Film Review
Fritz Lang's second collaboration with screenwriter (and wife-to-be)
Thea von Harbou is this frenetically paced thriller-melodrama.
With its narrative complexity, moody cinematography and razor-sharp
editing.
Vier um die Frau
(a.k.a.
Four Around a Woman)
presages Lang's later crime masterpieces
Dr Mabuse, der Spieler (1922),
Spione
(1928) and
M
(1930) but is an impressive work in its own right.
Far more sophisticated than Lang's previous film,
Das Wandernde Bild (1920),
Vier um die Frau is a scurrilous
piece of social satire, in which uncomfortable parallels are drawn
between Germany's upper classes and the unsavoury figures of the
underworld, blackmailers, forgers and jewel thieves. Indeed, the
demarcation between these two strata of German society appears hardly
to exist at all, a point of view which many of Lang's compatriots would
have shared.
The lightning pace of this film and the torturous plot place great
demands on the spectator's concentration, and you probably have to
watch it a second time just to make sense of it. However, no one
can fail to be impressed by the quality of Fritz Lang's
mise-en-scène, which squeezes every last scintilla of dramatic
tension and irony from Thea von Harbou's labyrinthine screenplay.
An important milestone in Lang's career,
Vier um die Frau was believed to
have been lost until a poor quality print was unearthed in 1986 from
Cinemateca de Sâo Paulo in Brazil. Now that the film has
been beautifully restored, devotees of early German cinema can
appreciate one of Lang's lesser known achievements, a film that offers
tantalising glimpses of his subsequent masterworks.
© James Travers 2010
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Next Fritz Lang film:
Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922)
Film Synopsis
Harry Yquem is a rich stockbroker who intends giving his wife Florence a
present that will leave her in no doubt as to his devotion to her.
Naturally, being careful with his money, he doesn't want to spend a fortune,
so he sets out to find himself a bargain in a dubious jewel market that is
serviced by the criminal class. As he does so, he cannot help noticing
a man that he feel he half-recognises. Harry becomes convinced that
he is the exact likeness of a man he has seen in one of Florence's photographs.
Within no time, Harry is certain that this man - William Krafft - is his
wife's lover, and in the hope of confirming his suspicions he begins to trail
the unsuspecting stranger.
Harry then lures Krafft to his house by writing to him a letter in his wife's
handwriting. How is he to know that he is pursuing the wrong man?
Unbeknown to him, William Krafft has a twin brother, Werner, and this is
the man whom Florence once lost her heart to. As Harry makes preparations
to extort a confession from one brother, the other is back in town, hoping
to pick up where he left off with Florence. Only one person knows the
truth of Werner Kraffts's erstwhile romance with Harry's wife - Meunier -
and he plans to use this knowledge for his own wicked ends...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.