Ernst Lubitsch's 'The Loves of Pharaoh' is reborn

[Reza]

latimes.com




Ernst Lubitsch's 'The Loves of Pharaoh' is reborn




The 1922 silent German film, which has been
carefully restored, screens at the Egyptian as
part of the theater's 89th birthday celebration.

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times

October 18, 2011

The American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre in
Hollywood celebrates its 89th birthday Tuesday
evening with a rare gift: the Los Angeles
premiere of the recently restored version of
Ernst Lubitsch's 1922 German epic, "The Loves of
Pharaoh." Robert Israel will conduct a 16-piece
orchestra playing the original score by renowned opera composer Eduard K�nneke.

The guest of honor at the screening will be
Lubitsch's daughter, Nicola, 73. "I have not seen
it," she said. "The thing that I am really
interested in is that the music is the original
score that Daddy commissioned. I always think of
my father as extraordinarily musical � he played
the piano every day. And I find all of his German
works and much later films highly choreographed."

"The Loves of Pharaoh" stars Emil Jannings as
Amenes, a powerful Egyptian Pharaoh who to
prevent war needs to marry Theonis (Dagny
Servaes), the daughter of the Ethiopian king. But
Amenes discovers that he has a rival for her
affection, his advisor Ramphis (Harry Liedtke).

Lubitsch made "The Loves of Pharaoh" to show
Hollywood that he could make epics. (The film
opened in New York before it premiered in
Berlin). Lubitsch's plan worked, and "Pharaoh"
was his last German feature. He came to Hollywood
in 1923, where he became a top director. He is
best known for sophisticated musicals such as
1929's "The Love Parade" and his classic
comedies, including 1939's "Ninotchka" and 1940's
"The Shop Around the Corner." He died in 1947 at age 55.

The complete version of "The Loves of Pharaoh"
had been considered lost for years, although
parts of the film had been found in various
countries. When it came time to put the film back
together, it was akin to working on a massive
jigsaw puzzle. Thomas Bakels of Munich-based
Alpha Omega GmbH, the company that did the
digital 2001 and 2010 restorations on Fritz
Lang's 1927 "Metropolis," spent five years on the
digital restoration; the Munich Film Museum did the reconstruction.

Part of the footage came from a 35mm tinted
nitrate print of the movie that the German
Federal Archives had acquired in the 1970s from a
film archive in Russia in a trade for original
footage it had of Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 masterwork, "Battleship Potemkin."

"The Federal Archives here approached us in 2003
with two reels of 'Pharaoh' and said, 'What can
be done? It is not scannable, it is not printable
and this is the last surviving element,'" recalled Bakels.

The Russian footage lasted only 55 minutes and
was missing all the scenes dealing with love and
emotion. This version revolved around massive
combat sequences. "It was in horrible shape,"
noted Bakels. "One of the biggest problems with
'Pharaoh' was the perforations [on the negative]
were missing all over the place."

Bakels extended the Russian version with footage
from an Italian nitrate print of "Pharaoh" that
the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., had
acquired in 1998. Though the Italian print had
been "chopped into pieces," it contained the
missing love scenes. To this was added other
footage, as well as the picture's title cards,
that had shown up unidentified in film cans
during the Munich Film Museum's restoration work on another movie.

"Pharaoh" is still missing 10 minutes from its
original running time of about 1 hour, 50
minutes. "We know that about 90% of the scenes are there," Bakels said.

Bakels hopes to have the film released on Blu-ray and DVD this year.

For more information on the screening, go to
http://www.americancinematheque.com.