The Threepenny Opera

Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht may never have had it so good. G. W. Pabst, who brought Louise Brooks to fame in his silent (and seductive) 1929 masterpiece Pandora’s Box, this time took to sound production and dirtied up the silver screen like never before. The Threepenny Opera tells the story of Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) and the beautiful Polly Peachum. It’s is a feast for the eyes, ears, and the soul, wallowing in the underworld and bringing the original’s characters to life as if they had wandered onscreen straight from the gutter. It will be interesting to see how or if Criterion can clean up this film, however, since the original 1931 prints were destroyed by the Nazis. Notwithstanding potentially scratchy images, Threepenny is perhaps the greatest study of poverty and corruption ever filmed, and, like Pabst’s other films, a delicious romp as well.