Ludwig, eager to get his hands on Dick
As you’ve doubtless realised, today is the 200th birthday of Richard Wagner. Last year in a survey of movies about Wagner’s royal patron, Bavarian King Ludwig II, I mentioned the first biopic of the German composer, which was in fact the first biopic of anyone. It was made by director Carl Froelich to mark Wagner’s centenary in 1913. Wagner himself had died 30 years previously but his widow Cosima was very much alive and the Bavarian monarchy still, technically, in place, with Ludwig’s brother Otto its deranged, titular head.
It appears that there is a case for regarding Froelich’s creation as the very first feature film, with a then unprecedented run time of 80 minutes. However due to Cosima’s vehement opposition to the project it was accompanied not by a Wagner score but – in a truly impressive piece of method acting – a pastiche of the composer’s music written by the actor who plays him, Giuseppe Becce. Tonight the film is being presented in Baden-Baden with an orchestral arrangement of Becce’s para-Wagnerian accompaniment (to be broadcast on Arte if you happen to be in Germany or France).
Meanwhile, here is the silent original of Richard Wagner (and apologies for the puerile title…I’m going to sit in a corner and read this high-minded work of Wagnerian scholarship as penance):
I wish you’d blog about Princess Marguerite Fahmy, murderess and royal lollipop. It’s Cairo to a brick she killed her husband, Prince Fahmy, (http://murderpedia.org/female.F/f/fahmy-marguerite.htm), but she got off thanks to being defended by the most colourful of early 20th century silks, Edward Marshall Hall, a.k.a. The Great Defender (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Marshall_Hall although The Great Ham might be more accurate). She went on to live a long and undistinguished life (murderers rarely re-offend), dying in 1971. Undistinguished perhaps, but not uncolourful, for before marrying (and murdering) her Egyptian prince, she was picked out by none less than Edward, Prince of Wales, as a suitable companion (short-term). Could there be a connection between her first and second princes? At least one later writer thinks so (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294153/The-cover-saved-Prince-Wales-murderess-lover-gallows.html). And there’s a great pic of the murderous Maggie.
So many crazies, so little time! I might have to start a Sorcerer’s Apprentice style workshop of eccentrophilic assistants. Also: who knew there was a Murderpedia?
Sign me up! My first offering: Aimée Crocker.
Well SHE’S a Dress-down Friday waiting to happen…
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