The 3 Penny Opera [Die 3 Groschen-Oper] ****(1931, Rudolf Forster, Lotte Lenya, Carola Neher, Fritz Rasp, Reinhold Schünzel, Valeska Gert) – Classic Movie Review 7920

The 3 Penny Opera [Die 3 Groschen-Oper] is the adaptation by Bertolt Brecht (story) and Kurt Weill (music) of John Gay’s opera The Beggar’s Opera, in which dashing gentleman thief Mack the Knife (aka Mackie Messer) is loved by Pirate Jenny but he seduces Polly Peachum (Carola Neher), daughter of the London beggar king, Peachum (Fritz Rasp).

Mackie Messer marries Polly without Peachum’s knowledge, and, when Peachum vows revenge, even Mackie’s best buddy, police chief Tiger-Brown (Reinhold Schünzel) may not be able to save him.

Director Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s 1931 German film version of the musical gets the right stars in Rudolf Forster as Mackie Messer and the great Lotte Lenya (Weill’s wife) as Jenny, the right director in Pabst (Lulu), and a beautifully atmospheric production with a wonderful, extravagant studio production (Staaken Studio, Germany) boasting eye-catching stylised designs of late Victorian London. However, what is missing are some of the songs and a little of the play’s sharp wit.

Ernst Busch sings ‘Mackie Messer’, the song that became the classic ballad ‘Mack the Knife’, and Lenya belts out the equally memorable, if less well-known ‘Pirate Jenny’.

Also in the cast are Valeska Gert as Mrs Peachum, Vladimir Sokoloff, Hermann Thimig, Ernst Busch, Valeska Gert and Herbert Grünbaum.

Brecht so disliked the film that he sued but lost (his script had changed Mack into a banker but the producers baulked at that). Pabst shot it twice, once in German and once in French.

It is also known as The Threepenny Opera [Die Dreigroschenoper].

The 3 Penny Opera [Die 3 Groschen-Oper] is directed by G W Pabst, runs 112 minutes (or 104 minutes censored), is made by Tobis Filmkunst, Nero-Film and Warner Bros, distributed by National-Film (Ger) and Warner (US), is written by Bertolt Brecht (story), Léo Lania, Ladislaus Vajda and Béla Balâzs (adaptation), based on John Gay’s opera The Beggar’s Opera, is shot in black and white by Fritz Arno Wagner, is produced by Seymour Nebenzal, is scored by Kurt Weilland is designed by Andrej Andrejew.

Lotte Lenya (18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) is the Austrian Tony Award-winning and Oscar-nominated actress (for the 1961 The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone) and singer who is best remembered as Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love (1963). 

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7920

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