Maskerade
Feature Film, AT 1934, Schwarzweiß, 102 min., dOF
Diagonale 2019
Director: Willi Forst
Script: Will Forst, Walter Reisch
Cast: Adolf Wohlbrück, Paula Wessely, Olga Tschechowa
Camera: Franz Planer
Location Sound: Hermann Birkhofer, Martin Müller, Alfred Norkus
Music: Willy Schmidt-Gentner, Enrico Caruso
Producers: Karl Julius Fritzsche
Production: Tobis-Sascha Filmindustrie
The Viennese girl, a trope of femininity that appeared in the literature of Arthur Schnitzler, achieved a crucial role in film—mainly in the interwar period. In Werner Hochbaum’s Vorstadtvarieté – Die Amsel von Lichtental, the folk singer Mizzi Ebeseder becomes the victim of a patriarchal, military- influenced class system and makes visible its rigidity. In Willi Forst’s Maskerade, on the contrary, the Viennese girl Leopoldine Dur selflessly saves her sweetheart from a scandal and forfeits all of her critical potential.