I have a fascination for Edgar G. Ulmer, the only Poverty Row director to be justifiably deemed an auteur. Ulmer started out as an art director in Germany in the early 1920s and, after emigrating directed "The Black Cat" - one of the gems of Universal's pre-Code horrors and one of the films for which he is best known. His affair with the wife of a studio executive caused him to be blackballed in Tinseltown and he spent the next several years scrounging for work with the most independent of independent producers, working with microscopic budgets and miniscule shooting schedules. Eventually he would find himself back at a Hollywood studio but it would be PRC, the lowliest and lowest regarded of the minor studios. The initials stood for Producers Releasing Company but some insisted they meant Pretty Rotten Crap. Much of their product was pretty dire in terms of scripting and acting (if in some cases it could really be called that) but in terms of sets often looked pretty good. Ulmer may well have been at least partly responsible - he certainly took credit for it in an interview - but he can safely be given credit for directing some gems during his tenure at the studio. Most would cite that bleakest of noirs, "Detour" (one of the first 100 films deemed worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress) and "Bluebeard" of his PRC seven day wonders, but I'd also point the way toward "Club Havana", his "Grand Hotel" on a shoestring, and "Strange Illusion", his modern take on "Hamlet" (both are on YouTube).
This film is from his time in the wilderness, quite literally as it was lensed in the farmlands of New Jersey, back to back with another ethnic film, the Yiddish "The Light Ahead". It's an adaptation of the famous Ukrainian comic opera - well, famous if you're Ukrainian anyway - "Zaporozhets za Dunayem" (Zaporozhian (Cossack) Beyond the Danube) with spoken dialogue, music and libretto by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813-1873). The story is based on the historical destruction of the Zaporizhian Cossacks' island fortress by the Tsar's troops who sent them packing off to the Ottoman Empire (now part of Romania). Comedy arises from the refugee clan's struggles to adapt to their new home and the chance encounter of an old Cossack, Ivan Karas, and a Sultan who's traveling incognito (it just isn't an opera unless someone is in disguise). Aside from stunning close-ups and startling edits, viewers will find little of Ulmer's stylistic stamp here (he was probably hard-pressed just to get the thing in the can). Curiously the subtitles come and go; several arias (I counted at least four) are completely without them, but it doesn't seriously affect following the story. (I should note this is how the film went out and not some lack on Alpha's part.) The print is a bit soft but it's nice for us Ulmer completists to have it available again.
