Brigitte Helm
German postcard by Ross Verlag, nr. 5124/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa.
German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.
Brigitte Helm was in 1925 chosen by Fritz Lang to star in Metropolis. Reportedly her mother had sent her photograph to scriptwriter Thea von Harbou and Lang made a screen test with her. The Ufa gave her a ten-year contract and Metropolis made her a star overnight. The wartime melodrama Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney (G.W. Pabst, 1927) was her first project working with Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the director who was probably best able to bring out her mysterious adaptability. His films Abwege (1928) and L’ Atlantide/Die Herrin von Atlantis (1932) are among the films that allowed Helm to act outside all the tired cliches she was later often subjected to by scriptwriters and producers. Her other silent film appearances include Am Rande der Welt (1927, Karl Grune), the SF film Alraune (Henrik Galeen, 1928), Geheimnisse des Orients (Alexandre Volkoff, 1928), L’ Argent (Marcel L’ Herbier, 1928), and Die Wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna (Hanns Schwarz, 1929).
Her first sound film was the musical Die singende Stadt (Carmine Gallone, 1930) with Jan Kiepura. She went on from her silent successes with a successful sound remake of Alraune (Richard Oswald, 1930). In addition, she also played in France and England, where she appeared among other things in foreign versions of her German films. Her relationship with the Ufa was very rocky. While the studio made her a star and kept increasing her pay, the actress was unhappy with the material offered to her and with restrictive clauses dictating over her weight. Her sound films, like Gloria (Hans Behrendt, 1931), The Blue Danube (Herbert Wilcox, 1932), and Gold/L’Or (Karl Hartl, 1934), do not have the artistic cachet of her best silent films. Reportedly she was Josef Von Sternberg's original choice for the starring role of Der Blaue Engel (1930) which went to Marlene Dietrich and she was also James Whale's first choice for his Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but she refused to come to America. In 1935, reportedly angered by Nazi control of the German film industry, she didn’t extend her contract with the Ufa. Perhaps another reason for her decision was the negative press reports which went round because of several traffic accidents she caused and of a short prison sentence as a result of it. Her last film was Ein Idealer Gatte (Herbert Selpin, 1935), an adaptation of Oscar Wilde. She married industrialist Dr. Hugo Kunheim and retired. The pair would raise four children. Brigitte Helm lived out the rest of her life in quiet solitude in Italy and from the 1960s on in Switzerland. In 1968 she received the Filmband in Gold for “continued outstanding individual contributions to German film over the years". She steadfastly refused to appear in a film again or even grant an interview about her film career, but she always answered questions of her old fans for her signature and her signature adorns a good many collections.
Sources: Thomas Staedeli, Wikipedia, Film Reference, Lenin Imports, and IMDb.
Click for more of our postcards of Brigitte Helm here and here.
Brigitte Helm
German postcard by Ross Verlag, nr. 5124/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa.
German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.
Brigitte Helm was in 1925 chosen by Fritz Lang to star in Metropolis. Reportedly her mother had sent her photograph to scriptwriter Thea von Harbou and Lang made a screen test with her. The Ufa gave her a ten-year contract and Metropolis made her a star overnight. The wartime melodrama Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney (G.W. Pabst, 1927) was her first project working with Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the director who was probably best able to bring out her mysterious adaptability. His films Abwege (1928) and L’ Atlantide/Die Herrin von Atlantis (1932) are among the films that allowed Helm to act outside all the tired cliches she was later often subjected to by scriptwriters and producers. Her other silent film appearances include Am Rande der Welt (1927, Karl Grune), the SF film Alraune (Henrik Galeen, 1928), Geheimnisse des Orients (Alexandre Volkoff, 1928), L’ Argent (Marcel L’ Herbier, 1928), and Die Wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna (Hanns Schwarz, 1929).
Her first sound film was the musical Die singende Stadt (Carmine Gallone, 1930) with Jan Kiepura. She went on from her silent successes with a successful sound remake of Alraune (Richard Oswald, 1930). In addition, she also played in France and England, where she appeared among other things in foreign versions of her German films. Her relationship with the Ufa was very rocky. While the studio made her a star and kept increasing her pay, the actress was unhappy with the material offered to her and with restrictive clauses dictating over her weight. Her sound films, like Gloria (Hans Behrendt, 1931), The Blue Danube (Herbert Wilcox, 1932), and Gold/L’Or (Karl Hartl, 1934), do not have the artistic cachet of her best silent films. Reportedly she was Josef Von Sternberg's original choice for the starring role of Der Blaue Engel (1930) which went to Marlene Dietrich and she was also James Whale's first choice for his Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but she refused to come to America. In 1935, reportedly angered by Nazi control of the German film industry, she didn’t extend her contract with the Ufa. Perhaps another reason for her decision was the negative press reports which went round because of several traffic accidents she caused and of a short prison sentence as a result of it. Her last film was Ein Idealer Gatte (Herbert Selpin, 1935), an adaptation of Oscar Wilde. She married industrialist Dr. Hugo Kunheim and retired. The pair would raise four children. Brigitte Helm lived out the rest of her life in quiet solitude in Italy and from the 1960s on in Switzerland. In 1968 she received the Filmband in Gold for “continued outstanding individual contributions to German film over the years". She steadfastly refused to appear in a film again or even grant an interview about her film career, but she always answered questions of her old fans for her signature and her signature adorns a good many collections.
Sources: Thomas Staedeli, Wikipedia, Film Reference, Lenin Imports, and IMDb.
Click for more of our postcards of Brigitte Helm here and here.