Kiepura, Helm & Gallone.

Helm & scenery - The Singing City.

Another deep dive into YouTube reveals Die singende stadt/The Singing City a dimly plotted 1930 romance with music. When Italian veteran Carmine Gallone took on this German-speaking production and its parallel English language version Farewell to Love, he was fresh from directing what has been claimed as the first German talking film, the Conrad Veidt, Australia-set Das Land ohne Frauen, with its twenty-five minutes of dialogue.

Die singende stadt is an all-talking vehicle for the talents of the immensely popular Polish tenor Jan Kiepura but its interest value is in co-star, the glowing Brigitte Helm making her second sound film. At this stage her English was good enough to get her through the British version of L’Atalantide and Herbert Wilcox’ Blue Danube but they didn’t trust her enough and had Betty Stockfeld debut in the Helm part for The Singing City. Stockfeld was assured and winning but - come on guys – this is Brigitte Helm. They talk about the camera loving Gary Cooper but Gallone knew that he only has to let his female lead wander through the coastal foliage to quicken pulses.

If you're actually going to watch it, hold off reading this till you've finished. 

At ninety-four minutes Die singende stadt was then quite a long film. It kicks off with extraneous material of Italian urchin Franz Maldacea, who works the tourists with his limited language skills, passing himself off as a fellow national. This is backed with the unrelenting Neapolitan scenics – imposing white seafront buildings, fishermen working on nets, a goat herd playing his flute, small boats in silhouette against the reflection of the setting sun. There’s even a demo of the Capri Blue Grotto acoustics.

These interruptions were then, and maybe still are, a major incentive to watch the film but we do eventually get around to listless young widow tourist Brigitte. (“If only I knew what I wanted”) Her companion proposes sightseeing and Kiepura, who is in an informal family grouping with Maldacea and his sister Trude Berliner, works as a tour guide and is hired. This gives him chances to go into his act in a doomed attempt to be more interesting than the lovingly composed close-ups of Brigitte listening, the lighting creating a blonde halo.

Well, one thing leads to another and Brigitte whips Jan off to the bright lights of Vienna where she promotes him as "The finest voice since Caruso." Jan and Brigitte are an idyllic couple, leaving the field with Berliner clear to visitor Georg Alexander, who starts educating the grateful kid brother.

Jan is told to rest up for his big opening, arranged for the next night, while Brigitte will resist the temptations of former suitors still pursuing her. However, tuxedo playboys, who lust after Brigitte in all her movies, prevail and she is lured in her best formal to The Jockey Club with its black barmen, art deco styling and pop orchestra, which provides distinctive musical backing. 

Keapura & Helm

Meanwhile, Jan has been invited by doorman Carl Goetz to inspect the theatre, where he will perform the following evening, and the accompanist, who is rehearsing, joins in his "La donna è mobile." However, the fact that he’s only got the gig because Brigitte picked up the hall hire comes up and enrages our hero. He sets out to face her only to find that she has left for the Club, where they confront. Argument – champagne frothing in the bowl cut to waves and Jan is back in Naples, meaning that Alexander has to pack his bags, leaving Maldacea in tears. Well, that bit was mildly unexpected. 

Not only is Singing City an early sound film but it is one of the first multi-language sound productions, no longer a matter of cutting in new title cards. Only Kiepura and the non-speaking accompanist, who they never thank, are in both versions. Unlike the exact reproduction seen in F.P.I. Does Not Answer or the Garbo Anna Christie, one can spot odd differences between the German and English editions. The West End of London replaces Vienna as the bright lights. Marriage is not discussed with Betty Stockfeld. The English characters don’t invoke Caruso. Brigitte accepts the admirer’s invitation to join him on the sofa during Jan’s number while, being a nice British girl, Betty refuses Ralph Truman’s advances. Heather Angel never utters a note though singer Trude Berliner gets a brief chorus. London doorman Miles Malleson, who also worked on the English script, gets more of the exposition. Several of the English cast are beginning their film careers. The scene of his sponsor-lover seeing Kiapura’s unexpected appearance over the lip of her champagne glass is noticeably smoother in Die singende stadt, suggesting the common practice of keeping the best takes for domestic versions. Duping appears to not have been as advanced for these as it was in Hollywood and additional original shooting may have been needed. 

The film was a challenge. Production company Isadore Sclesinger's ASFI had links to Tobis and British Talking  Pictures which closed down that year after one more production. Decades later Associate Producer Bernard Vorhaus told Kevin Gough Yates about their dramas. Hungarian-German cameraman Arpad Viragh, died of food poisoning to be replaced by by Curtis Courant (Le Jour se level, Monsieur Verdoux). Three competing sound systems were tested - de Forest, Tobis’s own and, finally, variable density Klangfilm using a Westinghouse Kerr Cell. A month's shooting in Italy was junked meaning a restart right down to sound tests. In the final edit, re-mix and polish, five thousand feet were scrapped with single frames doubled up or cut to improve synchronisation. It's a tribute to the team that little of this shows in the remarkably polished end result. 

The excellence of shooting offering all the best European production values of the day can’t disguise the much recycled plot, (at least five versions of the script) whose outline would become familiar -Alfred Piccaver and Nora Gregor in Adventures on the Lido, Richard Tauber and Leonora Corbett in Heart’s Desire on to Mario Lanza and Joan Fontaine in Serenade. Editor-directorGallone tries to quicken attention with the occasional montage. However, the Italian appears to be unaware of the over-ripeness of English dialogue like "Do any of us know what we're really like?" or Betty reproaching Jan "You big baby!" Gallone’s most intriguing choice is to have Brigitte in constant movement through the film, even when she may only be reacting to the other players - until the final scene listening to the phonograph, performed motionless.

Brigitte Helm - Abwege

The director's English language career persisted with two Elstree based comedies with the totally irrisible duo of  Arthur Riscoe & Naunton Wayne. First up was the 1933 Going Gay, retitled  Kiss Me Goodbye (I wonder why?). The leads' attempt to make a star out of Romy Scneider's equally winning mother Magda ends with them piling into a plane, which sets up their presence in Signor Gallone's Italy again for the second film, For Love of You  - this time Venice rather than Singende stadt's Naples

Carmine Gallone

It's Carnivale of course – location filming of Gondolas passing the Lion of St. Mark, gondolas with fire works, gondolas (yes) in silhouette against the setting sun, while they try to convince us that the film wasn’t shot in the Elstree tank got up with tilted striped mooring posts. Back projection has been added to the formula.

We soon settle into a bedroom farce plot with the English tourist duo booked into the suit next to Carnivale entertainer Franco Foresta (later a New York festival entrepreneur) and wife Diana Napier, on whom Riscoe moves, while Foresta is engaged with duties that surround him with girls in scanty costumes. Pearl Osgood, in her only film, homes in on him, meaning that the boys get to squire Napier but the headliner takes a break from doing numbers in front of the process screen and threatens to shoot Riscoe, who in the manner of these, ends up dead drunk sleeping it off under the couple’s bed, while Wayne tries to get him out of danger into their own space. About now Diana gets into her scanties and trousers start falling down. 

Reasonably accomplished handling of a mix of location filming, white studio decors and unmemorable vocals Some curiosity value – miserably un-funny. I can’t spot Valery Hobson. Thorold Dickinson did the editing. 

Now I find these bits of the film history jig saw fascinating but I will admit that I do start to feel isolated.  Being a vintage movie enthusiast in Australia is an uncomfortable experience. 

Barrie Pattison - 2024