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Fans of Emil Jannings and Pola Negri......
Alpha Video is releasing the DVD of Ernst Lubitsch's The Eyes of the Mummy (1918) this month, starring Emil Jannings and Pola Negri.....





The Eyes of the Mummy was released in 1918 and was Ernst Lubitsch’s first dramatic picture and his first film directing Pola Negri. This director/star team would go on to become movie legends when their film Madame DuBarry (released as Passion in U.S.) was released in 1919. The film would become an international sensation. Upon arriving on Ameircan shores the following year in 1920, it broke all previous attendance records, single-handedly lifted the post-Great War ban on German films, and stirred so much interest in Lubitsch and Pola that they would become Hollywood’s first imported director and star. But it was The Eyes of the Mummy that originally paved the way for that great success.

The TCM version of The Eyes of the Mummy opens with a brief prologue that summarizes how the film came into being. That prologue is as follows:

1915—The young actor and film director Ernst Lubitsch has made various short film comedies (The Company Marries, Pinkus Shoe Palace, etc.) He manages to convince his boss and mentor Paul Davidson with Union Film to support him in making his artistic dream come true of producing an elaborate film drama. Davidson decides to risk a lot of money. Lubitsch hires prominent young Berlin actors such as Emil Jannings and Harry Liedtke with a rate of up to 35 marks a day. The female lead and the role, “The Mummy” was given to a young and ravishing Polish girl, recently arrived from Berlin, named Pola Ngeri. She was an actress with a real Slavic temprament. The film was produced with an unbelieveable effort (two palm trees) partly in Egypt (Ruedesdorfer Kalkberge [[a chalk quarry by Ruedesdorf]]). It was a major success. In presenting this film today it may not seem to have the same tragic effect as it had at the time.

In the picture, a young, wealthy painter named Wendland (played by Harry Liedtke) travels to Egypt, where he overhears a story about the tomb of Queen Ma, a site far out into the desert that reportedly driven everyone who has visited it mad. Intrigued, the painter arranges to be taken to the tomb to see what makes it such a horrifying place. When he arrives, he is greeted by an Egyptian man named Radu (Emil Jannings) who leads him to where the coffin is. There he sees the eyes behind the coffin slowly open and come to life, just before the Egyptian tries to attack him. The painter wards him off and opens the “coffin”, to find that it is actually an entrance into a small room, where a helpless young girl (played by Pola Negri) is held prisoner by the Egyptian’s Svengali-like hypnotic powers. Wendland rescues Ma from the site and takes her back to Europe with him, making her his wife. Radu, heartbroken at losing the girl, wanders into the desert and faints on the hot sands. There he is found by a wealthy prince, who nurses him back to health and makes him his personal servant. When the Egyptian comes to, he swears vengeance on the girl for leaving him.

The painter hires a tutor to introduce the girl to European manners and customs and then throws a party to introduce her to his friends. When Ma begins dancing a Middle Eastern dance at the party, she attracts the interest of a vaudeville manager, who signs her to a contract. A few months into the girl’s success on the vaudeville circuit, the Prince decides to go to one of the shows she appears in and, of course, takes his servant, the Egyptian, with him. When the Egyptian sees her on stage, he hypnotizes her from across the room and she faints in the middle of her act.

Later on, the Prince visits an art exhibit, which includes some paintings by Wendland. He is particularly taken by a painting that happens to be of Ma and invites Wendland and Ma to visit his personal collection. After looking at the collection, they have tea, and when they do, the girl happens to see the Egyptian through a reflection in a mirror. She goes into a trance, faints, and becomes deathly ill. Sometime after recovering from the illness, the Prince gives the Egyptian a letter to deliver to Wendland, telling him he will purchase the painting of the girl, which is already in his possesion. When they receive the letter, Ma tells Wendland to go immediately to the prince and cancel the purchase, which he promptly does. In the meantime, the Egyptian spots the painting of Ma, realizes it was painted by the same man he delivered the letter to, stabs the painting with his dagger and rushes to the painter’s home in search of the girl. When Wendland arrives to discuss the matter with the prince, they go into the room and see the dagger in the painting. Immediately after this, they receive a phone call of a break-in at Wendland’s house, and realizing what is happening they rush to Wendland’s home. But they arrive too late. The Egyptian has already entered the house, having killed Ma and himself.