DER NEUE SCHREIBTISCH [The New Writing Desk] (DE 1914)
regia/dir: Peter Ostermayr. scen: Karl Valentin. cast: Karl Valentin. prod: Münchner Kunstfilm Peter Ostermayr. riprese/filmed: 1913. copia/copy: DCP, 11′; did./titles: GER. fonte/source: Filmmuseum München.
In 1912 Karl Valentin embarked on using moving images as a medium for his comedy, and began shooting movies with his stage colleagues in the open air. Using a loan from a Munich bank, he established an “artificial light studio for photographing kinematograph images” in a building behind Pfisterstrasse in Munich, employing – according to a trade ad for Valentin’s studio – “4,000 candlelight power”. However, the “Valentin on Film” business remained below expectations, regardless of the “quality and significance” of the product as highlighted in one of the ads, and regardless of the promotional value “resulting from the name Valentin alone”. Thus, Der neue Schreibtisch was produced by Peter Ostermayr, a former Pathé and Gaumont cameraman who had started his own business in 1910.
Ostermayer believed the literary source, the “material”, to be crucial for the success of a film. Accordingly, an 1891 story by cartoonist Emil Reinecke, “Der neue Schreibtisch”, published in Münchener Bilderbogen, can be attributed as the template for this film. A clerk, sitting at a newly delivered desk which is far too high, shortens the legs of both desk and chair in alternation since they refuse to match. Eventually the legs have been shortened so much that the clerk “can barely sit anymore”. Valentin makes this situation much more anarchist and absurd. The protagonist drills holes in the floor in order to facilitate space for his legs. Using medium long shots throughout the film, it creates enough space for Valentin for his “pas de deux for a slim person and a standing desk” (per critic Hans Günther Pflaum) to show the characteristics of his comedy.
Walter Jerven championed Valentin in the 1920s, and his observations still hold true: “When Valentin wants to master a situation, everything goes wrong, one thing follows upon another; he succumbs and resigns and is at a loss. Valentin is grotesque himself and through himself. He does not need ideas, no bluffs aimed at effect. He causes the grotesque through a simple touch with reality. He loosens men’s finest instincts. Not only does he stir us: he stirs us up.”
No programmes or newspaper ads, let alone reviews, can be found to confirm any screening of this film outside Munich. By the late 1920s the film was believed lost. Thanks to a want ad placed in Film-Kurier, a print was found, approved by censorship on 17 May 1929. Jerven used the film in his “Aus der Kinderstube des Films” (“When Film Was Young”) programmes in 1929.

[KARL VALENTIN UND LIESL KARLSTADT] [Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt] (DE, c.1929)
regia/dir: ?. cast: Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt. copia/copy: DCP, 2′; senza didascalie/no intertitles. fonte/source: Filmmuseum München.
These undated takes cannot be construed as a self-contained work, thus they must be considered home movies, outtakes, or fragments from one of Valentin’s many lost film projects. In a 1923 interview, Valentin described his situation: “I am a simple musical humorist! For fifteen years I’ve been struggling, made suggestion upon suggestion to the cabaret and variety impresarios. Submitted my ideas to them. They barely listened! ‘Not for me,’ was the usual reply. Same fiasco for film. Idea upon idea I submitted to the film bigwigs, ideas where I guaranteed laughter, where even the grumpiest person would not have been able to resist laughter, so as not to die from anger about not laughing. Not a single penny could be raised; I had to film to live and make faces. That’s what they paid me for, they didn’t care about ideas.” (Karl Valentin, in conversation with Josef M. Jurinek, Neues Wiener Journal, 01.03.1923)
Valentin’s grimace is in the tradition of the Gähnmaul (“yawning yap”), a derisive gesture expressing mockery and ridicule. In this grimace, the mouth is broadly stretched in a most unnatural fashion. Thumbs or fingers hook into the cheek and stretch the mouth to the sides. This gesture is seen in 15th-century portrayals of the mocking of Christ, and in devil masks.

