German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 632/4. Photo: Maxim Film. Walter Janssen and Ria Jende in Der Tänzer (Carl Froehlich, 1919), based on the novel by Felix Holländer.
Andreas Rellnow (Walter Janssen) is the son of a highly nervous professor, whom he never felt loved by, and an aging dancer. Tired of the joyless parental home, one day Andreas decides to move out into the wide world and pursue an artist career. As a violin virtuoso, he quickly becomes a popular and a first-class heartbreaker. The women throw themselves at Andreas's feet, but he doesn't know how to give love and instead carelessly bends the hearts of his countless admirers.
Don Juan falls into disaster for many of them: Lucie Trenkwitz, the daughter of a respected consul, becomes his first victim (Gertrud Welcker). The next woman who does not find her love returned is Angela von Seydlitz (Irmgard Bern) and is the daughter of a chamberlain. Maria Friesländer (Margarete Kupfer), the wife of a helmsman, is hardly doing any better, and finally the dancer Lisa Lerder follows. But this is the end point for Andreas, because Lisa's partner William puts a cruel end to the careless activity of the heartbreaker and stabs Rellnow. NB it is unclear who played the parts of Lisa and William. Neither is it clear which part Ria Jende played. Lil Dagover played Rellnow's mother.
The film was in two episodes. Froehlich scripted the film with Georg Tatzelt. Sets were by Hans Sohnle, cinematography by Otto Tober. Der Tänzer was Janssen's second film after Die entschleierte Maja (1917).
German-Belgian actress Ria Jende (1898-? [after 1927]) was a star and producer of the silent German cinema. She appeared in 40 films, before she married and retired.
Walter Janssen (1887-1976), originally Walter Philipp Janßen, was a German stage and screen actor and film director. Between the late 1910s and the late 1950s, Walter Janssen had a very prolific acting career in German cinema.
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