Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Four Around the Woman Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 13, 2017

Four Around the Woman is being released as part of Fritz Lang: The Silent Films.

Vier um die Frau (Four Around the Woman, 1921), Fritz Lang's fifth completed feature-length film as a director, was considered lost for several decades until an employee at the São Paulo Cinémathèque found a print of it in 1987. (More about the discovery and restoration in the Video section.) Lang and his future second wife, Thea von Harbou, adapted a play by German dramatist and screenwriter Rolf E. Vanloo entitled Florence oder Die Drei bei der Frau, which they made at the Decla-Bioscop AG in Germany. The story threads together several interlocking plots. A primary one follows Yquem the Broker (Ludwig Hartau), a stock speculator who uses counterfeit currency to buy a high-priced jewel at a wholesale gem market for his pretty and loving wife, Florence (Carola Toelle). Yquem is in a shady part of town because by the barroom he enters resides an underground lair home to thieves. During the transaction, Yquem notices a man who bears a striking resemblance to a portrait he unearthed among his wife's possessions. His curiosity triggered, Yquem trails the man to his hotel and duplicating his spouse's penmanship, composes a letter to the mysterious fellow, inviting him to their home so the husband can stealthily spy on his wife's presumed former boyfriend. The guy Yquem follows turns out to be recently returned sailor William Kraft (Anton Edthofer), the identical twin of Werner Krafft (also played by Edthofer) whose mug actually adorns the portrait. Werner Krafft was once in love with Florence a long time ago.

Lang and von Harbou incorporate unreliable narration through contravening flashbacks told through different perspectives. One entails Werner visiting Florence on the day of her engagement to Yquem. To avert being caught by Yquem, Werner ties Florence up, stages a fake robbery, and flees through the window. For a couple of hours back in the present time, Yquem's house becomes the site of a slew of violent, criminal acts.

The opening shot of Fritz Lang's FOUR AROUND THE WOMAN.

Four Around the Woman can be a bit confusing and hard to follow on its first viewing. The narrative's plot holes can be explained by the fact that the film is incomplete and is missing some scenes. While it is a melodrama through and through, the movie boasts some wonderfully designed sets by Hans Jacoby and Ernst Meiwers. It also features stylish and carefully framed compositions by cinematographer Otto Kanturek. One can spot Lang's Expressionist lighting in Screenshot #s 5 and 20. Lang and von Harbou would become better scenarists as their careers blossomed throughout the twenties. Four Around the Woman is minor Lang but it's definitely worth checking out.

Four Around the Woman Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Four Around the Woman makes its global debut on Blu-ray on a BD-25 that is only available through Kino Classics' Fritz Lang silent movies box set. Prior to feature start, white text on two consecutive black screens is shown with this preface: "Battle of the Hearts (Four Around the Woman) was approved by the Berlin censor board in 1921 with a length of 1,707m. The only known surviving nitrate print from that time comes from the collection of the Cinemateca Brasileira in Sao Paulo and has a length of 1556m. It is a Brazilian export print entitled "Corações em lucta" (Hearts in Struggle). It is tinted and contains Portuguese titles, intertitles and inserts. The print is heavily worn. There are jumps in many scenes. A censor card with a list of German titles is not available. The source for this digital restoration is the 1987 dupe negative of a reconstruction from the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television, Berlin, and the Cinemateca Brasileira, Sao Paulo. It is derived from a Brazilian distribution print and contains a German reverse-translation of the Portuguese titles and inserts. The most serious damage was digitally retouched while still respecting the character of the original footage. The color correction is based on the original tinting of the nitrate print. This allowed compensation for color variations within a single color." According to film historian William Everson, Four Around the Woman was not screened in New York (or presumably anywhere else in the US) until 1990 when Everson showed it to students and educators at The New School for Social Research. Everson described that copy as a "well-preserved and color-tinted print." In another program note for a different screening, Everson labeled the copy "a magnificent print, beautifully toned, and fully equipped with German subtitles which will be translated live." It's possible that he was referring to the same print at both events.

The print on this Blu-ray appears to derive (in part or full) from the same 35mm interpositive that's been shown in public. Four Around the Woman is presented in its originally composed aspect ratio of about 1.33:1. The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer sports a mean video bitrate of 31293 kbps and a total bitrate averaging 34.60 Mbps for the full disc. I gather that this is the same transfer that appeared in 2012 on Kino's 3-DVD set, Fritz Lang: The Early Works. It has been upconverted to 1080p. As the text screens warn, there is a lot of print damage but the toning and added resoultion (especially on the first reel) make the transfer sparkle at times. The image jumps often but thankfully it's not too distracting. Tramlines and print debris are the most frequently recurring anomalies (see #10). There are certain shots where one can tell that the recovered print has had a difficult life. One will detect examples of "digitally retouching," particularly when light flickers at a certain portion of the frame. But the tinting gets a high mark from me. Taking into account everything the film has been through and what Kino had to work with, the transfer earns a respectable score of 3.5.

Kino has encoded the 84-minute feature with eight chapter stops.

Four Around the Woman Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Four Around the Woman contains a score by Aljoscha Zimmermann that is presented in LPCM 2.0 Stereo (1536 kbps, 16-bit). The instruments include piano, violin, percussion, and xylophone. The music is lively, dramatic, and energetic at times as it mimics the on-screen action. The sound track is clean without any source flaws from the original recording. The score occasionally reaches a crescendo and is well balanced along all speakers. An alternative 5.1 mix would have been an ideal inclusion.

Optional English intertitles are displayed on the bottom fourth of the screen.

Four Around the Woman Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no extras offered on this disc.

Four Around the Woman Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Four Around the Woman is one of Fritz Lang's least known films but it demonstrates his keen sense of image composition and lighting. Narratively, it's wobbly but still a worthwhile case study of where the Austrian-German auteur was at this first stint of his young career and where he would later refine and develop his storytelling vernacular. The Blu-ray released by Kino in this box set has above-average video and audio but no supplements. It's mainly for Lang completists and connoisseurs of the silent era. A MILD RECOMMENDATION.