German postcard by Verlag Harlip, no. 611. Photo: Harlip.

Exotic, brunette actress Tamara Desni (1910–2008) was the daughter of Ukrainian-born film star Xenia Desni. Tamara started her stage and film career as a child in Berlin and appeared in several British films during the 1930s and 1940s.

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German postcard by Verlag Harlip, no. 465. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

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 born as Brigitte Eva Gisela Schittenhelm in Berlin, Germany, in 1906 (some sources say 1908). Her father was a Prussian army officer, who left his wife a widow not long after. Brigitte gained her acting experience in school productions but never thought of acting classes. After her school exams, she wanted to be an astronomer. But then she was discovered by the famous director Fritz Lang for the lead in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), then the most expensive German film ever made. Her mother had sent a photograph of her beautiful 16-years-old daughter to Lang's wife, scriptwriter Thea von Harbou. Helm was invited to the set of Die Nibelungen and was given a screen test. She got the double role of the noble and virginal Maria and her evil and sensual twin, the Maschinenmensch, a robot created to urge the workers in revolting and destroy their own city. In their 1996 obituary in The New York Times, Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog note: "The film depicts the world of 2006, a time, Lang envisioned, when a ruling class lives in decadent luxury in the loft heights of skyscrapers linked by aerial railways, while beneath the streets slave-like workers toll in unbearable conditions to sustain their masters. But for all the steam and special effects, for many who have seen the movie in its various incarnations, including a tinted version and one accompanied by music, the most compelling lingering image is neither the towers above nor the hellish factories below. It is the staring transformation of Ms. Helm from an idealistic young woman into a barely clad creature performing a lascivious dance in a brothel." Metropolis made Brigitte Helm a star overnight.

UFA gave Brigitte Helm a contract, and over the next 10 years, she acted in 29 German, French, and English films. She was cast as the evil but oh so seductive protagonist in the Sci-Fi-horror film Alraune. First in the silent version of 1928, directed by Henrik Galeen. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel 'Alraune' has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his 'mad doctor' roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, the sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions - least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself." Two years later Helm also starred in the sound version, Alraune/A Daughter of Destiny (Richard Oswald, 1930), for which the Dutch postcard lower in this post was made.

Brigitte Helm played a helpless blind woman who is seduced by a rogue in the wartime melodrama Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney/The Love of Jeanne Ney (G.W. Pabst, 1927). It was Brigitte Helm's first project with Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the director who could - better than any other director - bring out her mysterious adaptability. In his films Abwege/The Devious Path (1928) and L’Atlantide/Die Herrin von Atlantis/Queen of Atlantis (1932) she proved that she could perform more restrained and emotionally expressive characters. In Abwege, she portrays a spoilt woman of the world who from sheer boredom almost destroys her own life. In L'Atlantide (1932), Helm plays a goddess, the mere sight of whom makes men crazy. Werner Sudendorff wrote in his obituary of Helm in The Independent: "Her power is not of this world, but incomprehensible, magical. This was Helm's last really great role, a legendary mysterious sphinx of the German cinema." These films and Marcel L'Herbier's late silent film L'Argent/The Money (Marcel L’ Herbier, 1928) allowed Helm to act outside the tired cliches she was later often subjected to by scriptwriters and producers.

Brigitte Helm's first sound film was the musical Die singende Stadt/City of Song (Carmine Gallone, 1930) with Jan Kiepura. She also appeared in the French and English versions of her German films. Werner Sudendorff: "In her films of the early 1930s, Brigitte Helm became the embodiment of the down-to-earth, affluent modern woman. With her slim figure and austere pre-Raphaelite profile, she seems unapproachable, a model fashion-conscious woman, under whose ice-cold outer appearance criminal energies flicker." However, 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. Her relationship with the Ufa happened to be very rocky. While the studio had made her a star and kept increasing her pay, the actress was unhappy with the material the Ufa offered her and she was annoyed about the restrictive clauses dictating her weight.

