Gentlemen Among Themselves (Die fidele Herrenpartie) (1929)

About this event

BFI 35mm print. Directed by Rudolf Walther-Fein with Hermann Picha, Lydia Potechina, Maria Paudler, Lyndia Potechina, Truus Van Aalten and Walter Rillan. Kennington Bioscope presents Gentlemen Among Themselves, a 1929 German comedy directed by Vienna-born Rudolf Walther-Fein, who began his career as an actor. He made his stage debut aged 17 in Iglau – a German-speaking region now part of the Czech Republic – and went on to appear in cities that included Vienna, Salzburg, Munich and, finally, Berlin. It was there, in 1919, that he first obtained work as a screenwriter and director. During the 1920s, Walther-Fein directed numerous films while simultaneously serving as a production manager for the Aafa-Film company and also taking on the role of artistic supervisor for other productions. His films were mostly comedies or romantic dramas, among them 1929’s Dich hab’ ich geliebt (It’s You I Have Loved or Because I Loved You), Germany’s first all-talking feature film. Gentlemen Among Themselves was filmed at the Staaken Studios in Berlin with sets designed by Botho Hoefer and Hans Minzloff. The story, by Franz Rauch, is of a woman warning her husband that his forthcoming stag party will be his last. Because he and his friends are determined to make the most of it, things get out of hand and the husband is knocked unconscious and his engraved lighter stolen. The lighter is subsequently used to identify a thief and the now-sober reveller believes himself to be a wanted man. Husband and wife are played by Hermann Picha and Lydia Potechina, with Maria Paudler as their daughter and Walter Rilla as her erstwhile suitor.