The Love of Jeanne Ney

G. W. Pabst’s ‘revolutionary’ crime drama is a tour de force of Weimar silent cinema, blending various cinematic styles to tell a tale of political upheaval and moral decline – starting in Russia after the civil war and culminating in Paris, France.

Initially set in the Crimea shortly after the Russian civil war, the fight between the Bolsheviks and the White Army continues. The opening shot zooms in an open window and we see a ramshackle room inhabited by a dodgy looking man about to light a cigarette – he turns out to be Khalibiev (Fritz Rasp), an unsavoury individual in more ways than one: conman, thief, murderer, libertine… every bad character trait one can think of, the repulsive Khalibiev has it in spades!
Next we find ourselves in the office of André Ney (Eugen Jensen), a French diplomat and political observer who bemoans the fact that his long sojourn in a ‘foreign’ land has been wasted as he couldn’t trace one single revolutionary and thus is looking forward to returning to his native France together with his daughter Jeanne (Édith Jéhanne). Unfortunately for André, he won’t be returning thanks to the ever-scheming Khalibiev who turns up in Ney’s office to sell him a list containing the names of Bolshevik agents. Somehow, the information is leaked by a Chinese servant (was Khalibiev behind it?) and before you can say ‘Peace, Land and Bread’ two Bolsheviks enter Ney’s office to demand the list which he then pretends to hand over while at the same time takes a loaded pistol out of his drawer, shooting at the younger of the two men but only manages a graze him. The second Communist is a better marksman than Ney and shoots the diplomat dead. Alarmed by the noise going on in her father’s office, Jeanne, whose has the adjoining room, storms into the office only to find her father slumped dead over his desk. Shock and horror heighten when she recognises the slightly wounded younger man, who has blood trickling from his head, as Andreas Labov (Uno Henning), her lover whom she has neither seen nor heard of for some time. In a brief flashback scene going back several years we see Jeanne and Andreas, dressed in White Army uniform, kissing passionately before he sets out to fight – clearly since then his political views have changed dramatically. “You? A Bolshevist?” stammers Jeanne in disbelief but instead of condemning him (clearly she still has feelings for him) she urges Andreas to flee before the White Army soldiers arrive. He replies that to the contrary it should be her who must flee, as the Red Army will soon storm the city! With the help of Andreas and another comrade who appears to be smitten with her she manages to get the right papers and board a ship heading towards France.

The story then continues in Paris when she looks up the address of her uncle Raymond (Adolph E. Licho) who runs a tiny private detective agency together with Gaston (Sig Arno), a private eye who bends facts in every way possible in order to bleed clients dry though the same can also be said ofr Raymond whose own moral fibre leaves much to be desired. With Raymond lives his blind daughter Gabrielle (Brigitte Helm) who is clearly unaware what a money-grabbing scoundrel her father really is. Making his excuses and explaining to Jeanne that he can’t offer her a job in his agency as ‘business’ isn’t very good, he quickly re-assesses the situation noticing just how attractive his niece is. Without hesitation he fires his older, less attractive secretary on the spot and promptly installs Jeanne as her replacement. Soon the despicable Khaliviev, who also fled Russia after the Reds took over, arrives in Raymond’s office with falsified papers claiming he wants to do a deal concerning some uranium mine back in Russia… Jeanne, who briefly had met him before in Russia, is far from pleased to see him. When swindler Khalibiev meets Gabrielle and realises she is blind he quickly hatches another plan, namely to woo the innocent young woman by pretending to be attracted to her in order to marry her and gain access to her father’s money. The blind girl initially senses a ‘wrong un’ in the visitor (if only she had trusted her instincts!) but changes her mind when, the following day, he returns with a bunch of flowers. Around the same time Andreas also arrives in Paris much to the delight of Jeanne – he has come to the French capital to organize a sailors’ strike in Toulon and trump up money for the revolutionary workers cause. Jeanne and Andreas’ happiness is short-lived however when a precious diamond is stolen from a jewellery shop and the young Bolveshik is one of the main culprits as the 50,000 reward would be an ideal sum or his cause. Suffice it to say that Khalibiev, who attempts to get Andreas out of the way, is behind the theft though Gaston manages to retrieve the stolen gem (via the stomach of an unfortunate parrot who swallowed it) and the reward is now kept in Raymond’s safe. This is the perfect catalyst for Khalibiev to marry the naïve Gabrielle – even at the wedding table he attempts to kiss a disgusted Jeanne while holding the hand of his blind bride.

Later on, Khalibiev is seen in a dubious dance hall frequented by lowlifes and prostitutes, in particular Margot (Hertha von Walther) to whom he reveals that he intends to kill his wife, claim her inheritance money and then run away with the prostitute/flapperette. However, it’s the other way round because Margot is so horrified by Khalibiev’s plans, not only does she run away from him but she has the decency to visit Raymond’s office to warn him and his daughter of her husband’s evil plans. When Khalibiev returns home he is given his marching orders by his angry father-in-law but - never one to accept defeat - the scoundrel is already planning his next move which involves murder, the theft of the 50,000 from Raymond’s safe and above all, implicating Andreas for the dastardly crime… What follows is a dramatic climax in which we see a desperate Jeanne pulling out all the stops to save the man she loves from the guillotine…

Although not everything ties up here (for example, why does it take Jeanne so long to realise what a truly bad lot Khalibiev is?) effectively it doesn’t do the overall story any harm and we have a truly gripping and multi-faceted work at hand. Unfortunately, Russian writer and revolutionary Ilya Ehrenburg, upon whose novel the film is based, was less impressed with the film’s happy ending because in the novel, there isn’t one… That said, he was very taken by Fritz Rasp’s performance as the morally bankrupt Khalibiev: “Rasp’s performance as the villain is so real you forget he is acting.”
Actor Fritz Rasp, who was indeed the screen villain of choice in many German films for almost 60 years, is the main subject in ‘Too Romantic, Too Ghastly’ – a brand new video essay by David Cairns and Fiona Watson which is one of the bonus features on this newly restored Blu-ray release. Other bonus features on THE LOVE OF JEANNE NEY (1927, with a score by Bernd Thewes) include alternate US release version and collector’s booklet.