The Tiger of Eschnapur

The German architect Harald Berger is summoned to India to build a school and a hospital for the Maharajah of Eschnapur. On the way he saves a temple dancer from a tiger. Seetha dances at the palace and the Maharajah wants to marry her. She and Berger grow close. There are people at the palace who notice. The Maharajah's brother is running a plan of his own. The two have to flee and go out into the desert. Fritz Lang directs. Paul Hubschmid plays Berger and Debra Paget plays Seetha. The film is the first of a two part production; the story is completed in the second and the two are shown together. The screenplay goes back a long way: Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou had written the same text in the twenties and another director made it then; Lang made his own version thirty years later. It belongs to the period after his return to Germany and he made only one more film afterwards. The visual work rests on extravagant colour and décor; the palace sets were built in the studio and the exteriors shot in India. Debra Paget's temple dance is its most cited scene. Its depiction of India carries the European view of the period and is plainly problematic now. Who it is for: anyone curious about classic adventure films and late Lang. Who it is not for: the representation is problematic, the plot simple, and the film does not finish on its own.