The story in The Threepenny Opera is actually derived from a much older source: John Gay's 1728 The Beggar's Opera, which was also a parody of traditional opera and took place amid the gutter set. Set in the back alleys of Victorian-era London, the story's primary character is Mackie Messer (aka, Mack the Knife), played by Rudolf Forster. Mackie is a dapper, successful crime lord who falls for Polly Peachum (Carola Neher), who happens to be the daughter of Mr. Peachum (Fritz Rasp), the so-called “beggar king” who has taken it upon himself to control London's beggars by licensing them. Peachum does not take kindly to Mackie seducing his only daughter, so he forces London's chief of police, Tiger-Brown (Reinhold Schünzel), to crack down on Mackie, who is Tiger-Brown's longtime friend. Thus, the story is, in a sense, a love triangle, with Polly caught in the middle between her new husband and her demanding father, and one of its most progressive elements is the iron-fist manner in which Polly steps up and takes over Mackie's gang when needed. She is not a woman who will be pushed around.

In his direction, Pabst seems somewhat torn between staying true to the story's theatrical roots and expanding it out into the purely cinematic. Pabst had made his name in the 1920s directing a series of films praised for their social realism, which stood in stark contrast to the expressionist tendencies that had defined the German cinema in the earlier part of the decade. He brings that textured understanding of the streets to The Threepenny Opera, making carefully constructed sets feel dank and lived in. Much of the story unfolds inside old warehouses, back alleys, and deserted buildings; the most modern and inviting space in the film is, ironically, the prison. Yet, because the film is a musical, there is always an element of inherent fantasy and theatricality, even though only a few songs from the original play are part of the film (these include “Cannon Song” sung by Mackie and Tiger-Brown and “Die Moritat vom Mackie Messer,” which introduces the main character and was made famous in the States when Bobby Darin, among many others, covered it as “Mack the Knife”).

In this sense, The Threepenny Opera is constantly operating in various interstitial spaces--between realism and fantasy, between the theatrical and the cinematic, and, most importantly, between parody and social commentary. Brecht's original play was rife with his alienating effects, including the self-conscious use of direct narration and a patently ridiculous deus ex machina ending that was meant to satirize the need for a “happily ever after.” The film maintains some of these (for example, there is a narrator whose address breaks the film into three parts), but Pabst tones down the more directly confrontational nature of the Brechtian approach and instead focuses on the idea of social commentary, particularly regarding corruption. This is seen most clearly in Tiger-Brown's willingness to turn a blind eye to Mackie's criminal activities, but it is probably sharpest in the film's most amusing scene, which depicts Peachum licensing the beggars and then outfitting them with clothes and feigned maladies that are guaranteed to separate sympathetic people from their money.

Because of its timeless themes and innovative musical-comedy approach to social issues (which is now nothing short of a given in contemporary theater), The Threepenny Opera has aged exceedingly well. Aspects of the film that were criticized when it first came out (for example, the anachronistic quality of the German production's version of what 18th-century London looked like) seem almost beside the point. The humor is still funny, the satire still bites, and the tunes are still infinitely humable. We should be thankful that the Nazis, who decided that its social satire hit a little too close to home in 1933 and tried to have every print of it destroyed, failed in their efforts.

Copyright ©2007 James Kendrick

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