Moon of Israel
| The Moon of Israel Die Sklavenkönigin |
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American film poster
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| Directed by | Michael Curtiz (as Mihaly Kertész) |
| Produced by |
Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky Arnold Pressburger |
| Written by | Ladislaus Vajda |
| Based on | novel by H. Rider Haggard |
| Starring | María Corda |
| Music by | Gerhard Gruber (in the modern reissue) |
| Cinematography |
Gustav Ucicky Max Nekut Hans Theyer |
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Release date
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Running time
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103 minutes |
| Country | Austria |
| Language | Silent |
The Moon of Israel (German: Die Sklavenkönigin, or "The Queen of the Slaves") is a 1924 Austrian epic film.
It was directed by Mihaly Kertész (later Michael Curtiz). The script was written by Ladislaus Vajda, based on H. Rider Haggard's novel Moon of Israel, which in its turn was inspired by the Biblical story of the Exodus.
It was this film that brought Kertész to the attention of the studio head Jack L. Warner, who invited him to Hollywood in 1926, where he rapidly became Michael Curtiz and made a career with the Warner Studios.
Shooting took place in Vienna with about 5,000 extras, in the studios of Sascha-Film, and outdoors on the Laaer Berg. The premiere was on 24 October 1924. The restored complete edition of the film, which was entirely lost for many years, was first shown on 26 February 2005 in the Wiener Metro Kino.
In about the year 1230 BC the Israelites are in slavery in Egypt. At this difficult time the Jewish slave-girl Merapi falls in love with Prince Seti, son of the Pharaoh Menapta. This socially inappropriate love leads to numerous problems, which can nevertheless be resolved. At the end of the film Moses leads his people through the Red Sea and into freedom.
One of the most outstanding scenes is the parting of the Red Sea by Moses (Hans Marr). Since at the same time the American film The Ten Commandments was being made, which also featured the parting of the Red Sea, the Viennese team took extraordinary care over this scene out of fear of superior American special effects technology. In the final version, thanks to subsequent trick editing, the gigantic wooden construction, designed to release 100 cubic metres of water from both sides at once, is unrecognisable. The water poured into a closed wooden trough 8 metres square and 1 metre deep on the Laaer Berg in Vienna. The walls of water to either side were modelled out of plaster, which looked completely realistic on black-and-white film. One single take could now depict both the parting and the closing of the sea: for the former the shot was simply spliced into the film in reverse.
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Wikipedia