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Sex in Chains
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Sex in Chains
DVD cover
Directed by
William Dieterle
Produced by
Leo Meyer
Written by
Herbert Juttke
Georg C. Klaren
Starring
William Dieterle
Gunnar Toln?s
Mary Johnson
Paul Henckels
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski
Cinematography
Robert Lach
Distributed by
Essem-Film
Release date(s)
October 24, 1928 (1928-10-24)
Running time
107 minutes
Country
Weimar Republic
Language
silent film
German intertitles
Sex in Chains (German: Geschlecht in Fesseln C Die Sexualnot der Strafgefangenen) is a 1928 silent film directed by William Dieterle.
[edit] Plot
The film opens with Franz Sommer (Dieterle) and his newlywed wife, Helene (Mary Johnson). They are going through hard times, and Sommer is without steady employment, partly due to his honest-to-a-fault nature. Helene takes a job selling cigars and cigarettes at a restaurant. When a patron advances on Helene and ignores Sommer's warning to leave her alone, Sommer pushes him away. He falls and hits his head, dying some days later. Sommer is arrested and sentenced three years in prison.
Sommer is kept in large cell with four other people, one of which, Steinau (Gunnar Toln?s), is soon acquitted and promises Sommer to help his wife while he's incarcerated. This he does by giving her a better job at his business and offering her his friendship while they both work to get Sommer out.
For much of the remainder of the film, the men's sexual frustration from being separated from women is the focus, with scenes such as making nude sculptures from breadcrumbs and water and fighting for a woman's handkerchief smuggled in from visitation. At the same time, there is a strong homoerotic undercurrent throughout, though only hinted at.
The fifth act brings changes to both Helene and Sommer's stories. Helene, delirious from Sommer's absence, goes to Steinau one night after madly trying to gain entrance to the prison, and sleeps with him. Meanwhile, Sommer's relationship with fellow inmate Alfred Marquis (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) begins to move from subtext to foreground.
At the prison church service, Sommer and Marquis sit next to each other, and as the preacher tells them to "Yield not to temptation", Marquis is writing Franz and Alfred in the cover of his Bible. He shows it to Sommer, who does not respond. That night, Sommer, seeing Marquis completely absorbed in thought, asks him what he is thinking about. Marquis asks if his nonresponse means he hates him and holds out his hand. Sommer takes it, and begins moving into Marquis's bed as the scene fades to an exterior night shot of the prison.
The next day, Helene arranges with the warden for a private visit with Sommer, where she intends to tell him about Steinau, but she does not. Nor does Sommer say anything. The short meeting is awkward and distant. Later, Steinau makes his presentation calling for a penal system reform, but the representative is unswayed. Steinau asks Helene to divorce Sommer and marry him, but she refuses.
Marquis is released, and Sommer shortly after him. Marquis is briefly seen by the river with another man, happily commenting that Sommer got out today. The other man cynically responds that he could make a good deal of money if Sommer is rich, to which Marquis takes offense and walks away. Though not spelled out, the suggestion is that one could use Paragraph 175 (the German law against homosexual acts) to blackmail Sommer, in the a same way that it is used against Paul K?rner in Different From the Others.
Sommer goes home, where his wife is happy to see him, and he is happy to be free, but confesses he no longer loves her. Helene thinks he has found out about Steinau, but when she mentions him, he knows nothing of it. It is at that point that there is a knock at the door and Helene opens it to find Marquis with a bouquet of flowers come to see Sommer. Helene then figures it all out. Sommer, now even more depressed, sends him away. He leaves the flowers on the newelpost in the hallway while offering his apologies to Helene, who sees him out.
Going back inside, she sees Sommer eying the gas valve on the heater. He tells her he cannot go on living and urges her to leave, but she will not. He turns on the gas and together, they both die.
[edit] External links
Sex in Chains at the Internet Movie Database
Sex in Chains at AllRovi
v
d
e
The films of William Dieterle
1920s
Man by the Roadside
Behind the Altar (with Julius Brandt)
The Saint and Her Fool
Sex in Chains
The Brandenburg Arch (with Max Knaake)
Triumph of Love
Frhlingsrauschen
Das Schweigen im Walde
1930s
Die Maske f?llt
Kismet
Ludwig der Zweite, K?nig von Bayern
Der Tanz geht weiter
Eine Stunde Glck
Die Heilige Flamme (with Berthold Viertel)
The Last Flight
Her Majesty, Love
Man Wanted
Jewel Robbery
The Crash
Six Hours to Live
Scarlet Dawn
Lawyer Man
Grand Slam
Adorable
The Devil's in Love
From Headquarters
Fashions of 1934
Fog Over Frisco
Madame Du Barry
The Firebird
The Secret Bride
A Midsummer Night's Dream (with Max Reinhardt)
Dr. Socrates
The Story of Louis Pasteur
The White Angel
Satan Met a Lady
The Great O'Malley
Another Dawn
The Life of Emile Zola
Blockade
Juarez
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1940s
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet
A Dispatch from Reuter's
The Devil and Daniel Webster
Syncopation
Tennessee Johnson
Kismet
I'll Be Seeing You
Love Letters
This Love of Ours
The Searching Wind
Portrait of Jennie
The Accused
Rope of Sand
1950s
Paid in Full
Volcano
September Affair
Dark City
Peking Express
Red Mountain
Boots Malone
The Turning Point
Salome
Elephant Walk
Magic Fire
Omar Khayyam
Dubrowsky
1960s
Mistress of the World
Die Herrin der Welt - Teil II
Die Fastnachtsbeichte
The Confession
v
d
e
Cinema of Germany
Film chronology
German Empire 1895C1918
Weimar Germany 1919C1933
Nazi Germany 1933C1945
East Germany (1945C1990)
(West) Germany 1945Cpresent
1945-1959
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
Actors
Directors
Films ACZ
Cinematographers
Festivals
Producers
Composers
Screenwriters
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sex_in_Chains&oldid=470076249"
Categories:
1928 films
Films of the Weimar Republic
German LGBT-related films
German silent films
Black-and-white films
Films directed by William Dieterle
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This page was last modified on 7 January 2012 at 13:47.
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