The 3 Penny Opera

In London at the turn of the century, Mack the Knife, the boss of the underworld, marries Polly, daughter of Peachum the king of the beggars, without her father's knowledge. Peachum treats this as a threat and tries to move the police into hanging Mack. But the police chief, Brown, is Mack's old friend. Meanwhile Polly starts running her husband's gang and turns it into a bank. Georg Wilhelm Pabst's film adapts the 1928 musical by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Both were hired to write it; Brecht walked out mid-production, Weill was fired, and both sued the producers. Their claim was that the film softened the critique of capitalism. Brecht's suit was rejected and Weill's succeeded. Pabst shot a French version at the same time. The Nazi government banned the film in 1933 and destroyed the prints it could find. Who it's for: Viewers who like early sound cinema, German cinema of the Weimar years, and the music of Brecht and Weill. Who it's not for: The sharpness of the stage work is noticeably softened here. The image and sound quality of surviving prints also varies.