Henny Porten and Gustav Diessl in Mutterliebe (1929)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 112/3. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film Produktion. Henny Porten in Mutterliebe/A Mother's Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929).
Plot: After a big delusion (she cannot have children), Maria Immermann leaves her husband (Gustav Diessl) and goes to Berlin. Under her maiden name, she becomes a nanny in the house of director Vogt (Ernst Stahl-Nachbauer). Soon she becomes the favorite of Vogt's daughter Mädi (Inge Landgut) and vice versa. Yet, Mrs. Vogt (Elisabeth Pinajeff), who cares little for her child, hates Maria and finds a ruse to get rid of her. Maria leaves but suffers from the separation of the child. One day, she meets her in a playground, and takes the child with her, surprised she is arrested for child theft. After she is acquitted, Vogt hires her back, as meanwhile, he has divorced his wife.
Mutterliebe was shot in June-July 1929, censured in August 1929, and premiered on 20 August 1929 at the Berlin Atrium, on the occasion of its reopening. Nero-Film distributed the film. The script was by Friedrich Raff and Julius Urgiss, after an idea by Henny Porten. Sets were by Gustav A. Knauer and Willy Sciller, and cinematography was by Karl Puth. Interiors were shot at Staaken, exteriors in Pommern.
Paul Marcus praised in the Neue Berliner Zeitung the genuine performance by Porten and Landgut and also thought the concept was realistic. He complained though that Jacoby and the scriptwriters should have reduced the theatricality of the film. Leo Hirsch in Berliner Tageblatt thought the same: the performances were genuine and realistic, especially the silent grandeur of Porten, but Jacoby's over-accentuation by close-ups of Porten's tears was unnecessary. A moderate size of tragedy would increase the feeling of tragedy, Hirsch concluded.
Sources: IMDB, Filmportal, Gero Gandert, Der Film der Weimarer Republik: 1929, I.
Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her own films.
Austrian film and stage actor Gustav Diessl (1899-1948) was the hero of the first Mountain film, Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929). This film and others by prolific director G.W. Pabst made him at the time an unusual sex symbol: the mature, quiet, somewhat difficult man who attracts women almost against his will. Under the Nazi regime he was often cast as an exotic villain or a mysterious foreigner.
Henny Porten and Gustav Diessl in Mutterliebe (1929)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 112/3. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film Produktion. Henny Porten in Mutterliebe/A Mother's Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929).
Plot: After a big delusion (she cannot have children), Maria Immermann leaves her husband (Gustav Diessl) and goes to Berlin. Under her maiden name, she becomes a nanny in the house of director Vogt (Ernst Stahl-Nachbauer). Soon she becomes the favorite of Vogt's daughter Mädi (Inge Landgut) and vice versa. Yet, Mrs. Vogt (Elisabeth Pinajeff), who cares little for her child, hates Maria and finds a ruse to get rid of her. Maria leaves but suffers from the separation of the child. One day, she meets her in a playground, and takes the child with her, surprised she is arrested for child theft. After she is acquitted, Vogt hires her back, as meanwhile, he has divorced his wife.
Mutterliebe was shot in June-July 1929, censured in August 1929, and premiered on 20 August 1929 at the Berlin Atrium, on the occasion of its reopening. Nero-Film distributed the film. The script was by Friedrich Raff and Julius Urgiss, after an idea by Henny Porten. Sets were by Gustav A. Knauer and Willy Sciller, and cinematography was by Karl Puth. Interiors were shot at Staaken, exteriors in Pommern.
Paul Marcus praised in the Neue Berliner Zeitung the genuine performance by Porten and Landgut and also thought the concept was realistic. He complained though that Jacoby and the scriptwriters should have reduced the theatricality of the film. Leo Hirsch in Berliner Tageblatt thought the same: the performances were genuine and realistic, especially the silent grandeur of Porten, but Jacoby's over-accentuation by close-ups of Porten's tears was unnecessary. A moderate size of tragedy would increase the feeling of tragedy, Hirsch concluded.
Sources: IMDB, Filmportal, Gero Gandert, Der Film der Weimarer Republik: 1929, I.
Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her own films.
Austrian film and stage actor Gustav Diessl (1899-1948) was the hero of the first Mountain film, Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929). This film and others by prolific director G.W. Pabst made him at the time an unusual sex symbol: the mature, quiet, somewhat difficult man who attracts women almost against his will. Under the Nazi regime he was often cast as an exotic villain or a mysterious foreigner.