Up until the mid-1920s, the production of serials and multi-part feature films constituted an international trend, often in connection with the burgeoning genre of “Reise- und Abenteuerfilme” (travel-and-adventure films), with films like Georg Jacoby’s epic 6-part Der Mann ohne Namen (The Man without a Name, 1921) setting the bar. Between 1921 and 1925 Ellen Richter established herself as one of the major proponents of this phenomenon in Germany. The 2-part Der Flug um den Erdball (The Flight Around the World), released when Richter was at the peak of her popularity, marked her final outing in the travel-and-adventure genre.
The entire premise of the film is summed up in its title: Eager to prove the superior quality of the airplanes from her own factory, Ellinor Rix embarks on a highly publicized race around the world in 12 days, which takes her from Paris to Egypt, across Ceylon, India, Singapore, China, and Japan, to San Francisco and New York. Again and again, Ellinor and her two male companions (played by Anton Pointner, who frequently served as Richter’s leading man, and Hans Brausewetter, here providing the obligatory comic relief) narrowly manage to escape from certain-death situations and to stay one step ahead of her competitor (played by Reinhold Schünzel), despite his insidious sabotage attempts.
Critics hailed the film’s overall audience appeal, the beauty of the locations, the pacing, and the combination of laughs and thrills. Of the first part, the Film-Kurier critic wrote (07.03.1925): “Firstly, this is by far the best Ellen Richter film we have ever seen. But secondly, and even more importantly, it is the best German adventurer-travel film since Der Mann ohne Namen. (…) Viewers cannot escape the fact that this film is and must be a surefire box-office success (…). Dr. Willi Wolff, the director (…), supplies succinct and fine scenic details, so sparingly balanced that one does not feel the plot stall even for a moment.” Georg Victor Mendel meanwhile noted in Lichtbild-Bühne (published the same day): “Ellen Richter is, of course, as radiantly amiable, likeable, and elegant as always. So elegant that one sometimes wonders how such a small plane could ever accommodate the large wardrobe needed for the magnificent garments that she carries with her everywhere with graceful aplomb.”
Obviously, the image of the world, and especially the “exotic” and “oriental” presented in the film, is that of a world viewed through a Western, specifically European, lens. While the use of foreign locations adheres to touristic and consumerist expectations, the all-too-stereotypical and often-racialized depiction of Asia, “the East”, and its inhabitants also mirrors Western claims to hegemony, and reeks more than a little of the spirit of Colonialism. It is this very setting that gave Ellen Richter the perfect opportunity to present herself onscreen as an overtly self-confident woman in a man’s world, and off-screen as a film-maker who wasn’t afraid of modern techniques, but, on the contrary, embraced them and knew how to exploit them to full effect. – Philipp Stiasny

The Restoration  A vintage nitrate print of Der Flug um den Erdball that is missing two reels was among the items in a large collection of silent films acquired by Lobster Films at an auction house in Metz in 1993. Working from this material, Lobster restored the film for television a few years later, crafting six 25-minute episodes from the available footage. This version was later released on DVD one episode at a time in Lobster’s acclaimed Retour de Flamme series, making Der Flug um den Erdball the only Ellen Richter film to have been made available in home video format to date.
Interestingly, Der Flug um den Erdball had been released in France in 1925 both in two feature-length parts as well as in an alternate serialized version, albeit in only 5 episodes. Indeed, the practice of adapting feature films to the serial format was nothing out of the ordinary at the time, and Richter’s previous multi-part epics, Die Abenteurerin von Monte Carlo (The Adventuress from Monte Carlo, 1921) and Die Frau mit den Millionen (The Woman Worth Millions, 1922/23), underwent similar treatment.
For the Giornate screenings, Lobster has created a new high-resolution scan from its analog preservation elements. Apart from the addition of a few explanatory titles to bridge the missing footage, the film is presented as it survives, in two feature-length parts mirroring both the original German and French releases.