Slideshow
John Brahm’s
BROKEN BLOSSOMS
12:45
Saturday, February 23
Introduced by Louise Hirschfeld Cullman
♪ With selections of Karol Rathaus’ music performed by Daniel Wnukowski
(1936, John Brahm) In sound remake of D.W. Griffith’s classic, prizefighter Arthur Margetson takes time out between bouts to pummel his daughter, as Chinese outsider Emlyn Williams (Welsh writer of smash stage and screen hits Night Must Fall and The Corn is Green) tries to befriend her. The daughter is played by Dolly Haas, a major German star then married to director Brahm and later to Al Hirschfeld (she was Nina's mother). Music by Karol Rathaus, subject of a festival at the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, February 21-24. 35mm print courtesy British Film Institute. Approx. 120 min.
Special thanks to Lev Deych.
Reviews
“The adaptation is clever and effective, and gives a vivid and unsentimentalised picture of East End life. The dialogue is crisp and has flashes of genuine Cockney humour. The story is told with stark realism, and the director has gone all out to extract every ounce of pathos from the tragic and, at times, sordid story.”
– BFI
“Very pleasing to the eye... Brahm gives the whole thing a moody veneer of UFA expressionism.”
– Tom Milne, Time Out