The Finances of the Grand Duke Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Finances of the Grand Duke Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 19, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of The Haunted Castle / The Finances of the Grand Duke.

For all the craziness the internet and social media have brought into many of our lives, one of the saving graces of our particular era is recognizing what wonderful senses of humor many people have, as evidenced by both social media posts and (sometimes especially) responses to those posts. In that regard, one of my social media friends who is a diehard horror film fanatic posted a rather odd news story a few years ago about the skull of famed director F.W. Murnau having been stolen from his crypt. (You can read about the shocking theft here.) That bizarre item may have provoked a laugh or two in and of itself simply because it’s so weird, but a friend of this friend posted a laugh out loud (to me, anyway) non sequitur comment underneath the news item that remains my all time favorite social media riposte: “See? See what happens when you let gay people marry?”. For those unacquainted with much of Murnau’s oeuvre beyond classics like Nosferatu and who would like to expand their horizons regarding films made by Murnau when his head was still (ostensibly?) attached to his body, this new double feature from Kino Lorber offers an interesting duo that may surprise those who think of Murnau as "only" a "dark and stormy night" filmmaker.

Commentator David Kalat understandably laments that The Finances of the Grand Duke has only been preserved in an at least somewhat redacted form, leaving some plot points almost precariously underdeveloped or unexplained, but Kalat also rightly celebrates the film as a really unusual one in Murnau’s filmography, at least for those fans who only know Murnau courtesy of horror outings like Nosferatu. As Kalat mentions repeatedly in his commentary, there’s the air of early Ernst Lubitsch running fairly rampant through this kinda sorta comedy, one which deals with almost screwball level antics as a debt ridden island nation called Abacco (“perhaps” in the Mediterranean, as a really long text crawl, one which Kalat jokingly compares to the iconically lengthy opening of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, explains) is in the throes of a revolution — consisting of about four revolutionaries!

One of the reasons Kalat suggests this film doesn’t feel like “ordinary” Murnau is that Kalat is actually uncertain just how much Murnau actually worked on the film. He mentions a number of potential “suspects” in the collaborative process, including Edgar G. Ulmer, but one way or the other, The Finances of the Grand Duke has a definitely farcical air about it, even if Murnau (or whoever) doesn’t really seem to know how to really emphasize the comedy. The Grand Duke (Harry Liedtke) is a benevolent dictator (as that text crawl alleges), but he’s not the best curator of his country’s finances. A scheming villain wants to buy the island for its sulphur stores (as anyone would, I suppose), but there’s hope the Grand Duke can outwit him if a marriage to Russian Grand Duchess Olga (Mady Christians) can be arranged.

As Kalat gets into in his commentary, this is a film that relies on an almost insane number of distractions and diversions to keep the Grand Duke and Olga from getting to “happily ever after”. There are disguises, subterfuges and a host of other problems intruding, and Kalat rather interestingly compares the film’s structure to the incredibly popular cliffhanger serials of the day, with Kalat suggesting that each of this film’s six acts could reasonably be seen as an “episode” from a weekly serial.

The Finances of the Grand Duke is kind of an odd outing by any measure, but some of its inherent choppiness may be due to excisions that were made through the years, deletions which leave certain sequences virtually incomprehensible. Still, it’s fun to see Christians “deglam” herself years before such things were the stuff of movie legend, and the film has a number of really interesting outdoor shots, as well as some technically challenging moments, like a shot taken from inside a little boat that’s obviously on real water, or some nighttime shots that travel along with a carriage. The legendary Karl Freund was one of the cinematographers on this effort.

The Finances of the Grand Duke Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Finances of the Grand Duke is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. There's not the same level of information on text cards preceding this film that there was with regard to The Haunted Castle, but for those interested I've placed screenshots of the cards in positions 11 and 12 on our The Haunted Castle / The Finances of the Grand Duke Blu-ray review. If I'm understanding things correctly (which I may not be, since my German is not that great), this appears to be a rather old restoration stemming from 1994, and as such it's probably best to grant the appearance here a little bit of slack. That said, this is in manifestly worse shape than The Haunted Castle, with much more noticeable damage in the form of some pretty significant scratches, nicks, flecks and even occasional emulsion problems. There is also pretty recurrent frame instability, especially in cuts to and from intertitles. The ubiquitous yellow-orange tinting probably only helps to point out the damage, which is often bright white in comparison. All of this said, this is never less than watchable, and overall the damage never rises to the level of some near complete obliteration of individual frames that I experienced when reviewing Kino's recent Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers. As with The Haunted Castle, motion looked fluid, with no stuttering indicating imprecise "translations" of frame rates. Grain also resolves naturally throughout the presentation.

The Finances of the Grand Duke Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both films in this set feature LPCM 2.0 tracks offering nice solo piano scores accompanying the features. The piano sounds bright but never brash on both of these tracks, with excellent fidelity and no "wobbliness" in the higher frequencies. Dynamic range is rather surprisingly wide on both tracks, due to some nice modulations between pianissimo sequences and fortissimo outbursts.

The Finances of the Grand Duke Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I've been a fan of Mady Christians since I first saw her in Come and Get It, where she has some fantastic scenes with Frances Farmer. It's a lot of fun to see her in her younger, more glamorous, days, even if the film requires her to don a bunch of less than flattering disguises. The film only works in fits and starts, though, due at least in part to some of the excisions Kalat mentions in his appealing commentary. While the video quality here is not at the same level of excellence seen in The Haunted Castle, it's certainly acceptable given an understanding of the challenges of "retrieving" a neglected silent film. The piano score is very enjoyable, and Kalat's commentary is exceptional.