People on Sunday (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

More than a famous collaboration.
**EDIT 6-28-11** The overall quality of the Blu-ray is very good, not perfect, but very good considering the age of the film and the fact that sources of varying qualities were used. A few scenes are obviously from a source that had deteriorated to some extent, but Criterion did an excellent job on the restoration and included the scenes to make the film as complete as possible. Quality-wise, this is the clearest, most crisp version of this film that I have viewed.

Today, People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) is mainly remembered as being a collaboration of several talented filmmakers early in their careers (Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Robert and Curt Siodmak, and Edgar G. Ulmer). Yes, this part of the production is fascinating, but the film itself is so much more than that. Produced during the latter days of the Weimar Republic with the German Expressionist movement screeching to a halt, this film combines several styles and influences in a unique and innovative way...

Blu-ray: "People on Sunday" is a wonderful classic blending silent cinema with a documentary style featuring 1929 Germany
An intriguing, cynical silent film featuring a wonderful glimpse of life during Weimar Republic-era Germany and created through the collaboration of young German filmmakers who would go on to have successful film careers a few years later.

The film's title "People on Sunday" (Menschen am Sonntag) is a 1930 silent film that featured a collaboration of Curt Siodmak (who would later be known for his "Wolf Man" and "Invisible Man" films), Robert Siodmak (who would later be known for "The Killers", "The Spiral Staircase" and "Criss Cross"), Edgar G. Ulmer (known for his noir films "Detour", "The Black Cat", "The Strange Woman"), cinematographer Fred Zinnemann (known for directing "High Noon", "From Here to Eternity", "The Day of the Jackal"), Eugen Schufftan (known for his cinematography on "The Hustler", "Eyes Without a Face", "Port of Shadows" and "It Happened Tomorrow") and Billy Wilder ("Some Like It Hot", "Sunset Blvd.", "The Apartment", "Double Indemnity"). And the most...

nuance and complexity... silent.
"People on Sunday" is an amazing achievement in every respect, but i was especially impressed by so much nuance and complexity in a silent movie. I used to expect silent films to be simplistic and melodramatic, Hollywood style, which was recently confirmed by The Artist (2011), a silent movie imitation by French director Michel Hazanavicius, which suffers from all the ills of the real McCoy.

For a film produced in 1930, "People on Sunday" is refreshingly serious, realistic and frank. Even comparing with the movies produced much later, European and Japanese realistic and neorealistic films of the late 40's and even 50's, Siodmak's film doesn't come across as less sophisticated. All the movies, produced by Siodmak, Ulmer and other creators of "People on Sunday" in Hollywood are more predictable and mechanical, conforming to the requirement of maximizing the box office numbers.

Even in comparison with Murnau's The Last Laugh one can easily see brute force of...

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