Of the many remarkable stories concerning the recovery and restoration of lost films, none is more remarkable than the story of THE CITY WITHOUT JEWS. In fact it’s downright incredible. This 1924 Austrian silent movie about the expulsion of the Jewish population from a major European city and the disastrous circumstances that follow, was a commercial success and circulated until 1933. Not surprisingly it was totally suppressed by the Nazis after taking over Austria in 1938 and it then disappeared for over 70 years. 13 years earlier in 1925 Hugo Bettauer, the author of the book on which the film is based, was murdered in Vienna by a member of the Nazi party. The murderer was convicted on a plea of “temporary insanity” but then freed after only 2 years in an “Asylum for the Criminally Insane” Tragically it proved to be an prophetic omen of things to come.
The story concerns the fictional city of Utopia (a barely disguised Vienna) whose politicians vote to expel the Jewish population after blaming them for the economic and social unrest following World War I. The expulsion results in the city being financially boycotted by European banks and a drastic decline in quality merchandise. Tourism also dries up and the city is in far worse shape than it was before. A former Jewish citizen, posing as a Roman Catholic French artist, rents the largest suite in the finest hotel and then secretly begins a campaign to get the law repealed. As this is a movie, he eventually succeeds and the Jews are welcomed back. Things return to normal and everyone except certain politicians are happy. Unfortunately movies are not real life and we all know that world history would take a different tack and the Holocaust would be the result.
Now for the incredible part. 60 years after it disappeared, part of the film resurfaced in The Netherlands. Then in 2015 the rest of the missing footage was discovered in a flea market in Paris. A publicly funded campaign to pay for the movie’s restoration followed the discovery and now 5 years later it is available for streaming and on home video. The restoration by Film Archiv Austria is beyond remarkable as the finished product looks astonishing (compare it with the restoration of the complete METROPOLIS). The silent movies of Weimar Era Germany are well known but those of Austria from the same time period are not. This makes THE CITY WITHOUT JEWS a major discovery in more ways than one.
As is always the case with Flicker Alley, this new release comes with a wealth of material. In addition to the movie, there are several bonus supplements including a 1924 semi-documentary VICTIMS OF HATRED along with short features on the film’s restoration and a 22 page booklet of essays and analysis. It is also packaged as a Blu-Ray/DVD combo that offers wider home viewing options. The newly composed score by Donald Sosin and Alicia Svigals is a mixture of chamber music and traditional Jewish melodies and serves as a suitable accompaniment. THE CITY WITHOUT JEWS is indispensable in that it shows not only what might have and should have happened, it also serves as a historical and cultural time capsule of 1924 Vienna. Sad to say that the same type of scapegoating depicted in TCWJ still exists all over the world today. Only the ethnicities/nationalities/minorities have changed
The Capsule Critic 