Germany 1929. Directed by Joe May Starring Betty Amann & Gustav Frohlich. One of the last great German Expressionist Films of the 1920's, now restored in a beautiful 35mm print.

ASPHALT is set in Berlin. A well-dressed woman steals a precious stone from a jewellery shop. She tries to seduce the policeman who catches her, and he gradually succumbs to her charms. Betty Amann displays a lascivious sensuality that is a revelation, but it is the spectacular sets designed by Eric Kettlehut and the photography of Gunther Rittau that make it a major re-discovery.

About the restored version:
Until recently Asphalt was available only in a shortened version with English-language intertitles. In 1993 the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin) made a discovery at the Gosfilmofond archive in Moscow: a print of Asphalt which appeared to have been struck from the original negative. martin Koerber compared the Moscow material with existing versions and compiled a new version of the film which was premiered at the 1995 Berlin Film Festival in a special gala screening to mark the centenary of cinema. The chronology of scenes in this print differs from existing versions; the print also includes extra scenes and the hitherto unknown German intertitles. The animated sequence at the beginning of the film was taken from a nitrate print of the American version which was held at the Federal Film Archive in Koblenz (now Berlin). The Federal Film Archive also inserted the intertitles and printed both the dupe negative and the print for distribution.

click on a track below to hear an extract in MP3,
or preview entire album.

1. ASPHALT 2.36 2. SOBRIETY I 3.39 3. BERGEN'S 4.49 4. PRECIOUS 5.33 5. METROPOLE 5.30 6. ENTRAPMENT 5.45 7. SEDUCTION 3.44 8. SOBRIETY II 4.58 9. UNDERWORLD 6.45 10. DE-LUXE 3.25 11. OPULENCE 3.38 12. REFLUX 4.00 13. NECESSITY 2.33 14. CRIME PASSIONEL 5.31 15. JUDGEMENT WALK 7.03

Written and produced by Klive and Nigel Humberstone
© Copyright control
Recorded & mixed at A17, Sheffield Aug/Sept 1997

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"The influence of these avant-garde film-makers is undeniably present in Asphalt, which was made the year after 'Dirnentragodie' by the skillful director Joe May. It is a cogent example of the use that UFA commercial films made of the results of artistic research. May uses everything. The suggestive chiaroscuro of the early hours while the workmen lay the asphalt, and the shots of legs, feet, and tools pounding the still liquid mass could come from some artistically made documentary. The climbing smoke, the gear-wheels of a steam-roller as it lumbers forward, and the various overprinted details of wheels owe their origin to the symphony of the machines in 'Metropolis'. We also have tangled visions of simultaneous criss-crossing superimpositions, mingling, linking, and contemplating each other as in Ruttmann's 'Berlin' or Richter's 'Rennsymphonie', which attempted to capture the street's meaning with an abstract, quintessential turmoil of traffic. May, wishing as he did to create the Song of Songs of the indifferent street, where tragic liaisons and fatal encounters are shaped unbeknown to the trafic which crushes the budding illusion of tenderness, interposed such shots on several occasions. Unhappily this development of abstract art remains external to the luxurious studio à la Ufa, who were never ones to hesitate over a few extra buses and other hundred or so extras. So this self-styled 'daring' is not an integral part of the action, which is a wholly conventional love story."

Lotte H. Eisner 'The Haunted Screen'