Sumurun (1920)

Description

A most extraordinary chunk of cinematographic history! A mixture of theatre, pantomime and movie. Pantomime has developed out of longstanding traditions of popular theatre common throughout Europe, known at one point as “low opera”. “Sumurun” is a German pantomime with which renowned theatre producer Max Reinhardt had great success in the mid-1910s. It is not a familiar story, but the wild and wonderful tone with which it is played bears some similarities to how we understand the genre today. The richness of Max Reinhardt’s stage direction of Friedrich Feska’s play, The Arabian Nights, is transferred and adapted to the screen in Six Acts by Reinhardt’s protégé, Ernst Lubitsch. He heads up a sterling internationally flavoured cast. The movie looks spectacular and features tons of elaborate and exotic sets, lots of costumed extras and a large scope. You can certainly see that this was a high-cost production. It clearly impressed Mary Pickford who was responsible for later bringing the great man to the United States. The story takes us to Orient, where a troupe arrives in a village and the hunchback Yeggar is in love with the dancer Yannaia, who seems to be desired by every man in the world. However, Yannaia has been invited by the slave trader Achmed to join the harem of the cruel and tyrannical Old Sheik. But when the Young Sheik sees Yannaia, he also desires her and allows the troupe to exhibit in the streets of his village so she can stay. Meanwhile, the favourite concubine of the Old Sheik, Sumurun, and the cloth merchant Nur-Al Din are in love with each other. However, the Old Sheik mistakenly believes that the Young Sheik desires her and he decides to punish Sumurun. The harem decides to help her to be with her beloved. It is Pola Negri (Yannaia), in her prime, that steals the show – it’s her film. Her mixture of naturalness, affected silent-era mannerisms and vampish womanly sexiness, make it clear why she became a star. This is a very old film and still pretty “grainy” despite some restoration but quite watchable and helped by captions translated into English.