Alexander Moissi in Pique-Dame (1918)
German postcard in the Film Sterne series, no. 522/6. Photo: Amboss Film. Alexander Moissi in Pique-Dame (Arthur Wellin, 1918). The film was based on the eponymous novella by Alexander Pushkin.
Plot: Russia, during the time of the Tsars in the 19th century. The young engineer lieutenant Stanislaus Kovolski (Moissi) is in constant need of money. One day he meets a fortune-teller who prophesies that a great windfall awaits him after he meets an old lady. His friend Prince Domsky (Eduard von Winterstein) tells him en passant in the club about his old aunt, the Countess Balinski (Johanna Terwin). Stanislaus learns from his friend Paul that she acquired her great fortune through a mysterious card game. Now Kovolski is determined to meet the old lady. One of his first attempts to approach the countess leads to an acquaintance with Lisaveta (Hertha Ruß), an impoverished relative of the stony-rich noblewoman, with whom he quickly falls in love. The next time Stanislaus tries to secretly look over the old lady's shoulder in order to elicit the card game secret from her. Countess Balinski is so frightened that she suddenly drops dead.
From then on Count Stanislaus is haunted by nocturnal demons. Plagued by a guilty conscience, he constantly sees the dead old woman in his mind's eye as an eternal reminder. But Madame does not reproach him in any way. Rather, she tells Kovolski her secret: to achieve his goal, he must win the first three games on his next visit to the club. To do this, he must first bet on the three, then on the seven and finally on the ace. He succeeds on the first night. He bets on the three. The second night also brings him luck, this time with the announced seven. Confident of victory, he bets on his ace on the third night, which indeed also wins. Stanislaus now believes he has a future with Lisaveta, but when he wants to show his Ace, to his greatest surprise it is the Queen of Spades.
Count Kovolski is totally shocked, he cannot believe it. After all, he had seen the ace with his own eyes, and now this? He is deeply convinced that the dead countess wants to take revenge on him, who is to blame for the death of her heart, with this sign of fate from the beyond. He has bet everything in his confidence of victory, and now everything is gone. Count Kovolski's entire fortune is lost with a playing card. The shock is so deep that Stanislaus Kovolski gradually falls into mental derangement and finally ends his life in an insane asylum.
Pique Dame was produced at the beginning of 1918, passed the censors in March of the same year with a ban on young people and was premiered on 17 May 1918 in Berlin's Tauentzienpalast. The length of the four-act play was 1521 metres. Producer Rudolf Dworsky also designed the film buildings. Scriptwriters were Rudolf Strauss and Carl Singer. Supporting parts were for Johannes Riemann, Ernst Pittschau and Ernst Deutsch.
Review: "It was a lucky move to get the best actor of Ibsen's and Tolstoy's characters, Alexander Moissi, for the film. (...) His impressive and punchy performance, with which he portrays the engineer lieutenant who has become a criminal out of his addiction to wealth, makes us forget that we only see Moissi on the screen. At the climax of the plot, when the lieutenant goes mad as a result of losing his game, the great artist's performance is almost overwhelming. Moissi's task is made easier by the other artists, especially Johanna Tenvin [sic] and Herta Russ, who do their best in combination with the good direction. This film work gains a lot from the good photography, through which we can follow even the finest nuance in Moissi's play." (Kinematographische Rundschau, 31 August 1918)
Sources: German Wikipedia, Filmportal, IMDb.
Albanian-Austrian Alexander Moissi (1879-1935) was one of the great European stage actors of the early-20th century. The attractive and charismatic women's idol also appeared in several silent and early sound films, in particular in Germany.
Alexander Moissi in Pique-Dame (1918)
German postcard in the Film Sterne series, no. 522/6. Photo: Amboss Film. Alexander Moissi in Pique-Dame (Arthur Wellin, 1918). The film was based on the eponymous novella by Alexander Pushkin.
Plot: Russia, during the time of the Tsars in the 19th century. The young engineer lieutenant Stanislaus Kovolski (Moissi) is in constant need of money. One day he meets a fortune-teller who prophesies that a great windfall awaits him after he meets an old lady. His friend Prince Domsky (Eduard von Winterstein) tells him en passant in the club about his old aunt, the Countess Balinski (Johanna Terwin). Stanislaus learns from his friend Paul that she acquired her great fortune through a mysterious card game. Now Kovolski is determined to meet the old lady. One of his first attempts to approach the countess leads to an acquaintance with Lisaveta (Hertha Ruß), an impoverished relative of the stony-rich noblewoman, with whom he quickly falls in love. The next time Stanislaus tries to secretly look over the old lady's shoulder in order to elicit the card game secret from her. Countess Balinski is so frightened that she suddenly drops dead.
From then on Count Stanislaus is haunted by nocturnal demons. Plagued by a guilty conscience, he constantly sees the dead old woman in his mind's eye as an eternal reminder. But Madame does not reproach him in any way. Rather, she tells Kovolski her secret: to achieve his goal, he must win the first three games on his next visit to the club. To do this, he must first bet on the three, then on the seven and finally on the ace. He succeeds on the first night. He bets on the three. The second night also brings him luck, this time with the announced seven. Confident of victory, he bets on his ace on the third night, which indeed also wins. Stanislaus now believes he has a future with Lisaveta, but when he wants to show his Ace, to his greatest surprise it is the Queen of Spades.
Count Kovolski is totally shocked, he cannot believe it. After all, he had seen the ace with his own eyes, and now this? He is deeply convinced that the dead countess wants to take revenge on him, who is to blame for the death of her heart, with this sign of fate from the beyond. He has bet everything in his confidence of victory, and now everything is gone. Count Kovolski's entire fortune is lost with a playing card. The shock is so deep that Stanislaus Kovolski gradually falls into mental derangement and finally ends his life in an insane asylum.
Pique Dame was produced at the beginning of 1918, passed the censors in March of the same year with a ban on young people and was premiered on 17 May 1918 in Berlin's Tauentzienpalast. The length of the four-act play was 1521 metres. Producer Rudolf Dworsky also designed the film buildings. Scriptwriters were Rudolf Strauss and Carl Singer. Supporting parts were for Johannes Riemann, Ernst Pittschau and Ernst Deutsch.
Review: "It was a lucky move to get the best actor of Ibsen's and Tolstoy's characters, Alexander Moissi, for the film. (...) His impressive and punchy performance, with which he portrays the engineer lieutenant who has become a criminal out of his addiction to wealth, makes us forget that we only see Moissi on the screen. At the climax of the plot, when the lieutenant goes mad as a result of losing his game, the great artist's performance is almost overwhelming. Moissi's task is made easier by the other artists, especially Johanna Tenvin [sic] and Herta Russ, who do their best in combination with the good direction. This film work gains a lot from the good photography, through which we can follow even the finest nuance in Moissi's play." (Kinematographische Rundschau, 31 August 1918)
Sources: German Wikipedia, Filmportal, IMDb.
Albanian-Austrian Alexander Moissi (1879-1935) was one of the great European stage actors of the early-20th century. The attractive and charismatic women's idol also appeared in several silent and early sound films, in particular in Germany.