DER SONDERLING [The Nerd] (DE 1929)
regia/dir: Walter Jerven, Franz Osten. scen: Walter Jerven, Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt. photog: Hans Karl Gottschalk. scg/des: Peter Rochelsberg. cast: Karl Valentin (Karl Valentin), Liesl Karlstadt (Paula Kuhn),Truus van Aalten (her niece Anni), Ferdinand Martini (Friedrich Kuhn), Heinz Koennecke (Herr Lechner), Gustl Stark-Gestettenbaur (Toni). prod: Karl Valentin Filmproduktion, München. dist: Union-Film, München. uscita/rel: 28.12.1929 (Gloria-Palast, München). copia/copy: 35mm, 2513 m., 91′ (24 fps); did./titles: GER. fonte/source: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin.
Walter Jerven, publisher of yearbooks and anthologies, and a scriptwriter, was already writing about the physical comedian Karl Valentin in the early 1920s. A film collector, at the end of the 1920s Jerven presented silent film programmes from early cinema, which he accompanied as a film-storyteller, “like in the old days”. The closing highlight were the early films of Karl Valentin, by then completely forgotten. The tremendous success of these presentations triggered the founding of “Karl Valentin Productions” to produce “feature comedies with Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt”. Financial backing was provided by the Martin Löwenthal & Justin Walther bank. The duration of shooting cannot be ascertained; in his 1941 “Completed Engagements” list, Valentin marks only five days of shooting for Der Sonderling, 21-25 October 1929. The budget was minimal (38,000 marks), which is why the original idea of adding a soundtrack with effects and dialogue sequences was not implemented. When the silent film premiered towards the end of 1929, Ufa had already entirely changed over to sound and successfully released their first sound-film operettas to technically updated theatres.
The Münchner Neueste Nachrichten reported on “opening scene applause” in the premiere theatre, and enthused: “German film and Germany’s Chaplin have finally found each other, and no doubt a global audience will enjoy this as much as that here in Munich.” However, the film did not make it to the top-rank theatres in other cities, which were committed to sound film. Der Sonderling did not retrieve its production costs, and its distribution company was liquidated. Valentin and Jerven never received their pay. When the film was finally taken over by Arnold & Richter HG for small-gauge home-cinema and film-club release, it was banned from public presentation by the censorship office on 9 April 1942, “for offending artistic sensibility”. Their reasoning can be found in a document dated that same day: “The film was produced some 15 years ago. The content is such utter nonsense that it cannot even be called a plot, and should not be imposed upon audiences anymore.”
It is safe to assume that producer Peter Ostermayr’s brother, Franz Osten, first credited as co-director and then as artistic supervisor, was of decisive help to inexperienced Valentin fan Walter Jerven in the production, being a practiced director of expensive productions and films based on the Bavarian highland novels of Ludwig Ganghofer. Jerven in turn deserves credit for recognizing the principles of Valentin’s comedy and allowing him the necessary freedom in filming. The film presents Valentin as an apprentice tailor and stamp collector, fighting against the perils of the material world around him and being suspected of theft. However, the tailor’s stalwart daughter, and Valentin’s secret suitor, played by Valentin’s long-time stage partner Liesl Karlstadt, solves the case. Valentin is released from prison. Warden: “You are innocent.” Valentin: “Why?”
Critics objected to the film’s episodic structure and simplistic manner: “There was a reason the first new Valentin film wasn’t premiered in Berlin. He has totally stayed behind in early film. All the jokes are in the intertitles. Valentin’s admirers will be shocked at the emptiness of expression and acting.” (Neue Berliner Zeitung)
Others showed more mercy: “Regardless, there is much joy in many a detail, and this seems proof that Valentin is the right man for film too, regardless of his poorly photographing eyes. Though perhaps more so for sound films than for silent images. Without the philosophical nonsense of Valentin’s monologues and dialogue, the true Valentin cannot be shown.” (Berliner Börsen-Zeitung)

Stefan Droessler