After what she considered a lack lustre beginning to her movie career, Marlene Dietrich returned to the stage where she accepted the role of the wise cracking chorus girl "Rubie" in the Berlin production of "Broadway", the sensational George Abbott play that had already taken the real Broadway by storm. When the play reached Vienna, it's star, Willi Forst, was engaged to make the movie "Cafe Elektric" and at his urging Marlene was given one of the female leads in this strong drama. She made such a favourable impression in her flashy role with both audiences and critics that she was soon being compared to Greta Garbo.Fast stepping Erni (Dietrich) is the daughter of a construction tycoon who moves in pretty fast circles himself. She makes the acquaintance of Ferdl (Forst), a debonair man of the streets who makes his living from women's generosity (money). At an up market coffee house when he engages Erni in a sensuous "Black Bottom" dance they both want to meet again. The other side of the coin is the "Cafe Elektric" - a low cafe where "the underworld can meet the elite" and it is there Ferdl likes to hang out. Meanwhile Hansi (I don't know anything about beautiful Nina Vanna but she looks like a fetching Bebe Daniels), Ferdl's old flame has made her own conquest - it is Max (Igo Sym) who has been jilted by Erni and has gone to the "Cafe Elektric" to drown his sorrows. This is the decadent Vienna of the 1920s, nothing is left to the imagination. When Ferdl takes Erni to his room for a late night coffee, breakfast shows Erni putting on her stockings!! Unfortunately Ferdl sees her only as another woman he can sponge off and she is happy to oblige - even to stealing from her father!! She thinks she is sophisticated but compared to the denizens of the "Cafe Elektric" she is a babe in the wood!! Ferdl thinks he and Hansi should team up again but Hansi thinks she has found, with Max, her true love!!Things come to a head one night at the cafe - Erni has stolen a ring from her father, Fredl has given the ring to Hansi who is then confronted by Erni's father about the ring she is wearing and seeing Ferdl with Erni she immediately points him out as the thief. Oddly enough Fredl and Erni disappear from the movie and the story takes up the struggle of Max and Hansi who marry but find only hardship and poverty due to Max's inability to find employment. The last reel is missing but there is a general wrap up of the story to show that it ends on a far more hopeful note than the depressing end of the last reel."Cafe Elektric" also introduced Gustav Ucicky as an exciting new director, unfortunately with blatant propaganda movies like "Morgenrot" (1933) and "Fluchtlinge" (1933) he quickly became a top director for Hitler and the National Socialist Party. Even more chilling was the life led by Igo Sym who, although he lived in Poland, collaborated with the Gestapo and betrayed many celebrities who were trying to live incognito. He was eventually caught by the Polish underground and executed in his apartment in 1941.

In spite of what many common people believe, Germans and Austrians are not the same (leaving aside some dubious political unification); certainly many times it is very difficult to distinguish between a Prussian and a Viennese. However, the most telling difference that irremediably separates both is this: Austrians drink coffee and Germans drink beer. Having in mind such important and transcendental facts, the film "Café Elektric" (1927) will then be comprehensible for any silent audience. The picture was directed by Herr Gustav Ucicky, one of the most important and versatile Austrian film pioneers, and depicts a trilateral and troublesome relationship connected in different ways and with Vienna as the background.Frau Erni Göttlinger ( Frau Marlene Dietrich ) is a spoiled rich girl, daughter of a very important construction entrepreneur ( Herr Fritz Alberti ) and she becomes terribly attracted to a pickpocket, Herr Fredl ( Herr Willi Forst ). Herr Max Stöger ( Herr Igo Sym ) is a young engineer who works for Herr Göttlinger who does not focus exclusively on his construction business when a young fräulein ( Frau Anny Cotti ) is around. Meanwhile, Frau Hansi ( Frau Nina Vanna ), an old friend of Herr Fredl, enjoys the Vienna night life though not in the same way as Frau Paula, a prostitute ( Vera Salvotti ). For many silent film connoisseurs, this film is a special one due to the fact that Frau Marlene Dietrich-in her pre icon days- is in it, but her part is unremarkable and less striking in comparison to Frau Nina Vanna as Hansi und Frau Vera Salvotti, whose performance as a not so young streetwalker who knows the years are catching up with her, is especially effective.In the male roles, Herr Willy Forst has probably the most clichéd one, performing the quintessential man without a heart who exploits women for money ( hmmm… this Herr Graf can hear the bells… ). More interesting is Herr Fritz Alberti as Herr Göttlinger, a more subtle wicked character, an old man who enjoys seducing bad young girls (those bells are ringing again) perhaps not unlike his foolish daughter.In the background is the "Café Elektric", a nightclub in Austrian parameters and which has nothing in common with the Germans cabarets, natürlich!!... The atmosphere is wicked and shapes the evolution and personal circumstances of the characters. Herr Ucicky does particularly well with these indoor nightlife scenes but of course includes charming exteriors of Vienna as well.Although the last part of the film is lost (some title cards explains the missing scenes) what remains is certainly very interesting and attractive, a combination of fiction and hyperrealism, the kind of picture that this Herr Graf likes so much. And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must drink a decaffeinated coffee with some drops of whiskey.

Were it not for Marlene Dietrich's appearance in this film, CAFE ELEKTRIC would be an unlikely candidate for a DVD release, especially considering that it is incomplete (the restoration done by the Filmarchiv Austria summarizes the missing ending). Yet this film by Gustav Ucicky—the son of the painter Gustav Klimt—is really an ensemble melodrama, with Dietrich no more the star than the other featured actors (her legs, however, do receive plenty of screen time).The story concerns the interaction between two poles of contemporary Viennese society (not Berlin, as a fellow reviewer mistakenly states): the upper-crust bourgeoisie, represented by the capitalist Göttlinger (Fritz Albert) and his daughter Erni (Dietrich); and the prostitutes and petty criminals that hang around the Café Elektric. Of these, we are introduced to Fredl (Willi Forst), a pickpocket who's always short on cash, and his sometime girlfriend Hansi (Nina Vanna), who longs to escape from her circumstances. In the course of the film, Erni and Hansi's fates play out in counterpoint with each other, although the two never actually meet. While Hansi struggles upward towards societal respectability in a life with Max (Igo Sym), Erni descends from her privileged existence thanks to the negative influence of Fredl.Ucicky's direction is competent but not remarkable or visually distinctive. The most sympathetic character is Hansi, both because her plight gives us someone to root for, and due to the charismatic performance given by the lovely Nina Vanna. Silent film accompanist Gerhard Gruber provides an excellent piano score on the Austrian DVD edition.

Cafe Electric is one of many German silent films Marlene Dietrich played in before her "discovery" by Josef von Sternberg in which she was cast as Lola Lola in the Blue Angel and began her American film career. The early scenes of Berlin in the 1920's are notable for a glimpse of the times and that they were shot on location. The plot is moralistic but not without intrigue. It's also very interesting to see a young Dietrich before the meticulous attention to her glamorous look in American films. I searched for many years to find any copy of Cafe Electric as a die-hard fan who wanted to see everything she was ever in before finding a DVD available from forgottenfilms.net. There are no special features or even scene selection, but the musical score and English titles are very good. Cafe Electric is a must see for those interested in silent films of the '20's and especially Marlene Dietrich fans.