films had everything – sex intrigue war violence – and all of it couched in the edifying language of History so that no one could accuse the filmmakers of merely pandering to their audience's base desires. – Kevin Hagopian Special Features: New high-definition 1080p presentation of the main feature on the Blu-ray and progressive encode on the DVD Original/French/German intertitles with newly translated optional English subtitles Lubitsch's earliest surviving film Als ich tot war [1916] 36-PAGE BOOKLET Contains Blu-Ray and DVD Versions

• The Blue Angel - - Two Disc Special Edition | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel is a crowning achievement of Weimar cinema an exquisite parable of one man's fall from respectability. Emil Jannings the quintessential German Expressionist actor stars as Professor Immanuel Rath the sexually repressed instructor of a boys prep school. After learning of the pupils' infatuation with French postcards depicting a local nightclub songstress he decides to personally investigate the source of such indecency. However as soon

• Classics of German Cinema | DVD | (21/05/2007) from £73.71   |  Saving you £-28.72 (N/A%)   |  RRP £44.99

  Perhaps no period of any national cinema extends its influence so powerfully into the present day of movies as that of the German cinema of the Weimar era. From the fraught angles that accompanied magisterial set-design to the dreamlike interplay of light and shadow German films of the pre-WWII era defined the famed ""expressionistic"" visual style even as they tested the boundaries of social and sexual taboos. This collection contains five films. Four are classic films emblematic of the legendary Weimar period and one is an historical curiosity commissioned under the Nazi regime. Paul Wegener's and Carl Boese's 1920 film Der Golem represents the second (and the only fully surviving) film treatment by Wegener of the Yiddish folktale based around a towering clay monster created by magic corrupted by evil and redeemed ultimately by the force of the human soul. From the same year comes Robert Wiene's nightmarish classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - a story of mesmerism sleepwalking and murder - a demented dreamscape that perhaps single-handedly galvanized the Expressionist movement of silent cinema. Nine years on Joe May's Asphalt opens a door to the sordid carnality lurking inside the Weimar heart of darkness - and gives audiences the gift of Betty Amann the greatest ""siren unsung"" of the early silver-screen. No lack of recognition would beset the besotted lead of Josef von Sternberg's 1930 masterpiece The Blue Angel - presented here in both its German- and English-language versions. Simply put this tale of a mild-mannered professor (Emil Jannings) sucked into the world of a licentious cabaret artiste introduced the public to an immortal: her name written among the stars would read ""Marlene Dietrich"". By 1943 a new era had dawned one in which Joseph Goebbels called the shots and it was Josef von Bky's Mnchhausen that epitomized the ""new German epic"" - a state-sanctioned Agfacolor melange of the picaresque and Aryan myth that nevertheless served to inspire Terry Gilliam's more benign modern fantasia The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Myth sex magick and the ""tall-tale"": Classics of German Cinema: 1920-1943 presents the viewer with a selection of masterpieces that tower not only over the awesome first phase of German movies but over the origins of world cinema as a whole. 1. Der Golem 2. Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari 3. Asphalt 4. The Blue Angel 5. Munchhausen

• The Blue Angel | DVD | (17/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Two things make it impossible to consign Josef von Sternberg's seedily atmospheric 1930 masterpiece The Blue Angel to the archives of museum land: it was the first film to put Marlene Dietrich in front of an international audience; and it features a towering performance from Emil Jannings as the professor whose fall from grace is precipitated by his obsession with Dietrich's archly vampish showgirl Lola-Lola. On both counts The Blue Angel remains a potent, vibrant work which still has moments of real relevance. Dietrich's performance is indeed hypnotic: von Sternberg lights her face and exposed flesh--shoulders and thighs--in a way that clearly indicates the erotic charge she generates among the men in the Blue Angel night club, and in Jennings in particular. Before our eyes his repressed, puritanical self-will disintegrates and his fate is sealed. The pivotal moment is, of course, when Dietrich teases her audience with "Falling in Love Again", her stockinged and suspendered legs astride a beer barrel, a top hat rakishly on her head. It would become the signature tune of her cabaret act in later years but here she delivers it with a far less studied, throwaway cheeriness; how, indeed, can it be her fault if men cluster around her like moths around a flame? This is the raw material on which an icon was built, but there is much else to fascinate in the film itself: you can still smell the pungent grim reality of a trouper's life on the road; and the professor's pathetic efforts to control his class of unruly boys still resonates today... this is an essential piece of film history. On the DVD: The Blue Angel is presented in its German and English-language versions, both restored and digitally remastered. As far as the sound quality is concerned this is of limited benefit since there is a great deal of distortion on both versions. But thanks to the picture restoration we can see how von Sternberg treats Dietrich: her face becomes a radiant, mocking pool of light always in contrast with the dark, grainy characters around her. The English version (in truth, only the Dietrich/Jannings scenes were shot in each language) is slightly pruned, missing a key scene in which the professor's repressed sensitivity is established at the very beginning. So despite some erratic sub-titling, the German version remains definitive. And it also reveals the worldliness of the original lyrics to Friedrich Hollander's classic songs: "I Was Made for Love from Head to Toe" suggests a rather more robust attitude than the vague whimsy of "Falling in Love Again." A final thought: releasing films of this importance on DVD surely creates an opportunity to put them in context by including documentary and factual resources, but this release has no extras of any kind. At the very least it cries out for an authoritative commentary. --Piers Ford

