The Threepenny Opera (1931 film)

The Threepenny Opera
Directed by G. W. Pabst
Produced by Seymour Nebenzal
Written by Béla Balázs
Leo Lania
Ladislaus Vajda
Starring Rudolf Forster
Margo Lion
Carola Neher
Lotte Lenya
Reinhold Schünzel
Music by Kurt Weill
Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner
Edited by Hans Oser (German version), Henri Rust (French version)
Distributed by Nero-Film
Tobis Filmkunst
Warner Bros. Berlin
Release dates
  • 19 February 1931 (1931-02-19) (Germany)
  • 17 May 1931 (1931-05-17) (U.S.)
Running time
 113 minutes (German version) / 107 minutes (French version)
Country Germany
Language German- and French-language versions

The Threepenny Opera (German: Die 3 Groschen-Oper) is a 1931 German musical film directed by G. W. Pabst. It was produced by Seymour Nebenzal's Nero-Film for Tonbild-Syndikat AG (Tobis), Berlin and Warner Bros. Pictures GmbH, Berlin. The film is loosely based on the 1928 musical theatre success The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. As was usual in the early sound film era, Pabst also directed a French language version of the film, L'Opéra de quat'sous, with some variation of plot details (the French title literally translates as "the four penny opera"). A planned English version was not made. The two existing versions were released by The Criterion Collection on home video.

The Threepenny Opera differs in significant respects from the play and the internal timeline is somewhat vague. The whole of society is presented as corrupt in one form or another. Only some of the songs from the play are used, in a different order.

Plot

Film director Georg Wilhelm Pabst (right) and actor Albert Préjean (as Mackie Messer) during the filming of L'Opéra de quat'sous (The Threepenny Opera) in 1931.

In late-Victorian London, Mackie Messer ("Mack the Knife") is a gang boss whose lover is Jenny, a whore in a brothel on Turnmill Street (Turnbridge in the film). On first seeing Polly Peachum, however, he persuades her to marry him. His gang steals the props needed for the wedding, which is attended by Tiger Brown, Mackie's old comrade-in-arms in India who is now Chief of Police and about to oversee a procession through the city by the queen.

Polly's father controls the city's beggars and is furious at losing his daughter to a rival criminal. Visiting Brown, he denounces Mackie as a murderer and threatens to disrupt the queen's procession with a protest march of beggars if Mackie is not caught. Tipped off by Brown to lie low, Mackie goes to the brothel, where the jealous Jenny betrays his presence to the police. After a dramatic rooftop escape, he is arrested and imprisoned.

Meanwhile, Polly buys a bank and runs it with Mackie's henchmen, making him a bank director. This causes a change of heart in her parents. Her father tries to stop the protest march but fails, and the procession turns into a battle between beggars and police. Jenny visits the prison and, by promising her favours to the jailer, allows Mackie to escape. He makes his way to the bank, where he discovers his new status. Peachum and Brown, whose careers are both ruined by the demonstration, also come to the bank and agree to join forces. Banking is a safer and more profitable form of crime.

Cast

German-language version
French-language version
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