The Love of Jeanne Ney (Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney) (1927)Director: G.W. Pabst
Actors: Édith Jéhanne, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, Brigitte Helm, Adolf E. Licho, Eugen Jensen, Hans Jaray, Sig Arno (as Siegfried Arno), Hertha von Walther, Vladimir Sokoloff, Jack Trevor, Mammey Terja-Basa, Josefine Dora, Heinrich Gotho, Margarete Kupfer (as Küpfer), Robert Scholz and Milly Mathis
Writers: Ilja Ehrenburg (novel), Rudolf Leonhardt and Ladislaus Vajda
Release date: 6th December 1927 (Germany)
The Love of Jeanne Ney (Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney) chronicles the times of a woman who is looking for love and happiness around the terrible times of Europe following the First World War. The young woman from France witnesses her own father being murdered by Jeanne's lover, who is a Bolshevik.
Her lover, Andreas, then instructs Jeanne to move to Paris where her family live. He later hopes to be with her. In the meantime, another man Khalibiev, who eventually finds her and murders Jeanne’s uncle and asks for her cousin’s hand in marriage, chases Jeanne to France.
In a tangled web, when Andreas finally reunites with Jeanne in Paris, he is accused of her uncle’s murder. His fate is with the guillotine.
All Jeanne can do is convince Khalibiev to go to the police and give the vital information that Andreas is not the murderer. Khalibiev saw the couple the night of the murder miles from the scene.
Jeanne now discovers the truth and that Khalibiev did in fact murder her uncle.
Pabst directed the film in an American style for the majority of time. This was to calm the producers of the film studio UFA, who now had a big American stake in their company. This was to continue from the late 1920's onwards and German cinema suffered as a result I feel.
However, Pabst still delivers a great film and further cements his place as one of the most revered German directors of his era.
Here is a clip from The Love of Jeanne Ney (Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney) (1927).