| Asphalt | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Joe May |
| Screenplay by | |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Günther Rittau[1] |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | UFA-Filmverleih GmbH |
Release date |
|
Running time | 85 minutes[1] |
| Country | Germany[1] |
Asphalt is a 1929 Germansilent film directed byJoe May and starsGustav Fröhlich andBetty Amann. The film follows Else's attempts to seduce Albert, a traffic policeman, after he catches her trying to steal a precious stone.[2] The film was shot between October and December 1928 atUFA.
In Berlin, a young woman named Else is a gorgeous trickster. Her high fashion clothes and perfectly ornamented makeup make her deserving to be peering over diamond cases while batting her eyes in want at the jeweler. She is caught stealing a precious stone but says it was her first time, and that she needed the money. Even when she meets Albert, she insists she doesn't own her luxurious furnishings, and is due to be thrown out of her apartment. She maintains her story until she flings herself into his arms and confesses to him, "I like you."
Else thinks about Albert and as she smiles for the first time when she finds the passport photo of Albert in her apartment. Gazing at the photo she smiles comparing him to her criminal, older, and uglier boyfriend in a photo beside her, Konsul Langen. Meanwhile, the Konsul perpetrates a heist. She stares and smiles at his picture again in the nightclub, when she becomes compelled to return his passport and give him a gift of cigars, a scene that results in a confession of love from both Else and Albert.
Albert throws himself at Else's feet, begging her to be his wife.Else exposes all her stolen goods from her criminal past. As he considers his fate, her criminal boyfriend enters the scene and a brawl ensues. The Konsul is killed accidentally, and after struggling with his decision, Albert leaves the scene. He confesses to his parents, and Albert's father deems that the law is the law, and he must turn himself in, and Albert and his father head to the police station. Else goes to Albert's house and meets his mother. While Albert and his father are at the police station, Else shows up with Albert's mother and demands to be seen as witness. Else's testimony saves Albert from punishment but Else is arrested for her crimes. Else is able to smile once again as Albert follows her and professes he will wait for her. Albert watches Else through a barred doorway as she goes off to jail.
Asphalt was made byUFA, one of Germany's most prestigious film studios. It was shot between October and December 1928 at the Ufa Studios inNeubabelsberg.[3]
Asphalt was distributed theatrically by UFA-Filmverleih GmbH and premiered in Berlin at theUfa-Palast am Zoo on 11 March 1929.[1]Asphalt was originally only available in a shortened version with English-language intertitles.[4] In 1993, theStiftung Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin discovered a print ofAsphalt at theGosfilmofond archive in Moscow which seemed to have been sourced from the originalfilm negative.[4] The chronology of scenes in print found differed from earlier versions and included extra scenes with German intertitles.[4] The newly discovered version of the film was released on DVD by theMasters of Cinema on April 11, 2005 with a score byKarl-Ernst Sasse.[5][4]Kino Video released the film on DVD again on July 18, 2006.[5]
Fritz Walter, writing in theBerliner Börsen-Courier found the films theme of the conflict between duty and love to be "the banality of the film script".[3]Lotte Eisner related to this statement, writing in 1965 that "Within this insipid plot Joe May occasionally remembers his artistic ambitions. Then we get the high-angle shot of the street where the young Fröhlich, the Führer of the crossroads, on duty as a policeman, dominates the traffic—a shot in which the German taste for ordered ornamentation comes through yet again".[3] Critic Siegfried Kracauers's review inFrankfurter Zeitung conversely commented that May "has all the finesse of his craft, he accomplishes all that he wants to. There are few prose writers that can convey the posh couple’s taxi ride as tightly as he does. Similarly, the wide shots are used and sustained with enormous strength of style, and the roaming camera is extremely skilled in the way it reveals human co-existence and spaces".[3]
