''The Moon of Israel'' (, or "The Queen of the Slaves") is a 1924 Austrian

epic film Epic films have large scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. The term is slightly ambiguous, sometimes designating a film genre and at other times simply big-budget films. Like epics in the classical literary sense, it is often focused on a her ...

. It was directed by Mihaly Kertész (later Michael Curtiz). The script was written by

Ladislaus Vajda Ladislaus Vajda (also László Vajda; born Lipót Weisz; 18 August 1877 – 10 March 1933) was a Hungarian screenwriter. He wrote for 40 films in Hungary, Austria and Germany between 1916 and 1932. He was born in Eger, Northern Hungary and ...

, based on H. Rider Haggard's 1918 novel '' Moon of Israel'', which in its turn was inspired by the

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

story of the Exodus. It was this film that brought Kertész to the attention of the studio head

Jack L. Warner Jack Leonard Warner (born Jacob Warner; August 2, 1892 – September 9, 1978) was a Canadian-born American film executive, who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros., Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Warner's ca ...

, who invited him to Hollywood in 1926, where he rapidly became Michael Curtiz and made a career with the Warner Studios. Shooting took place in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

with about 5,000 extras, in the studios of

Sascha-Film Sascha-Film, in full Sascha-Filmindustrie AG and from 1933 Tobis-Sascha-Filmindustrie AG, was the largest Austrian film production company of the silent film and early sound film period. History The business was established in 1910 by Alexander ...

, and outdoors in the Laaer Berg park area. The premiere was on 24 October 1924. The restored complete version of the film, which was thought to be entirely lost for many years, was first shown on 26 February 2005 in the Wiener Metro Kino.

Story

In about the year 1230 BC the

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

s are in slavery in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. At this difficult time the Jewish slave-girl Merapi falls in love with Prince Seti, son of the Pharaoh Menapta. This socially inappropriate love leads to numerous problems, which can nevertheless be resolved. At the end of the film

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

leads his people through the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and into freedom.

Production

One of the most outstanding scenes is the

parting of the Red Sea The Parting of the Red Sea or Crossing of the Red Sea (, lit. "parting of the sea of reeds") is an episode in The Exodus, a foundational story in the Hebrew Bible. It tells of the escape of the Israelites, led by Moses, from the pursuing Egypt ...

( Hans Marr). Since at the same time the American film '' The Ten Commandments'' was being made, which also featured the parting of the Red Sea, the Viennese team took extraordinary care over this scene out of fear of superior American special effects technology. In the final version, thanks to subsequent trick editing, the gigantic wooden construction, designed to release of water from both sides at once, is unrecognisable. The water poured into a closed wooden trough square and deep on the Laaer Berg park in Vienna. The walls of water to either side were modelled out of plaster, which looked completely realistic on black-and-white film. One single take could now depict both the parting and the closing of the sea: for the former, the shot was simply spliced into the film in reverse. The actors were filmed in the dry and overwhelmed by the "sea" later, during the editing. When, a few weeks after the ''Sklavenkönigin'' opened, the competing film was also in the cinemas, it came as a surprise that the parting of the Red Sea was considerably more realistic in the Austrian production. It was not only the Viennese critics who noted this: even

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

colleagues expressed their amazement that in this regard Laaer Berg had outdone Hollywood. The director of Sascha-Film,

Arnold Pressburger Arnold Pressburger (27 August 1885 – 17 February 1951) was an Austrian Jewish film producer who produced more than 70 films between 1913 and 1951. Pressburger was born in Pressburg, Austria-Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia) and died in Ha ...

, assisted the film director Michael Kertész as artistic director. The assistant director was Arthur Gottlein. The cameramen Max Nekut,

Gustav Ucicky Gustav Ucicky (6 July 1899 – 27 April 1961) was an Austrians, Austrian film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. He was one of the more successful directors in Austria and Germany from the 1930s through to the early 1960s. His work cov ...

and Hans Theyer were supported by Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky, the film's producer, as technical director. The film is supposed to have cost 1.5 billion Kronen. The true value of the sum is admittedly relativised by the constant high inflation that raged until the mid-1920s. Still, nevertheless it is one of the highest outlays ever for an Austrian film. Sascha-Film was only able to obtain credit from their bank against the personal security provided by Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky. The reason for this was partly the high production costs, but also the film's very risky economic prospects - many Austrian film production companies, after several boom years, had gone bankrupt. Austrian production companies were less and less able to stand up to the strong competition of cheap foreign imports, particularly from the United States. Additionally, inflation was receding, which made Austrian films more expensive abroad, after a period in which film export had flourished, thanks to the weak currency. Besides, the high period of the

was gradually passing - the sensation value of the enormous crowd scenes and of scantily clad actresses was falling.