Reportedly Brigitte Helm was Josef Von Sternberg's original choice for the starring role of Der Blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930), but the part went to Marlene Dietrich. Helm was also James Whale's first choice for his Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but reportedly she refused to go to America. In 1935, angered by the Nazi control of the German film industry, she didn’t extend her contract with the Ufa. Perhaps another reason for her decision were the negative press reports about her many traffic accidents and the short prison sentence as a result of it. Her last film was Ein Idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935), an adaptation of the play by Oscar Wilde.

In private, Brigitte Helm was a timid, modest, and not very ambitious personality. In 1935, after a short but prolific career of 32 films, she married Dr. Hugo Von Kunheim, a German industrialist of Jewish descent, and retired. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "in addition to no longer needing to pursue her acting, with which she was never 100-percent comfortable, she was repelled by the takeover of the German movie industry by the Hitler government. Her marital status, coupled with her anti-Nazi political views, made it impossible for Helm to continue working in movies or living in Germany. From 1935 onward, the couple lived in Switzerland. After the war, they divided their time between Germany and Switzerland, but Helm chose to live quietly and remain anonymous." The pair would raise four children. In 1968 Helm 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, nor even grant an interview about her film career, but she always answered requests from her old fans for her signature. Brigitte Helm died in 1996 in Ascona, Switzerland. In particular, her Evil Maria won't be forgotten. Apt for her is the Mae West line: "When I am good, I am very good; but when I am bad, I am better."

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog (The New York Times), Werner Sudendorff (The Independent), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Film Reference, Lenin Imports, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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German postcard in "Das Programm von Heute" für Film und Theater G.m.b.H., Stuttgart. Photo: Harlip.

Pretty Austrian actress Jenny Jugo (1904-2001) had a prolific career in German cinema, from the late silent era well into the war years. She did particularly well as a comedienne and starred between 1931 and 1942 in eleven smart and charming comedies directed by Erich Engel.

Jenny Jugo was born as Eugenie Jenny Walter in Mürzzuschlag, Austria-Hungary (now Austria), in 1904, as the daughter of a factory owner. She grew up in Vienna and Graz, where she visited a monastic school. At the age of 16, Jenny got married to the Italian actor Emo Jugo who took her to Berlin. Already one year later followed their separation. The famous producer Erich Pommer discovered Jenny for the cinema, and in 1924, she got a three-year contract from the Ufa. She started to play in films like Die Puppe vom Lunapark/The Lunapark Doll (Jaap Speyer, 1925) with Adolphe Engers, Der Turm des Schweigens/The Tower of Silence (Johannes Guter, 1925), Die gefundene Braut/The Found Bride (Rochus Gliese, 1925) both starring Xenia Desni, Blitzzug der Liebe/Love Express Train (Johannes Guter, 1925) with Ossi Oswalda, and Liebe macht blind/Love Makes Us Blind (Lothar Mendes, 1925) with Georg Alexander. Her dramatic roles were not very succesful and Ufa lent her to the Phoebus-Film A.G. There she made some of her most successful films like Schiff in Not/Ship Stranded (Fred Sauer, 1925) with Gustav Fröhlich, Casanova/The Loves of Casanova (Alexandre Volkoff, 1927) starring Ivan Mozzhukhin, and the Alexander Pushkin adaptation Pique Dame (Aleksandr Razumnyi, 1927). As the vivacious and much younger wife of bureaucrat Werner Krauss, she proved in the farce Die Hose/The Trousers (Hans Behrendt, 1927) her talent for comedy and self-irony.

