Underplayed Gems

Der rote Kreis (1929)

Der rote Kreis poster
Directed by
Frederic Zelnik
Genre
silent film, crime film
Country
Weimar Republic, Germany, United Kingdom
Runtime
1h 49m
Rating
8.0 of 10 from 2 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Scotland Yard detectives try to stop a gang of blackmailers. The film mixes silent intertitles with spoken dialogue and sound effects.

starkold-fashionedsuspensefuldeliberatenoirishstiffsilent-era

What happens

The Crimson Circle (German: Der rote Kreis) is a 1929 British-German sound part-talkie crime film directed by Frederic Zelnik and starring Lya Mara, Fred Louis Lerch, and Stewart Rome. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The sound was recorded via the De Forest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film is an adaptation of the 1922 Edgar Wallace novel The Crimson Circle in which Scotland Yard detectives battle a gang of blackmailers. A previous UK version was filmed in 1922. The film, a co-production between British International Pictures and Efzet Film. In March 1929, this film and The Clue of the New Pin, filmed in the British Phototone sound-on-disc process, were previewed in London. As with most early sound films, a silent version was edited down from the sound version for release to theatres that had not yet converted to sound. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.