L'Opéra de quat'sous (1931)
Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Film Review

In 1928, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill wrote one of their most successful collaborations, Die Dreigroschenoper, a stage play based on John Gay's 1728 satire, The Beggar's Opera.  The success of the play soon led to a film adaptation by G.W. Pabst, then one of Germany's most prominent directors.  Three versions of the film were planned - one in English, one in German, and one in French.  The English version was abandoned at an early stage, and the German and French versions were made in parallel, with two separate casts.  The German version, Die Dreigroschenoper, is the one which is most widely available. L'Opéra de quat' sous was the name given to the French version.

Considered for many years as a masterpiece, the film has lost some of its impact, mainly because its in-built political messages no longer have the force they once had.  With its artificial, obviously stagey sets and morose songs, the film now appears more of an oddity than a landmark work of cinema.  The film's main interest today is its doom-laden atmosphere, which is highly evocative of a world ravaged by vice, cynical exploiters of people's misfortune, of poverty and corruption.

The sombre tone of the film jars somewhat with its liberal use of comedy, although some of the sight gags still manage to get a laugh.  It is interesting to note that Pabst gave the film a slightly different ending to that of the original play, to make a veiled assault on the financial corruption which was becoming apparent in Germany at the time.

G.W. Pabst figures prominently among the great German filmamkers of the late 1920s, early 1930s, his reputation resting on a handful of highly influential films such as Pandora's Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929).  The influence of German expressionism can be felt on some of Pabst's early films, but nowhere more so than on L'Opéra de quat' sous, which carries the seeds of film noir throughout with its shadowy sets, murky intrigue and ambiguous characters.  It seems hard to believe but the song which opens and closes the film, Moriat became a pop music hit in 1959 as Mack the Knife, sung by Bobby Darin.

Film Synopsis

In the 1890s, Mackie is the head of a gangster mob whose notorious criminal exploits in London go unchecked, thanks to the complicity of his police chief friend, Tiger Brown.   Mackie's fortunes appear to take a turn for a worse when he chooses to marry Polly, the daughter of the unscrupulous Mr Peachum, who runs a society to help beggars.  Resenting the marriage, Peachum confronts Tiger Brown and insists that unless he arrests Mackie, he will direct his beggars to hold a mass demonstration on the day of the Queen's coronation.  Torn between his loyalty to his friend and the obligations of his post, Tiger Brown finally manages to arrest Mackie with the help of the crook's former mistress, Jenny.  Can this be the end for London's most wanted man?