''Variety'' ( , also known by the alternative titles ''Jealousy'' or ''Vaudeville'') is a 1925 German silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Ewald Andre Dupont based on the 1912 novel '' The Oath of Stephan Huller'' by Felix Hollaender. The trapeze scenes are set in the Berlin Wintergarten theatre. The camera swings from long shot to close-up, like the acrobats. The story was loosely remade by Dupont as the 1931 German sound film '' Salto Mortale''.

Plot

In the film, Jannings portrays "Boss Huller", a former trapeze artist who was badly injured in a fall from the high wire and who now runs a seedy carnival with his wife (Maly Delschaft) and their child. Huller insists that the family take in a beautiful stranger ( Lya De Putti) as a new sideshow dancer, with whom he develops a new trapeze number. He falls in love with the new star, and the story ends in tragedy.

Cast

* Emil Jannings as Boss Huller * Maly Delschaft as wife of Boss * Lya De Putti as Bertha * Warwick Ward as Artinelli * Georg John

Release

The film was heavily censored when it was released in the United States (except for New York) by excising the entire first reel, "thus destroying the motivation of the tragedy, implying that the acrobat was married to his Eurasian temptress."

Influence

The film is noted for its innovative camerawork with highly expressive movement through space, accomplished by the expressionist cinematographer Karl Freund. Decades later, the German director

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck (; born 2 May 1973) is a German-Austrian film director. He is best known for writing and directing the 2006 dramatic thriller ''Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)'', which won ...

cites being unexpectedly exposed to the film as a child of four as the start of his interest in the medium.Rohter, Larry
"German Director Plunges Beyond His Comfort Zone"
''The New York Times'', 8 December 2010 (9 December 2010 p. C1 NY ed.). Retrieved 8 December 2010. This film is believed to contain the first documentation of

unicycle hockey Unicycle hockey is a team sport, similar to rink hockey where players try to hit the ball with their sticks into the other team's goal, except that each player must be mounted on a unicycle to play the ball. A team is composed of five players (pl ...

– it features a short sequence showing two people playing the game.

References

External links