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Mozarts Leben, Lieben und Leiden (1921)
Character: Schwarzer Mann
The happy and miserable life of Mozart has always of artistic interest for silent film directors. Such an example is "Mozarts Leben, Lieben Und Leiden" (1921) by Otto Kreisler (the first silent length feature depicting the loves and sufferings of the famous Salzburg composing genius).
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Der Mandarin (1918)
Character: Mandarin
In Vienna, the director of a sanatorium is telling writer Kristinus the story of a strange case. The very rich and dandy-esque Baron von Stroom had fallen in love with an actress but could not conquer her. One day he acquired a Chinese clay figure of a Mandarin, a talisman whose possessor is said to be able to seduce any woman he desires. As promised, all women's hearts fall to Baron von Stroom. The first is the actress, followed by the wife of the railway king, and then a Princess. Every time the Baron calls out “Man-da-riiiin”, the statue becomes alive ready to make another woman fall in love with his master. But von Stroom soon begins to feel nostalgic for the times when he would conquer the women he desired. However, his attempts to seduce women without the help of his ghostly servant become utterly unsuccessful. Unable to get rid of his devilish servant... Produced one year before The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Mandarin is a predecessor of German expressionism.
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Богдан Стимов (1917)
Character: N/A
Bogdan Stimov, wrongly accused of murder, flees Macedonia for America and becomes a munitions factory director, but returns during World War I to find his Bulgarian estate seized and his daughter’s forced marriage plot igniting a peasant revolt he leads, ultimately pleading his case before the king and earning a pardon.
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Die grosse Liebe (1931)
Character: Strolch
Ten years after the end of World War I, Austrian soldier Franz leaves Russia and returns to his village, where he is reunited with Frieda, a woman who believes he is her long-lost son. She seeks him out and greets him with such loving joy, that Franz doesn't have the heart to tell her the truth. He stays with her and when he gets to know his new girlfriend Annie, he begs her to hide his true identity from Annie. Annie, for her part, has seen through this charade already, but chooses to say nothing and to continue to care for Franz.
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Die Austreibung (1923)
Character: Vater Steyer
The extended Steyer family lives together in a cottage in the mountains. The younger Steyer's wife Ludmilla wants money, and doesn't care if she must ruin the lives of the Steyer family to get it. Lost film.
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Der Favorit der Königin (1922)
Character: N/A
It is based on a Georg Hirschfeld play set in Elizabethan England, focusing on the tumultuous relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and her favorite, the Earl of Essex, amid court intrigue and a deadly epidemic.
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Die Pratermizzi (1926)
Character: Herr von Z.
Marie, a cashier at the Viennese Grottenbahn (Grave Railway) Zum Walfisch, and Baron Christian von B. fall in love, but the dancer Valette, who always wears a mask over her face, interferes in their relationship. Christian eventually follows Valette to Paris. When he tears the golden mask from her face, he is shocked to discover that Valette is disfigured by an illness. He returns to Vienna to die, but Marie is able to save him at the last moment.
In this film, the ride through the Grottenbahn is associated with a journey into the inner self.
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Robot-Girl Nr. 1 (1938)
Character: The robber
An inventor, Bubi, creates a female android he calls "Wera." Unfortunately, a gang of robbers finds out about Wera, steals her, and uses her to commit a series of crimes in Prague. (io9.com)
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Narr und Tod (1920)
Character: N/A
The sculptor Peter Starling shot himself in the museum. When the museum director examined the body, he found a diary from whose entries he could deduce the reason for the suicide: Starling had once come across a mummy and a papyrus scroll on a trip to Egypt and had given both artifacts to the museum upon his return. Starling was able to deduce from the papyrus scroll with the cuneiform writing that the mummy, once a king's daughter, would one day awaken and then live as long as the mummy wanted.
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Danton (1931)
Character: Ein Kleinrentner
This pre-WW II German costume drama chronicles the French Revolution with a particular focus upon Danton, Robespierre, and Marat. It depicts the dramatic downfall and execution of Georges Danton in 1794 at the hands of Maximilien Robespierre. The film also presents an interesting, if not historically inaccurate, portrayal of Louis XVI.
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Giftgas (1929)
Character: N/A
Arnold Horn, a young idealistic chemist, discovers a compound that can be used for the production of an effective deadly poisonous gas. Against his will the chemical factory starts production of the poison gas to increase the value of their shares.
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Jiskor (1924)
Character: Stefan, Captain of the Guard
A period drama set in a Volhynian village.
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Die singende Stadt (1930)
Character: Der Nachtportier
A tourist guide in Naples is taken on by a Viennese woman impressed by his singing, and who regards him as her protege. This film was released as a German version and English Version known as "The City of Song". Brigitte Helm once portrays a beautiful femme fatale who displays her affection and lust for her tourist guide which is paralleled with the main bodied theme of the early romanticist songs played throughout.
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Der Graf von Cagliostro (1920)
Character: N/A
About a lurid tale of magic and secret societies during the reign of Luis XVI, focused on the figure of the Italian occultist Giuseppe Balsamo, known under his alias of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro.
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Zwei Krawatten (1930)
Character: Piano Player
Opera style film in which a crook offers to change ties with a waiter, so he can escape. The waiter ends up getting involved with a rich American lady who takes him to Florida.
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Das Flötenkonzert von Sans-Souci (1930)
Character: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
In 1756, a masked ball was officially celebrated in the Dresden Palais of the Saxon Minister Heinrich von Brühl. Unofficially, however, talks are taking place with the envoys of Austria, Russia and France with the aim of conspiring against the Prussian King Frederick II. The Prussian envoy, Major von Lindeneck, succeeded in bringing a copy of the concluded secret treaty to the Prussian king. Friedrich consults with his generals, who urge caution. Friedrich is stunned by the reaction and now develops a counter-plan. To do this, he sends von Lindeneck back to Dresden. However, the latter is not very enthusiastic about this, as he thinks he has reason to doubt his wife Blanche's marital fidelity, and he now has to leave her alone.
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Fräulein Else (1929)
Character: N/A
While staying with her aunt at a fashionable spa, Else receives an unexpected telegram from her mother, begging her to save her father from debtor’s jail. The only way out, it seems, is to approach an elderly acquaintance in order to borrow money from him. Through this telegram, Else is forced into the reality of a world entirely at odds with her romantic imagination – with horrific consequences.
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Geschlecht in Fesseln (1928)
Character: Strafgefangener #1 (as Karl Goetz)
Franz Sommer, convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to three years, forms a close relationship with his cellmate, Steineau. Upon release, his wife Helene is concerned as to how incarceration has changed the man she married.
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Drakula halála (1921)
Character: Funnyman
The film is about a woman who experiences frightening visions after visiting an insane asylum where one of the inmates claims to be Count Dracula (here following the Hungarian spelling Drakula). She has trouble determining whether the inmate's visions are real or merely nightmares.
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Die Büchse der Pandora (1929)
Character: Schigolch
The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.
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Tom Sawyer (1917)
Character: Alfred Temple
Silent version of the Twain tale, filmed in Pleasanton, California. A Missouri boy (Jack Pickford) encounters his first love (Clara Horton) and bucks responsibilities to find adventure with his friend, Huck Finn (Robert Gordon).
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