Christ in the cinema

- Yg. 1923, No. 50 -

For a few days, the “Little Theater” in Heilbronn, as a meaningful change and “harbinger of the coming Christmas”, as the announcement says so beautifully and piously, let the birth, life and suffering of the Savior crank up. It has its own charm, on the same screen on which Chaplin, amid the applause of his regular audience, hilariously puts his priceless flat feet into the world and the culture decoction of an epoch that has gone mad is flickered to a mindless audience day after day, the Christ confiscated by the priests To see cinematic man transform his thorny life.

The whole thing is boundless tastelessness. So I'm sure you like it. A beautiful legend has once again fallen into the hands of business-minded directors and it turned out to be a movie in every respect. It's just a shame about the recordings from Palestine and Egypt, which are certainly not uninteresting. But this is how the usual extra army populates the scene, groups themselves picturesquely around Golgotha ​​and lies gently poured around on the Mount of Olives. And the stars struggle desperately to make something of the oil pressure poetry palpable that has been poured over the figure of the Savior in modern times. Instead of the world redeemer, one sees the type of a Bielefeld city missionary and the "Mother of God" cries her glycerine tears just as virtuously as all the other cinema stars in all the other films [...]

The film is really the expression of our time. Blooming nonsense, crimes, murders, eroticism and again eroticism all year round, but then for the coming Christmas, because it is still up to date, a little bit the life and suffering of the Savior. The nuance must not be missed. It fits in so well with the business religiosity of Sunday magazines. Send in your virgin and youth associations, it is a tastelessness according to your senses.

1923, 50 M.