Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Von morgens bis mitternachts [From Morning ’til Midnight] (1920)

This expressionistic drama, directed by Karl-Heinz Martin, features Ernst Deutsch, Erna Morena, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Roma Bahn and Adolf Edgar Licho.

More expressionistic and avant-garde than The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) or Genuine (1920), Von morgens bis mitternachts (1920) is a visual treat that eschews traditional narrative structure and methods in favor of . . . well . . . frightening imagery. The story is of far less importance than the impressions imparted upon the audience by the grotesque and quirky visuals.

A teller (Deutsch) embezzles from the bank at which he works for the sake of a woman (Morena). She rejects him and the bank teller in turn rejects his miserable life to use the stolen money to indulge in hedonism.

Make an impact at your next party after your guests have had a few. Put on this surrealistic film and watch their confusion and amazement abound.

— Carl Bennett

This PAL DVD edition has been mastered from the 35mm reconstruction print conducted by Filmmuseum München from a duplicate negative struck in Japan from the only known nitrate print in 1959. The slightly windowboxed image features a good range of greytones from the very-good print materials. Images are often dark, as is intended by the filmmakers, contrasted by the white-accented painted sets and costumes; the image highlights are controlled and detailed.

The film is presented with two music scores: an improvised score performed by percussion-heavy SchlagEnsemble, and an ensemble score composed and conducted by Yati Durant. Both scores are nontraditional accompaniment to accent the film’s absurdist imagery; we favor the Durant score.

Supplemental material includes the featurette “Percussion Art auf den Internationalen Stummfilmtagen Bonn” (2008) (8 minutes), and an insert booklet with essays by Fritz Göttler, Inge Degenhardt and Jürgen Kasten.

Currently, this is the only home video edition of the film that we are aware of. An updated second edition was released by Edition Filmmuseum in August 2013. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

This Region 0 PAL DVD edition is available directly from . . .