Die Pratermizzi

Nita Naldi was the Hollywood partner of John Barrymore and Rudolph Valentino, and this was her last film, prematurely ending the career of this passionate vamp. Die Pratermizzi, or Anny Ondra's Journey into European Cinema, is a film I have been waiting for for years and only a magical coincidence helped me to banish a double missed opportunity in Austrian movie theaters. Today it's been seven years since the film was rediscovered and it seems almost unbelievable how much of a brand-new experience it is. Anny's dramatic films are not exactly typical of her image as a sound-period film star, nor of the pioneer of the Czech cinematic miracle after World War I. In the end, it will be a paradoxical fact that it was this genre that opened the door for her later triumph. The reception is also interesting, because although in the original the film is primarily about Pratermizzi, i.e., Anny, the contemporary Czech and also French distribution preferred the story of Die Pratermizzi. (24/08/2012)