4 Devils
Poster
Directed byF. W. Murnau
Written byCarl Mayer
Based on"Les Quatre Diables"
by Herman Bang
Produced byWilliam Fox
StarringJanet Gaynor
Charles Morton
Mary Duncan
Barry Norton
CinematographyL. William O'Connell
Ernest Palmer
Music byErnö Rapée
Lew Pollack
Production
company
Distributed byFox Film Corporation
Release dates
  • October 3, 1928 (1928-10-03) (Synchronzied Version)
  • June 15, 1929 (1929-06-15) (Part-Talkie Version)
Running time
100 minutes (Part-Talkie Version)
97 minutes (Synchronized Version)
CountryUnited States
LanguagesSound film (Synchronized)
English Intertitles
4 Devils ad in The Film Daily, 1929

4 Devils (also known as Four Devils) is a lost 1928 American synchronized sound drama film directed by German director F. W. Murnau and starring Janet Gaynor.[1][2] While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using the sound-on-film movietone process.

Plot

Four orphans become a high wire act and encounter sinister goings-on at a circus. An old clown takes in the four children Charles, Adolf, Marion and Louise to protect them from the brutal circus owner who is their guardian. He raises them and trains them to become acrobats. The years pass and the four children soon become successful trapeze artists who call themselves the "Four Devils". Charles and Marion are now a couple. But when they perform at Cirque Olympia in Paris, Charles gets involved with a beautiful stranger. Marion learns about the relationship and is distracted by it. At the finale of her performance, in which she works without a net, she crashes. Marion survives, and Charles, touched by the near-catastrophe, returns to his girlfriend.

Cast

Music

The film featured two theme songs titled "Marion" and "Destiny" which were both composed by Erno Rapee and Lew Pollack.

Production

4 Devils was released by Fox Film Corporation and was produced by William Fox, who had hired Murnau to come to the United States. It was initially released without dialogue with a synchronised music score and sound effects in October 1928,[3] and grossed $100,000 in New York City, but because of the talkie picture craze, Fox pulled it from distribution and ordered sound to be added.[4] A 25% talking version, incorporating "synchronised sound effects, music and dialogue sequences", was made without Murnau's cooperation.[5]

Preservation status

No copies of either version of the film are known to exist, and 4 Devils remains among the most sought after lost films of the early sound era. Details of the movie can be found on the DVD for Sunrise,[5] released by Fox as part of their 20th Century Fox Studio Classics collection.

Janet Gaynor and Charles Morton

Film historian and collector William K. Everson stated that the only surviving print was lost by actress Mary Duncan, who had borrowed it from Fox Studios.[6] Martin Koerber, curator of Deutsche Kinemathek, is more hopeful, writing that the print was given to Duncan, and that her heirs, if any, may yet have it.[5]

Other adaptations

The source novella by Herman Bang was first adapted into film in 1911[7] by Robert Dinesen and Alfred Lind, and finally in 1985 by Anders Refn. The screenplay for the 1928 film was novelized by Guy Fowler and published that year by Grosset and Dunlap as a hardcover Photoplay (movie tie-in) Edition.

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog: Four Devils
  2. ↑ Four Devils at TheGreatStars.com; Lost Films Wanted(Wayback Machine)
  3. ↑ "4 Devils". SilentEra.com. May 21, 2012.
  4. ↑ Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930. Simon and Schuster, New York: 1997.
  5. 1 2 3 "Lost Films: 4 Devils". Deutsche Kinemathek. Retrieved March 12, 2013.
  6. ↑ "4 Devils". silentera.com.
  7. ↑ "DE FIRE DJÆVLE". Danish Film institute.
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