A notorious killer marries the daughter of the king of beggars in 1931's The Threepenny Opera (Die 3 Groschen-Oper), GW Pabst's adaptation of the famous stage musical by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. The stage play's socialist message was diminished in favour of portraying humanity of all stripes as thoroughly corrupt. It's grimly amusing with a standout performance by Lotte Lenya in the role of Jenny.
The story's set in Victorian London though, being a German production, everyone's speaking German. Mackie Messer/Mack the Knife (Rudolph Forster) runs a gang of thieves and enjoys the attentions of all the prostitutes in town, particularly the sinister Jenny.
Lenya has such an odd, angular beauty. She really doesn't need to tell us she has secret connexions to pirates; something about her body language and face suggest violence. When she learns that Mack has abruptly married Polly (Carola Neher), it's easy to believe Mack's in real danger of her revenge.
Polly's father (Fritz Rasp) is chief of all the beggars in town and organises them like the head of a workhouse. Rather than a leftist rabble-rouser, he's a cynical caricature drawn straight from that old right wing urban myth about the secretly wealthy street beggars. I remember hearing people still repeating it now and then back when I lived in the U.S. People would talk with a straight face about someone in rags who'd sneak behind the corner and drive off in a Lamborghini.
He demands the chief of police, Tiger Brown (Reinhold Schunzel), capture and execute Mack but it takes some convincing because, of course, Brown and Mack are bosom buddies.
The Threepenny Opera is available on The Criterion Channel.
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