Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) had it all: stunning acting, lively facial expressions, beauty, artistic flair and a great sense of humour. The latter does not quite come to the fore in “The Dumb Bird”: “A love tragedy from the Spreewald” is the subtitle of the film, which was released 111 years ago, on November 11, 1911, in German cinemas. It was a sensation – not only because it contains a scene that the censors found so erotic that they issued a youth ban: Nielsen takes off his shoes and stockings to push a stuck Spreewald boat.
The 45-minute film can be seen on November 20th in the cinema of the German Film Institute and Film Museum Frankfurt (DFF). It will be, at least, the third time that “The Stranger Bird” is running in Frankfurt. Because there, at Kaiserstraße 64, was founded 111 years ago what later connects the whole world with Hollywood and its big studios: the star system. The exclusive marketing of an entire film package with a star as the driving force, without the cinema operators knowing in advance which films they were expecting after purchase, was an invention of the “Projections-Actien-Gesellschaft Union”, which had its headquarters in Frankfurt until 1913, and other party. The goal of the investors: Nielsen and their director Urban Gad should produce ten films, the investors wanted to at least double their investment of 700,000 marks.