• Faust | DVD | (26/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £23.99

  Murnau's last German film features astonishing photography magnificent art direction and special effects which retain the power to amaze. Freed from the constraints of psychological narrative Murnau's mastery of cinematic technique places Faust at the pinnacle of the silent era its barrage of visceral and apocryphal imagery contrasting with the simplicity and directness of its spiritual theme. Faust's tale is a classic one of a man who sells his soul to the devil. In an attempt

• Faust | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £27.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Shot in the UFA studios with a big movie star in the lead and all the special effects and production design resources any blockbuster of its time could wish for, FW Murnau's 1926 Faust represents a step up from his better-known Nosferatu. Oddly, Faust is a less familiar film than the vampire quickie and this release affords fans a chance to see what Murnau can do with an equally major fantasy story. Adapted neither from Marlowe's play Dr Faustus nor Goethe's verse drama, the script scrambles various elements of the legend and presents a Faust (Gosta Ekman) driven to summon the Devil by despair as a plague rages through the town, desperate to gain enough learning to help his neighbours. When this deal doesn't quite work out, because he is stoned by townsfolk who notice his sudden fear of the cross, Mephisto (Emil Jannings) offers Faust instead renewed youth and an opportunity to seduce a famously beautiful Italian noblewoman and then to return to his home village and get involved with the pure Gretchen (Camilla Horn). Like most versions of the story, it's episodic and some sections are stronger than others: the great stuff comes in the plague and initial deal sequences, though it picks up again for the tragic climax as Gretchen becomes the central figure and suffers horribly, freezing in the snows and burning at the stake. Jannings' devil, a gruesomely humorous slice of ham, is one of the great silent monster performances, reducing everyone else to a stick figure, and Murnau faces the challenge of topping his Nosferatu imagery by deploying a battalion of effects techniques to depict the many magical journeys, sudden appearances and transformations. On the DVD: Often seen in ragged, incomplete prints projected at the wrong speed, this is a decently restored version, running a full 115 minutes with a complete orchestral score. The original materials show some of the damage to be expected in a film of its vintage, but the transfer is excellent, displaying the imaginative art direction and camerawork to superb advantage. Aside from a nicely eerie menu, the sole extra is a full-length commentary originating in Australia: written by historian Peter Spooner but read by narrator Russell Cawthorne (who mispronounces the odd name). This provides an interesting wealth of background detail, such as Murnau's attempt to cast Hollywood's Lillian Gish as Gretchen, and delivers a balanced assessment of the film itself. --Kim Newman

• The Blue Angel | DVD | (13/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  For director Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich it all began with The Blue Angel, one of the masterpieces of Germany's Weimar cinema. This landmark film thrust the sultry and unrestrained Dietrich on an unsuspecting international film audience. She plays the prototypical role of Lola, the singer who tempts repressed professor Emil Jannings (the king of expressionist actors) into complete submission night after night at the Blue Angel night-club. The film perfectly captures the masochism and degradation of the Weimar Republic, just before the rise of Adolf Hitler. And yet the moral confusion exhibited by Jannings is really due to his own torment. Dietrich is merely an instrument of his innermost desires, standing on stage in top hat, stockings and bare thighs singing "Falling in Love Again". --Bill Desowitz, Amazon.com

