''Mysteries of a Barbershop'' (german: Mysterien eines Frisiersalons) is a comic, slapstick German film of 33 minutes, created by Bertolt Brecht, directed by

Erich Engel Erich Gustav Otto Engel (14 February 1891 – 10 May 1966) was a German film and theatre director.He is often confused with another German film director called Erich Engels, who specialised in comedy, and crime films. Biography Engel was b ...

, and starring the Munich cabaret clown

Karl Valentin Karl Valentin (born Valentin Ludwig Fey, 4 June 1882 in Munich – 9 February 1948 in Planegg) was a Bavarian comedian. He had significant influence on German Weimar culture. Valentin starred in many silent films in the 1920s, and was sometimes ...

and leading stage actor

Erwin Faber Erwin Faber (21 July 1891 – 4 May 1989) was a leading actor in Munich and later throughout Germany, beginning after World War I, and through the late-1970s, when he was still performing at the Residenz Theatre (The National Theatre of Bava ...

. Brecht reportedly did not write a complete shooting script, but rather produced "notes" and "parts of a manuscript" (according to Faber) for this short, silent film and intended the actors to improvise the action. Although the film was not considered a success by any of its creative team, and consequently never released as a profit making film to the public, it has been recognized and acknowledged—since its re-discovery in a Moscow archive in the 1970s—as a considerably important German film.

"A Little Joke" by Bertolt Brecht

In an interview with

, who played Dr. Moras—the "romantic star" of the film—it was clear that ''Mysteries of a Barbershop'' was intended by Brecht in this, his first attempt at filmmaking, to be nothing more than "just a little joke." ''Mysteries of a Barbershop'' was created during a month-long pause before the beginning of rehearsals for Bertolt Brecht's early drama, ''

In the Jungle of Cities ''In the Jungle of Cities'' (''Im Dickicht der Städte'') is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. Written between 1921 and 1924, it received its first theatrical production under the title ''Im Dickicht'' ("In the jungle") a ...

'' at the Munich National Theatre, in February 1923. Brecht and

(the director of ''In the Jungle''), assembled a cast that included

, Liesl Karlstadt (Valentin's cabaret partner), Erwin Faber (the leading actor in Munich at the time and star of Brecht's three staged plays in Munich - '' Drums in the Night'', ''

'', and the forthcoming '' Edward II''),

Max Schreck Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck Eickhoff, Stefan. 2007 (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936), Walk, Ines. 2006. known professionally as Max Schreck, was a German actor, best known for his lead role as the vampire Count Orlok in the film ...

(soon to be a leading film actor in such films as ''

Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife ...

''), comic actor Josef Eichheim, character actor Kurt Horwitz, Carola Neher (later to play the lead in Brecht's '' Happy End'' and the role of Polly in the film of '' Threepenny Opera'') and the cabaretist (and wife of songwriter,

Friedrich Hollaender Friedrich Hollaender (in exile also Frederick Hollander; 18 October 189618 January 1976) was a German film composer and author. Life and career He was born in London to a Jewish family, where his father, operetta composer Victor Hollaender, w ...

), Blandine Ebinger. The group improvised a series of comic and mock-romantic scenes, which, according to one critic, "contains enough cruelty jokes to have made WC Fields envious."

Plot

The plot revolves around Dr. Moras (Faber) who visits a barber (Valentin), who accidentally shaves Moras to look like a Chinese person, and then mistakenly cuts off Moras' rival's head (photo, above, right), which is sewn back on, and ends with a sword fight - "The Duel" - and in which Faber is triumphant, actually saved by the barber's assistant (Ebinger), and Ebinger and Faber embrace in a happy ending in a mysterious Senegalese Salon. The finale of Faber and Ebinger kissing illustrates one of Brecht's first uses of the mock-romantic "happy ending" that would become a signature of Brecht's work throughout the years of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...

. One critic aptly called the short film "dadaesque absurdity combine with clownesque slapstick." Another reviewer called it "Karl Valentin meets Dada and the Marx Brothers.""Press Portal: a Service of the Bavarian News," (Bayerischer Rundfunk), 23 May 2007.

Production

* Director:

(with a little help from Bertolt Brecht) * Script: Bertolt Brecht (with

and quite possibly

) * Actors:

, Blandine Ebinger, Josef Eichheim, Annemarie Hase, Kurt Horwitz, Liesl Karlstadt, Hans Leibelt, Carola Neher, Otto Wernicke.

References

External links

* * {{Bertolt Brecht Films of the Weimar Republic 1923 films German silent short films Unreleased films 1920s rediscovered films German black-and-white films German comedy films 1923 comedy films Films based on works by Bertolt Brecht Rediscovered German films Silent comedy films 1920s German films