When the era of the silent film was over and sound film demanded a new acting talent and especially a very clear pronunciation, Jenny Jugo took acting lessons for the first time in her life. In the next years, she acted in less important films like Kopfüber ins Glück/Headfirst in Happiness (Hans Steinhoff, 1929) with Fritz Schulz, and Die nackte Wahrheit/The Naked Truth (Karl Anton, 1931). Starting with Wer nimmt die Liebe ernst?/Who Takes Love Seriously? (Erich Engel, 1931) starring Max Hansen, she began a cooperation with director Erich Engel who knew how to use her comedy talent. Till 1942 they shot eleven films together. These included Fünf von der Jazzband/Five of the Jazzband (Erich Engel, 1932), the G.B. Shaw adaptation Pygmalion (Erich Engel, 1935) with Gustaf Gründgens, as the young Queen Victoria in Mädchenjahre einer Königin/Girlhood of a Queen (Erich Engel, 1936), Gefährliches Spiel/Dangerous Game (Erich Engel, 1937) opposite Harry Liedtke, Nanette (Erich Engel, 1939) with Hans Söhnker, and Viel Lärm um Nixi/Much Ado About Nixi (Erich Engel, 1942) with Albert Matterstock. In these films, she established an acting style that was described by Bertolt Brecht as "just naturalness". She belonged with Zarah Leander and Paula Wessely to the best-paid actresses of the Ufa. However, she would play in only three more productions: Die Gattin/The Wife (Georg Jacoby, 1943), Träum' nicht, Anette/Don't Dream, Anette (Eberhard Klagemann, 1949) and Königskinder/Royal Children (Helmut Käutner, 1949) with Peter van Eyck. In 1950 Jugo married actor Enrico Benfer a.k.a. Friedrich Benfer, with whom she had worked in many of her films. They retired from the film business to a farm in Schönrain near Bad Heilbrunn, Bavaria. In 1971 she was awarded the Filmband in Gold for her long and outstanding contributions to the German cinema. In the 1970s a medical treatment went wrong, and since then Jugo was tied up in a wheelchair. Jenny Jugo died in 2001 in Schwaighofen near Königsdorf, Germany. She was 96. In the summer of 2006, the film museum of Potsdam acquired a quite special collection: about forty costumes which Jugo had worn in her Ufa films and numerous documents, which the star herself had saved at her High-Bavarian farm.

Sources: Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line - German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, IMDb, and Wikipedia (German).

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German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5684/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Harlip, Berlin.

German actor Paul Henckels (1885-1967) appeared in over 230 films, often as a supporting actor. He played in films by directors like Fritz Lang, Jacques Feyder, and G.W. Pabst. He also worked as a stage actor, a stage director, and as a theatre manager.

Paul Henckels was born in 1885 in Hürth, near Köln (Cologne), Germany. His father was the industrialist and painter Paul Abraham Henckels and his mother was the actress Cäcilia Warszawska. Paul studied from 1905 till 1907 at the Hochschule für Bühnenkunst at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He made his first stage appearance in Kotzebue’s Die deutschen Kleinstädter; and was a great success in the title role of Schneider Wibbel (1913), written by his school buddy Hans Müller-Schlösser. The great Max Reinhardt invited him in 1920 to come to Berlin. In 1921, Henckels was a co-founder and the artistic director of the Schlosspark-Theater in Berlin. Here he appeared in 1922 as Molière’s Der Geizige/The Miser. He later would work for the Volksbühne, Deutschen Theater, and many other Berlin stages. From 1936 till 1945 he was engaged at the prestigious Preußischen Staatstheater in Berlin under intendant Gustaf Gründgens. In 1921 film star Henny Porten discovered him for the cinema. After a minor part as "O. Henckels" in Das Geheimnis der sechs Spielkarten, 5. Teil – Herz König (1921), Porten gave him the male lead as the evil antagonist Jasper in Das Geheimnis von Brinkenhof (Svend Gade, 1923).

