The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959 film)
| The Tiger of Eschnapur | |
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German film poster
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| Directed by | Fritz Lang |
| Produced by | Artur Brauner |
| Screenplay by |
Fritz Lang Werner Jörg Lüddecke Thea von Harbou |
| Based on | Das indische Grabmal by Thea von Harbou |
| Starring |
Debra Paget Paul Hubschmid Walter Reyer |
| Music by | Michel Michelet |
| Cinematography | Richard Angst |
| Edited by | Walter Wischniewsky |
| Distributed by |
American International Pictures Fantoma Omnia-Film Polyband GmbH |
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Release date
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Running time
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101 minutes |
| Country | West Germany France Italy |
| Language | German |
The Tiger of Eschnapur, or in original German, Der Tiger von Eschnapur, is a 1959 West German-French-Italian adventure film directed by Fritz Lang. It is the first of two films comprising what has come to be known as Fritz Lang's Indian Epic; the other is The Indian Tomb (Das Indische Grabmal). Fritz Lang returned to Germany to direct these films, which together tell the story of a German architect, the Indian maharaja for whom he is supposed to build schools and hospitals, and the Eurasian dancer who comes between them.
Lang's Indian epic is based on work he did forty years earlier on a silent version of Das Indische Grabmal. He and Thea von Harbou co-wrote the screenplay, basing it on von Harbou's novel of the same name. Lang was set to direct, but that job was taken from him and given to Joe May. Though Lang did not control the final form of that earlier version, it is one of his most revered films.
Released in 1921, the original version of Das Indische Grabmal had a running time of 3 1⁄2 hours. For the remake, Lang divided the story into two parts that each run about 100 minutes, a length modern audiences can more easily accept.
The tale begins when architect Harold Berger (Paul Hubschmid) arrives in India to meet with Maharaja Chandra (Walter Reyer), for whom he will build schools and hospitals. En route to the Maharaja's palace, Berger meets a dancer named Seetha (Debra Paget) and saves her from a tiger. Seetha, whose father was European, is promised to the Maharaja, but she and the architect begin to fall in love. Predictably, this leads to a buildup of tension between Chandra and Berger, helped along by scheming palace courtiers. The film is also filled with action, and a highlight of it is Seetha's first ritual dance. At the end of Tiger, Seetha and Berger are imprisoned but escape into the desert just as Berger's sister and her husband, also an architect who works with Berger, arrive in Eschnapur. Chandra informs them the plans have changed; he now wants a tomb to be built.
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