Tartuffe (1926 film)
Tartuffe is a German silent film produced by Erich Pommer for UFA and released in 1926. It was directed by F. W. Murnau, photographed by Karl Freund and written by Carl Mayer from Molière's original play. It was shot at the Tempelhof Studios in Berlin. Set design and costumes were by Robert Herlth and Walter Röhrig.
The film starred Emil Jannings as Tartuffe, Lil Dagover as Elmire and Werner Krauss as Orgon.
Based on the play Tartuffe, the film retains the basic plot, but Murnau and Mayer pared down Molière's play, eliminating most of the secondary characters and concentrating on the triangle of Orgon, Elmire and Tartuffe. They also introduced a framing device, whereby the story of Tartuffe becomes a film-within-a-film, shown by a young actor as a device to warn his grandfather about his unctuous but evil housekeeper.
Plot
A wealthy old man is cared for by his housekeeper. Since she covets his fortune, she persistently tries to convince him to name her, rather than his grandson, in his will. Through intrigue, she succeeds. To get her hands on the inheritance, she then begins to slowly poison the old man.The grandson becomes suspicious but can't get near his grandfather to warn him. It turns out that his choice of acting as a profession is advantageous. He disguises himself as a traveling cinema operator and pulls up in front of his grandfather's house. At first, the housekeeper tries to turn him away, but his charm persuades her to let him hold a screening in the house. The film shown is Tartuffe, a story about a hypocrite and the all-too-easy belief in him. The hypocrite in the film is exposed, and the same fate befalls the housekeeper after the screening: she is thrown out, and grandfather and grandson embrace. According to the film, hypocrites can therefore also be called Tartuffe.
Restoration and home video
Like all Murnau's surviving films, Tartuffe is licensed by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation, whose tinted restoration is distributed on home video with a piano score by Javier Pérez de Azpeitia. It has been released on DVD in the US and in identical editions in the UK, France, Germany and Spain. The FWMS restoration has also been released on Blu-ray in the UK by Eureka/MoC.In 2015, a new, longer and more accurate restoration with a full orchestral score was broadcast on Arte television, and as of April 2020 it is available on home video only in the U.S. via Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray reissue.