BOOTLEG FILES 915: “Casanova wider Willen” (1931 German-language version of “Parlor, Bedroom and Bath” starring Buster Keaton).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the proverbial cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It was released as a Region 2 DVD in Europe.
When the silent cinema disappeared in favor of the talkies, film producers found themselves with a tricky situation regarding the international distribution of their work. In the silent cinema, new intertitles in different languages could easily be edited into the prints sent around the world. But once there was a dialogue soundtrack, it appeared that films would be stuck in nations where the actors’ language was spoken.
Since dubbing was still imperfect in the early days of the talkies and subtitles seemed like a poor idea, some ambitious producers opted to do multiple versions of their films in different languages. It helped if the star talent was bilingual, such as the case of Greta Garbo doing “Anna Christie” for German audiences or Ramon Navarro creating second versions of his films for release in Spain and Latin America. But not every film star spoke a second language, and often they were forced to do phonetic foreign-language versions of their work for export to other countries.
That was the case involving Buster Keaton with his 1931 MGM feature “Parlor, Bedroom and Bath.” MGM had Keaton appear in two foreign-language versions of this farce – “Buster se Marie” for release in Francophonic markets and “Casanova wider Willen” for distribution in German-speaking nations. In both cases, Keaton learned his lines phonetically while French and German actors were imported to fill out the casts in their respective versions.
“Buster se Marie” is not currently available for American viewing, but “Casanova wider Willen” can be found on in an unauthorized YouTube posting, albeit without English subtitles. I don’t speak German, but I have seen “Parlor, Bedroom and Bath” and was able to follow the plot.
Based on the 1917 play by Charles W. Bell and Mark Swan, with obvious inspiration from Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the story takes place among the ultra-rich who knew nothing of the Depression era. The playboy Jonny wants to marry the young heiress Evelyn, but she won’t marry until her impossible older sister Anna gets hitched first. The Petruchio of this tale is Keaton’s Reggie Irving, a meek sign tacker who gets hit by Jonny’s car. Jonny conspires to pass Reggie off as a wealthy adventurer with a leonine appetite for women. But, of course, things don’t go according to plan.
Contrary to the popular notion that Keaton lost control of his creative output when he joined MGM, “Parlor, Bedroom and Bath” was presented by the studio as “A Buster Keaton Production” – and some of the exterior scenes were shot on location at Keaton’s extravagant Beverly Hills mansion. The film includes numerous sequences that are clearly tailored for Keaton’s brand of knockabout, including a prolonged piece with Keaton unsuccessfully maneuvering the slippery surface of a wet hotel lobby with a bag of golf clubs, a reworking of a classic railroad sight gag from Keaton’s 1920 short “One Week,” plus numerous pratfalls with Keaton tumbling and collapsing all over the place,
While contemporary film scholars mostly denigrate his MGM talkies, Keaton’s output of that era was commercially successful. And, truth be told, these films are nowhere near as rotten as many scholars insist.
As for Keaton’s German-language lines, it is amusing to hear his Midwestern-flat voice spitting out the German dialogue. Mercifully, he is not given paragraphs of text to recite, but mostly single brief sentences while the German-speaking cast handles the bulk of the script. Keaton’s physical performance is, of course, wonderful, though it sometimes feels out of place amid the excessive verbiage of the production – which was also a problem in the English-language original.
The direction of “Casanova wider Willen” is credited to Edward Brophy, a comic character and an occasional production manager who worked with Keaton on “The Cameraman” and “Doughboys.” Brophy is also credited with directing the French version of this material, “Buster se Marie.” Those are his only directing credits – and since Brophy was most likely not fluent in German or French, one must assume there were additional talents behind the camera to steer these endeavors.
If there is a historic reason to appreciate “Casanova wider Willen,” it would be Paul Morgan’s performance as Jonny. Morgan was a Vienna-born comic actor who was popular in German films and cabaret in the late 1920s and early 1930s. MGM brought him over to star in German-language films, most notably “Menschen hinter Gittern” (the German version of “The Big House” and the promotional film “Wir schalten um auf Hollywood” that sold the studio’s stars (including Keaton) to German-speaking audiences. Morgan is also credited with providing the German dialogue for this film.
After nine months at MGM, Morgan returned to Vienna, but the rise of Nazism spelled the end of his career. Although Morgan and his parents were practicing Catholics, his grandparents were Jewish – and to the Nazis, he was considered Jewish. After Hitler’s annexation of Austria, he was arrested and was sent to the Dachau concentration camp before being transferred to Buchenwald. On December 10, 1938, contraband food was found hidden in the block where Morgan was incarcerated. The camp commanders punished their captives by forcing them to do strenuous exercises in the bitter cold while wearing clothing that was inadequate for the climate. Morgan collapsed during the punishment exercises and died from pneumonia at the age of 52.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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