Cast

* María Corda as Merapi, The Moon of Israel *

Adelqui Migliar Adelqui Migliar (5 August 1891 – 6 August 1956), also known as Adelqui Millar, was a Chilean film actor, director, writer and producer. He appeared in 31 silent films between 1916 and 1928. He also directed 24 films between 1922 and 1954. ...

(as Adelqui Millar) as Prinz Seti * Arlette Marchal as Userti * Ferdinand Bonn as Ana * Oskar Beregi Sr. as Amenmeses *Adolf Weisse as Pharaoh Menapta * Hans Marr as Moses * Reinhold Häussermann as Pampasa *Georges Haryton as Laban *Emil Heise as Khi, the High Priest *Boris Baranoff as Merapi's father * Hans Thimig

Sets and costumes

The sets and buildings were created by Artur Berger and

Emil Stepanek Emil Stepanek (21 February 1895 – 12 April 1945) was an Austrian set designer and film architect. Biography Stepanek was born in Vienna, the son of a carpenter, and received a training in stage set construction, in which he worked for severa ...

, who already had experience of monumental epics, having worked on the greatest film structure in Austrian film history, the Tower of Babel in '' Sodom und Gomorrha'' of 1922. The costumes were by Remigius Geyling. The great majority of the cast were very simply dressed, but the palace residents and the priests had some of the most imaginative and creative costumes of the silent film period.

Background

Like other films of the period the ''Die Sklavenkönigin'' was inspired by the Egyptomania that was sweeping the world after the discovery of the intact tomb and treasures of the Pharaoh

Tutankhamun Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (; ), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he instituted the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of an ...

. The female lead, for once, was not the director's wife, as in most of Michael Kertész's previous films: Lucy Doraine was by this time divorced from him, and so the starring role went to María Corda, the wife of his competitor

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; ; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)

, who was also making epics in Vienna at this time. The premiere took place in the Eos-Kino, in which Sascha-Film had an interest. For the occasion the cinema was done up in Ancient Egyptian style and decorated with pictures of gods and statues of warriors.

Versions

The black-and-white silent 35 mm film, 2,300 metres long, had a sound track added in 1932 by the ''Selenophon Licht- und Tonbildgesellschaft''; without the

intertitle In films and videos, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (hence, ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred ...

s it was only 2,074 metres long. In 2005 using a positive print on a

nitrate Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the chemical formula . salt (chemistry), Salts containing this ion are called nitrates. Nitrates are common components of fertilizers and explosives. Almost all inorganic nitrates are solubility, soluble in wa ...

base of the English edition from the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

, the film was restored by the Filmarchiv Austria, thus re-creating a print of excellent quality with English intertitles which was used for the reconstruction of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

version, with added music by the leading Austrian silent film pianist Gerhard Gruber.

Critics

* ''Paimann's Filmlisten'', October 1924: "In the foreground is the lavish and totally successful composition of the image, its impressive crowd scenes and the impressive structures which are made real by a photography beyond all reproach. The subject is dramatically effective, with many beautiful moments, while the direction is not exhausting in tempo." * ''Paimann's Filmlisten'' gave another, indirect, critique in its edition of 11 September 1925 while discussing the US epic '' The Ten Commandments'': "the technical execution, particularly in the coloured scenes, is highly praiseworthy, although we have already seen the Crossing of Red Sea done better in a Viennese film."''„Die technische Ausführung ist, besonders in den farbigen Szenen sehr zu loben, lediglich den Durchgang durch das Rote Meer haben wir in einem Wiener Film schon besser gesehen.“'' * The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', 29 June 1927: "There is naturally much that is mindful of Cecil B. DeMille’s Film ''The Ten Commandments'' in ''The Moon Of Israel'', but Mr. Curtiz fortunately has no modern story to tack on to his Egyptian passages. This is an excellent production."

Notes

References

* Gottlein, Arthur, 1976: ''Der österreichische Film - ein Bilderbuch''. Vienna: Österreichische Gesellschaft für Filmwissenschaft, Kommunikations- u. Medienforschung * ''Imaginierte Antike - österreichische Monumental-Stummfilme, Historienbilder und Geschichtskonstruktionen in Sodom und Gomorrha, Samson und Delila, Die Sklavenkönigin und Salammbô''. Vienna: Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, 2002

External links

*
Deutsches Filminstitut: censorship decisions on ''Die Sklavenkönigin''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moon Of Israel 1924 films 1920s historical drama films 1920s rediscovered films 1924 drama films Austrian historical drama films Austrian silent feature films Austrian black-and-white films Films based on works by H. Rider Haggard Films directed by Michael Curtiz Films produced by Arnold Pressburger Films set in the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt Films set in the 13th century BC Films based on adaptations Films based on the Book of Exodus Portrayals of Moses in film Rediscovered Austrian films Religious epic films Silent historical drama films Silent Austrian adventure films Austrian epic films Silent epic films