Pavement Butterfly

{{Infobox film

| name =Pavement Butterfly

| image = File:Pavement Butterfly.jpg

| caption =

| director = Richard Eichberg

| producer =

| writer = {{ubl|{{ill|Hans Kyser|de||fr}}|Adolf Lantz}}

| narrator =

| starring = {{ubl|Anna May Wong|Alexander Granach|Gaston Jacquet}}

| music = Max Pflugmacher

| editing =

| cinematography = {{ubl|Otto Baecker|Heinrich Gärtner}}

| studio = {{ubl|Richard Eichberg-Film|British International Pictures}}

| distributor = Süd-Film

| released = {{film date|1929|4|10|df=y}}

| runtime = 90 minutes

| country = {{ubl|Germany|United Kingdom}}

| language = {{ubl|Silent|German/English intertitles}}

| budget =

| gross =

}}

Pavement Butterfly ({{langx|de|Großstadtschmetterling}}) is a 1929 British-German silent drama film directed by Richard Eichberg and starring Anna May Wong, Alexander Granach, and Gaston Jacquet.{{sfn|Kapczynski|Richardson|p=189}} It was part of an ongoing co-production arrangement between Eichberg and British International Pictures.

The film was shot at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin{{Cite web |title=Großstadtschmetterling |url=https://www.shotinberlin.de/DE/katalog/film/4721/ |website=Shot in Berlin}} and on location in Paris, Nice and Monte Carlo. The sets were designed by the art directors Willi Herrmann and Werner Schlichting.

Synopsis

A Chinese dancer in the nightclubs of Paris, becomes involved with a Russian painter and becomes his model. She is persecuted by a man named Coco, accused of theft. Later, in the French Riviera she is at last able to prove her innocence.

Cast

{{cast listing|

Anna May Wong as Mah
Alexander Granach as Coco
Nien Sön Ling as Mr Wu
Elwood Fleet Bostwick as Henry P. Working
Tilla Garden as Ellise Working, Mr Working's daughter
Gaston Jacquet as Baron de Neuve
Fred Louis Lerch as Fedja Kusmin
S. Z. Sakall as Paul Bennet, Kusmin's artist neighbour
John Höxter

}}

Production

This is, after Song, also known as Show Life, the second{{Cite web |title=Kennington Bioscope presents Pavement Butterfly (1929) » The Cinema Museum, London |url=http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2017/kennington-bioscope-presents-pavement-butterfly-1929/ |access-date=2023-09-14 |website=The Cinema Museum, London}} of various collaborations of Eichberg with Wong.{{Cite web |title=A celebration of Anna May Wong in 6 films |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/anna-may-wong-6-essential-films |access-date=2023-09-14 |website=BFI |language=en}}

Analysis

Analysing the evolution of the roles played by Wong in her career, Mayukh Sen wrote: "Her subsequent films with Eichberg broke her out of the typecasting that she’d faced in Hollywood. In 1929’s Pavement Butterfly, she played a Chinese dancer who, despite the title’s suggestion, was more of a self-possessed vamp than a passive wallflower."{{Cite magazine |last=Sen |first=Mayukh |date=2023-08-30 |title=How Anna May Wong Became the First Chinese American Movie Star |language=en-US |magazine=The New Yorker |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-anna-may-wong-became-the-first-chinese-american-movie-star |access-date=2023-09-14 |issn=0028-792X}}

References

Bibliography

{{cite book | ref = {{sfnref|Kapczynski|Richardson}} | editor-last1 = Kapczynski | editor-first1 = Jennifer M. | editor-last2 = Richardson | editor-first2 = Michael D. | title = A New History of German Cinema | publisher = Boydell & Brewer | year = 2014 | location = New York | orig-year = 2012 | isbn = 978-1-58046-854-1 }}