Talk:Continental-Kunstfilm

Dr Caligari

I had a look at the Dr. Caligari article, especially the second paragraph Dr. Caligari#Filming which has many problems, specifically in with the conclusions drawn from Robinson 1997, p. 25 concerning a) exactly where Dr.C was filmed, and b) the purported connection between Lexie Lixie and Vitascope.

Having checked the source with this Google books snippet search (copy not to hand tsk), Robinson appears to be saying that Dr. Caligari was made at the Lixie-Atelier, which was built for Vitascope.

I fear that much of the following paragraph is in error, for the reasons explained below.

"Caligari was filmed in the Lexie[sic]-Atelier film studio at Weissensee. It was the fourth film to be made there, followed by Die Pest in Florenz (1919) and the two parts of Fritz Lang's The Spiders. The studio was built in 1913 for use with the Vitascope GmbH, and as a result was restrictive in scale; most of the sets used in the film do not exceed six meters in width and depth."

Robinson, I am fairly certain, is wrong on this point. Vitascope were never involved (afaik) in 9-12 Franz-Josef Str.; and although next door no. 5-7 Franz Josef Str. _was_ indeed built by Vitascope as the (claimed) biggest manufacturing & developing facility in Germany, Lixie-Film was in fact a successor to Continental-Kunstfilm at no. 9-12 F-J Str.

Give reasons for your answer, draw maps etc...

A number of Berlin film studios appear to have been confused. There are various connections between the studios of Bioscope and Vitagraph (both owned by Jules Greenbaum) and Continental-Kunstfilm, but pages from cinegraph.de, a German website, tend to reinforce what I already wrote about the various studios in Franz Josef Strasse, both 5-7 and 9-12 (what happened to 8, hey?)

These pages at cinegraph.de. (in German, sigh) give a lot of relevant info: Lixie-Atelier, May-Atelier, Bioscope-Atelier, Vitascope-Atelier

They all seem to contradict the Dr. C. 'Filming' section as quoted. Here is what I have gathered about these four glasshouse? studios: {with corroborating info from the C-K article.} Information on this relatively recondite subject is hard to disentangle, especially since the sources are often in typical (lengthy-German-sub-incomprehensible-clause) style: therefore I the relevant bits swiftly for your amusement from cinegraph.de below approximately translated have.

In chronological order:

Chausseestraße 123

BIOSKOP-ATELIER --> Continental-Kunstfilm

Jules Greenbaum 's (Julius Grünbaum) first film co, Deutsche Bioskop, had offices/studios at 123 Chaussestrasse. He set up Vitascope in 1906 {I think} to handle distribution. After Greenbaum moved D-Bioskop to Friedrichstr. 16 in 1911, Schmidthassler moved into Chausseseestr. 123 with his new Continental-Kunstfilm company in February 1912. Schmidt-H left to direct for Vitascope by May 1912. Mime Misu filmed In Nacht und Eis {sinking of the Titanic} at Chausseestr. 123 in May 1912.

Lindenstraße 32-34

VITASCOPE-ATELIER

Jules Grunbaum's Vitascope first moved to Friedrichstr. 16 in 1911, and then in October 1912, Greenbaum moved everything to Lindenstr. 32-34 including manufacture, developing and copying facilities. On 1 Oct 1913 Grunbaum moved the old Vitascope manufacturing, drying and copying plant from Lindenstrasse 32-34 to its new premises at 5-7 Franz Josef Str., while keeping the glass-roofed studio at Lindenstr. for production.

Franz Josef-Straße 5-7, Weißensee

VITASCOPE manufacturing plant --> MAY-Atelier

Built new by Vitascope as manufacturing plant, opened 1 Oct 1913. The facility at 5-7 F-J Strasse was claimed to be the biggest film manufacturing plant in Germany see LichtBild-Buhne, 12.13.1913 = 13 Dec 1913) Pic here as well of the drying room at 5-7 Franz Josef Str.

In January 1914 Vitascope was bought by Pagu; Pagu was later subsumed into Ufa in 1918.

Joe May moved into the old Vitascope manufacturing plant at Franz Josef Str. 5-7 in August 1914, {after he split with Ernst Reicher at Continental after the start of WWI. May directed some 'Joe Deebs' films etc. there. </ref>May-Atelier</ref> See Continental-Kunstfilm in which not every single statement is sourced.

Joe May brought Fritz Lang on board in 1917 to write a Joe-Deebs-Serie (Die Hochzeit im Excentric-Club), after which Lang often worked for May. See de:Joe May, which I should perhaps update with relevant info about May's and Reicher time at Continental-Kunstfilm.

In 1917 the studio at 5-7 belonged to Oliver-Film {having apparently been sold by Joe May}. In 1918, Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers made comedies for Ufa with his BB-Film until the mid-1920s. {Caligari is not mentioned in this source.}.

9 Franz Josef Straße, Weißensee.

CONTINENTAL-ATELIER, 9 Franz Josef Straße --> Fag-Atelier, 9-12 Franz Josef-Straße --> LIXIE-ATELIER, 9-12 Franz Josef-Straße

It was originally built by Continental-Kunstfilm (or perhaps Reicher?) on the site of Franz Josef-Straße 9, when they moved out of Chausseestr. 123 in summer 1914. It was separated by the narrow plot of no. 8 Franz-Josef from the studio of Vitascope at 5-7 {which was built by Greenbaum for Vitascope manuf. plant, opening on 1 0ct 1913 - see above.}

The Continental studio at No. 9 was bought by Fag (Film-Atelier GmbH) in 1919/20. The lease-holder was Frau Cill-Gottscho of Philadelphia, manager Lucian Gottscho. Fag enlarged the studio by building on the site of the old nos. 10-12 F-J Strasse, to create 9-12 Franz Josef Strasse. The enlarged studio was then bought by Lixie-Film in (early) 1920 and ?leased/hired out? to Decla-Bioscop make Caligari from Dec. 1919 to Jan 1920.

Fag (apparently) continued to share the same address as Lixie; Fag is listed in Berlin phonebooks as only the owner of the site/freehold/property; furthermore, Lixie-Atelier is only mentioned in cinema address books. Lixie-Film-Atelier GmbH was also joint owner of Muto-Großateliers (Muto-Atelier) in Lankwitz in 1924/25

References

MinorProphet (talk) 17:59, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I updated the Jules Greenbaum and the C-K articles with (hopefully) the correct relevant info and refs. MinorProphet (talk) 11:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Added a few WLs MinorProphet (talk)

 Done Updated The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with hopefully correct info from this talk and the Caligari talk page. >MinorProphet (talk) 07:11, 21 February 2016 (UTC)