• Lubitsch In Berlin | DVD | (25/01/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Before he arrived in Hollywood to leave his indelible (and inimitable) mark on timeless comedies like Trouble in Paradise and The Shop Around the Corner Ernst Lubitsch created an expansive body of work in Germany that proved to be as varied in its tone as it was sophisticated in its measure of man and woman. This box set collects six recently restored works from the silent phase of Lubitsch's career and casts new light on the director both as a fully-formed comic master and as a virtuoso of cinematographic technique. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present these six works by Ernst Lubitsch for the first time on DVD in the UK. ICH M''–CHTE KEIN MANN SEIN (1918) One of the first collaborations between Lubitsch and the exuberant Ossi Oswalda Ich m''chte kein Mann sein [I Wouldn't Like to Be a Man] is a concise sketch of society life in three acts. When Ossi's uncle goes away on a business trip a new guardian steps in to tame the distractable niece. But Ossi finds a way out of the house and into a grand ball... by way of a brazen cross-dressing scheme -- and triggers what is perhaps Lubitsch's most twisted finale. DIE PUPPE (1919) Four amusing acts from a toy-chest - so reads the opening title of the comic masterpiece Die Puppe. [The Doll.] adapted by Lubitsch and co-scenarist Hanns Kr''ly from a libretto by A. M. Wilner (based in turn on a tale from E. T. A. Hoffmann). Ossi Oswalda stars in a double-role as both the mischievous daughter and automatonic creation of a wildly coiffed dollmaker. When a wealthy baron decides the time has come for his prudish nephew to take a wife an uproariously ribald plot unwinds into what is perhaps the world's first-ever sex-doll comedy. DIE AUSTERNPRINZESSIN (1919) As Die Austernprinzessin. [The Oyster Princess.] Ossi Oswalda makes another turn as a plutocrat's rambunctious daughter - now the heiress of a global oyster empire devoting her wiles once again to the service of man-ipulation. A comic high-point in the master's oeuvre Die Austernprinzessin. showcases the trademarks of the Lubitsch Touch and its ten-fingered dexterity resulting in a film that is simultaneously clever concise and risqu''. SUMURUN (1920) By turns melodramatic and grotesquely comic Sumurun brings together performances by star-players Paul Wegener (Der Golem.) Pola Negri Harry Liedtke and Ernst Lubitsch himself (in the role of an ultra-pathetic hunchbacked minstrel) for this ensemble tale pulled from the milieu of The Arabian Nights. Featuring hundreds of extras milling through open-air set-pieces and dusky harem-chambers alike Sumurun demonstrates Lubitsch's ability to transfigure rote romance into vibrant pageant. ANNA BOLEYN (1920) Emil Jannings plays King Henry VIII in the story of Anne Boleyn's movement from the outskirts of the court to the royal boudoir and off to the chopping-block. Suffused with an atmosphere of entrapment that would not be out of place in later films by Fritz Lang and prefiguring the stately contretemps in John Ford's Mary of Scotland Anna Boleyn proceeds with a deathward momentum unique in Lubitsch's oeuvre. DIE BERGKATZE (1921) Set in one of Lubitsch's hallmark mythical kingdoms Die Bergkatze [The Mountain-Lion / The Wildcat] finds Lubitsch in exuberantly expressionistic mode employing a host of optical masks to create perhaps the most visually audacious comic spectacle of his career. Pola Negri plays the daughter of a band of thieves; seduction of army commander (and audience) ensues. Lubitsch's personal favourite work of all his German films Die Bergkatze represents a peak in both Lubitsch's silent oeuvre and the silent cinema as a whole.

• The Last Laugh | DVD | (23/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  One of the most influential silent films of all time, FW Murnau's street-drama tragedy The Last Laugh is a compendium of silent film techniques handled with a new sophistication. The story concerns an ageing hotel porter who loses his job to a younger, more dashing man and suffers the humiliation of being demoted to washroom attendant. When the hearty, rather pompous Emil Jannings is stripped of the dignified uniform of his station, he transforms into a scared little man scurrying through the shadows to hide his demotion from friends and family. Murnau captures the humiliation and calamitous fallout from the demotion (he loses not just his self-respect, but the esteem of his neighbours and even loses his apartment) in haunting, expressionistic images that magnify the petty events into tragic melodrama. The story seems a little extreme even for the genre but it's never less than a harrowing, subjective experience, even with the rather fanciful happy ending tacked on the end of it. Murnau famously throws the camera into motion--one of his most celebrated shots takes the viewers up an elevator, through the grand hotel lobby, and out the revolving glass door in a single smooth shot--and it hasn't stopped moving since. --Sean Axmaker

• Blue Angel | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

• Tartuffe | DVD | (24/01/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A devious housekeeper convinces her master to cut his worthy grandson out of his will and to leave the riches to her instead. The grandson disguised as the projectionist of a travelling cinema show flatters his way into the home to project a film of Tartuffe in an attempt to open his grandfather's eyes. F. W. Murnau made this film adaptation of Moliere's satire for UFA early in 1925 and it was released the following year shortly followed by 'Faust'. By presenting the play as a fi

• Waxworks | DVD | (05/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A