Fraulein Else (1928)

I'm taking a break from the Film Festival this weekend to play a little "catch-up" with the rest of my life -- which of course does include watching the odd film or two.  It was my first viewing of the above which again was recently restored, but despite a slim story based on a Arthur Schnitzler tale it was so much livelier than the other German silent that I viewed yesterday evening (and reviewed below).  Part of this was due to an engaging orchestral score but most of it was down to the playing of the lead role by Elisabeth Bergner who was a big stage star in Germany at the time.  She and her husband (the director here) moved to Britain in the thirties, presumably to escape from Hitler, and she had a brief starry career.  In this movie she has gone to St Moritz with her friends, but receives a wire from her mother that papa is in deep financial trouble; she is asked to approach a "friend" of the family who is some kind of dirty old man.  He makes it clear that he might help in exchange for her revealing her body (or more).  She can't bring herself to this and evolves a plan which ends in her death and completely mortifies the potential financial saviour; how this would help dear papa is a very moot point.