Pavement Butterfly
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| Pavement Butterfly | |
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| Directed by | Richard Eichberg |
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| Music by | Max Pflugmacher |
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| Distributed by | Süd-Film |
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Running time | 90 minutes |
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Pavement Butterfly (German: Großstadtschmetterling) is a 1929 British-German silent drama film directed by Richard Eichberg and starring Anna May Wong, Alexander Granach, and Gaston Jacquet.[1] It was part of an ongoing co-production arrangement between Eichberg and British International Pictures.
The film was shot at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin[2] and on location in Paris, Nice and Monte Carlo. The sets were designed by the art directors Willi Herrmann and Werner Schlichting.
Synopsis
A Chinese dancer in the nightclubs of Paris, becomes involved with a Russian painter and becomes his model. She is persecuted by a man named Coco, accused of theft. Later, in the French Riviera she is at last able to prove her innocence.
Cast
- Anna May Wong as Mah
- Alexander Granach as Coco
- Nien Sön Ling as Mr Wu
- Elwood Fleet Bostwick as Henry P. Working
- Tilla Garden as Ellise Working, Mr Working's daughter
- Gaston Jacquet as Baron de Neuve
- Fred Louis Lerch as Fedja Kusmin
- S. Z. Sakall as Paul Bennet, Kusmin's artist neighbour
- John Höxter
Production
This is, after Song, also known as Show Life, the second[3] of various collaborations of Eichberg with Wong.[4]
Analysis
Analysing the evolution of the roles played by Wong in her career, Mayukh Sen wrote: "Her subsequent films with Eichberg broke her out of the typecasting that she’d faced in Hollywood. In 1929’s Pavement Butterfly, she played a Chinese dancer who, despite the title’s suggestion, was more of a self-possessed vamp than a passive wallflower."[5]
References
- ^ Kapczynski & Richardson, p. 189.
- ^ "Großstadtschmetterling". Shot in Berlin.
- ^ "Kennington Bioscope presents Pavement Butterfly (1929) » The Cinema Museum, London". The Cinema Museum, London. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
- ^ "A celebration of Anna May Wong in 6 films". BFI. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
- ^ Sen, Mayukh (30 August 2023). "How Anna May Wong Became the First Chinese American Movie Star". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
Bibliography
- Kapczynski, Jennifer M.; Richardson, Michael D., eds. (2014) [2012]. A New History of German Cinema. New York: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-58046-854-1.