Murnau's first film in Hollywood took over the Fox studios in 1927. A farmer is having an affair with a City Girl, who wants him to murder his wife so they can sell up and move to the city. And he takes the wife out on the lake with that plan. He can't go through with it but naturally she's terrified.
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| The town / city conflict caught in artful back projections |
Then they end up in the City, and she begins to thaw. There's a great moment where they are so into each other that they blithely cross the road not noticing the traffic speeding all around them, and then the background dissolves into the countryside, so oblivious are they...
Murnau does a lot of this sort of thing, artfully using dissolves. And the sets are amazing, particularly the indoor funfair, and how it is transformed when a storm hits.
This is some film. Still regularly features in Best Film lists. Still remarkable.
Our players are Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien, with Margaret Livingston.
Charles Rosher had been with Murnau in Berlin for Faust - Rosher was a consultant though that film was shot by Carl Hoffman. Rosher borrowed the idea of suspending a dolly from railway tracks in the ceiling. It's a very mobile film. Right from the off when we follow the City Woman through the night streets, the camera with her - it's very modern. Then when the couple are on the tram, and you can see outside becoming more industrialised, then into the city - that was all built for the film - even the city was a giant set. Designed (according to Brownlow) by Rohrig and Herlth, or Rochus Gliese (IMDB) with assistance from Edgar G Ulmer.
Rosher would have stuck with Murnau, they had become friends, but his first allegiance was to Mary Pickford. His co-cameraman was Karl Struss, and they won the first Oscar for Cinematography.
And it not only has a full orchestral score composed for it but synchronized sound effects too.
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