Among his other silent films are INRI (Robert Wiene, 1923) with Porten, Staatsanwalt Jordan (Karl Gerhardt, 1926) with Hans Mierendorff, Thérèse Raquin (Jacques Feyder, 1928) starring Gina Manès, Der Biberpelz/The Beaver Fur (Erich Schönfelder, 1928) opposite La Jana, Die große Liebe (Revolutionshochzeit) (A.W. Sandberg, 1928) with Diomira Jacobini and Karina Bell, Ariadne in Hoppegarten (Robert Dinesen, 1928) with Maria Jacobini, Der Unüberwindliche (Max Obal, 1928) with Luciano Albertini, Geschlecht in Fesseln (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1928), § 173 St.G.B. Blutschande/Culpable Marriages (James Bauer, 1929), and the Henny Porten films Liebfraumlich (Carl Froehlich, 1928-29) and Mutterliebe (Georg Jacoby, 1929). When the sound film was near at hand he was enthusiastic about the idea of a talking picture. He worked at the ‘practice of the sound film actor’, and directed a short film, Paul Graets als Berliner Zeitungsjunge (1929). The early sound film offered him leading parts in such films as Skandal um Eva/Scandal Around Eva (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1930) starring Henny Porten, Er und sein Diener/He and His Servant (Steve Sekely, 1931), and Flachsmann als Erzieher/Flachsmann as Educator (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1930) opposite Charlotte Ander. He directed himself in Schneider Wibbel/Tailor Wibbel (Paul Henckels, 1931).

Typical for Paul Henckels film characters is their accent and humour from the Rhineland region. He often played cranky and stubborn fellows. Among his films were Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/ The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933), Ein idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935) starring Brigitte Helm; Napoleon ist an allem Schuld/Napoleon is to Blame for Everything (Curt Goetz, 1938), Der Maulkorb/The Muzzle (Erich Engel, 1938) and Zwei in einer großen Stadt/Two in a Big City (Volker von Collande, 1942). Unforgettable was his character Professor Bommel in Die Feuerzangenbowle (Helmut Weiss, 1944). This is the second film version of Heinrich Spoerl's novel about pupils playing various tricks and jokes on their teachers. The twist in the story is the leader of the pack, the major cause of the teachers' headaches: Johannes Pfeiffer (Heinz Rühmann) is not a real pupil at all. He is a successful playwright with a Ph.D. One evening at the pub his friends discover that he never went to a school but was educated privately. The stories of their boyhood years persuade him to see for himself and 'be a boy again'. The film was made in 1944, so it is a bit astonishing that the Nazi censors were prepared to pass a film with such an anti-authoritarian message. Die Feuerzangenbowle is very well made and today enjoys a cult status in Germany.

Paul Henckels’ first post-war film was Wozzeck (Georg C. Klaren, 1947), based on the famous play by Georg Büchner. In this early DEFA production he played a cold and cynically experimenting doctor. His later roles were more stereotypical characters. To his last films belong Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1952) starring Camilla Spira, Hollandmädel (J. A. Hübler-Kahla, 1953), Staatsanwältin Corda/Prosecutor Corda (Karl Ritter, 1954), Kirschen in Nachbars Garten/Cherries in the Neighbour’s Garden (Erich Engels, 1956), and Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) featuring Horst Buchholz. He focussed on his stage work and did recital tours, performing Wilhelm Busch and German classics. During the 1950s and 1960s he also appeared often on TV, like in Die fröhliche Weinrunde/The Cheerful Wine Bout with singer Margit Schramm, and in Nachsitzen für Erwachsene/Detention for Adults as a professor, who explained interesting phenomenons for a class with four adults (among them was film actor Hans Richter). In 1962 he was awarded the Filmband in Gold for his longtime and important contributions to the German cinema. Paul Henckels died in 1967 in Kettwig, now Essen. He was married with actress Thea Grodtzinsky. His first wife was Cecilia Brie, a former actress, with whom he had three children.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line.de), Wikipedia, Filmportal.de, and IMDb.

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German postcard by Ross-Verlag, Berlin, no. 5174/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Harlip, Berlin.

Dignified German-Russian actress Olga Tschechova (1897-1980) was one of the most popular stars of the silent film era. She remained a mysterious person throughout her life.

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