The 3 Penny Opera

Although it was originally considered a disappointment, compared to the wildly successful stage version that premiered in Berlin in 1928, director G.W. Pabst's 1931 film of The 3 Penny Opera can now be recognized as an impressive achievement, thanks to this Criterion Collection's double-disc release featuring a beautiful restoration. Based on the legendary collaboration between composer Kurt Weill and playwright Bertolt Brecht (who was inspired by John Gay's 18th-century satire The Beggar's Opera), The 3 Penny Opera is best known as the source of the timeless classic "Mack the Knife," and Pabst (still savoring the success of 1929's Pandora's Box) brings that favorite composition front and center in an elaborate staging that presents the impoverished back alleys of Victorian London as an exotic maze of bustling activity, where the murderous criminal Mackie "Mack the Knife" Messer (Rudolf Forster) tries to woo Polly Peachum (Carola Neher), daughter of London's "Beggar King" (Fritz Rasp). Lotte Lenya costars as Mackie's spurned lover, the bordello denizen Jenny—a role Lenya originated onstage. While Pabst's film shortens or eliminates much of the stage version's music, it's still a marvel of Weimar-era cinema, boasting huge sets and remarkably fluid camerawork. Brecht himself was appalled, however, by Pabst's staging, and the legal battle that ensued is chronicled in detail in an excellent accompanying documentary, one of the abundant DVD extras, which also include the complete French-language version of the film (that Pabst filmed simultaneously with different actors—and, it should be noted, with lesser success), a multimedia comparison between the two filmed versions presented by film scholar Charles O'Brien, an audio commentary by scholars David Bathrick and Eric Rentschler, and stills galleries. Recommended. (J. Shannon)