Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

shortened: the last travelling
starting with the opening
curtain in front of Lola in the
cage and ending with the
curtain which closes the movie
cut: the coach, fleeing from Bavaria
The last cut concerns the famous last take with Lola in a kind of cage,
with the camera pulling slowly back through the crowd of people
pressing to Lola’s cage, until a curtain is drawn and the film ended. In
the reedited versions, this long travelling shot is shortened, in the
French version by means of a clever dissolve in the travelling, in the
German version by means of a harsh cut leading to a jump cut in the
travelling shot. The differences in sound are even more important: in
the original sound mix, until the very last, the voices of the equerry and
the page boys, who collect the money, are audible. The last words one
hears are “one dollar”, then the curtain is closed and silence is set for a
short time, before the end titles and the music begin. In the reedited
versions the music covers up the voices in the travelling shot and leads
straight to the end titles. This ending is far less sobering and much
more harmonising than the original one.
13 Journal of Film Preservation / 65 / 2002