In the summer of 1923, filming began on one of the most ambitious projects in the then young Bavarian film industry: with an international star cast, impressive backdrops and hundreds of extras, the first monumental film adaptation of Homer’s ancient Helena saga was made in and around Munich. The large-scale production of Bavaria AG goes beyond everything that has come before: Director Manfred Noa is staging, two years before “Ben Hur”, a spectacular chariot race on a disused horse racing track in the north of Munich.
Upper Bavaria becomes “Hollywood in the Isar Valley”
Opulent temple festivals are staged, a lion hunt near Wolfratshausen, a huge sea battle with 80 ships on the Wörthsee. With the use of a true-to-scale wooden horse in front of a specially built city wall, the fall of Troy takes place there, some contributors are getting paid in beer and wood amid the prevailing hyperinflation. The result is impressive even in the USA, with the critics calling it “Hollywood in the Isar Valley”.
No Hollywood feeling with the stars on the film set
While the residents are likely to have excitedly followed the hustle and bustle, the conditions on the film set are apparently anything but Hollywood-like. Grandmother Adele Sandrock is outraged by what she thinks is poor accommodation and food for the actors and actresses. The famous tragedy of German theater plays the wife of the Trojan king in the Helena film. She renames Steinebach am Wörthsee in “Schweinbach am Neppsee”.
“We lived in Steinebach am Wörthsee, a village that I renamed ‘Schweinbach am Neppsee’ for good reasons. It was there that the most beautiful rooms were reserved for foreign colleagues, while Germans were allowed to live in attics. (…) The circumstances under which we had to work were terrible. We changed clothes in railroad cars, and the sun burned down on us all day, so that we almost perished. At lunchtime there was a roll for 4,000 marks and a pint of beer for 8,000 Mark. (…) And when we went to the pub in the evening, starved and exhausted, it was almost always: ‘The booze filmers are too late. The fire is out, there is no hot food!’ “. Adele Sandrock, tragedy actress in German theater
“Helena” hype in Munich and Berlin
Manfred Noa’s silent film has a total length of almost three and a half hours and appears in two parts. In Berlin and Munich it was a success with the public and triggered a real “Helena” hype. The film can be sold in most European countries and even in Japan.
USA does not bring “Ben Hur” competitor onto the market
The American critics are also enthusiastic, but Bavaria producer Erich Wagowski cannot find an American distributor. The Bavarian cinema miracle can ultimately also be seen as a competitor to the American “Ben Hur”. The income, as good as it is, is not enough to cover manufacturing costs.
Munich Film Museum saves the pearl of Bavarian film history
But “Helena”, one of the cornerstones of Munich as a film city, has been forgotten and has been lost for decades. It was not until 1999 that an incomplete Swiss copy of “Helena” appeared. The treasure is handed over to the Munich Film Museum, from where the global search for further copies begins. The missing opening sequence is discovered in Italy, a fragment of the second part in London. Scene by scene is reconstructed and supplemented, finds from Spain and Russia are added.
Cinema epic runs on television
Then it’s done: only five out of 210 film minutes have probably been lost forever. In 2001 “Helena” was available again as a reconstruction of the original film and was broadcast on television.
Friedemann Beyer tells the unbelievable story of the Bavarian monumental wonder “Helena” in the Bavarian feuilleton.
“Helena – Monumental Film in 2 Parts” by director Manfred Noa was released as a restored version on DVD in 2016 by the film publisher Fernsehjuwelen. You can read the article from the Bavarian features section here listen.
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