Out and About: Lotte Eisner at the Film-Kurier 1927–33
Screen, 62 (3):
408-417 (October 2021)DOI: 10.1093/screen/hjab038
Abstract
In her memoirs, Lotte Eisner recalls with amusement a meeting with Alfred Weiner, the Film-Kurier’s publisher, in which she was scolded for a disparaging review she had written. Because the Film-Kurier depended in part on the placement of advertising by film producers, Weiner cautioned her, it was not good business to run negative reviews. He advised Eisner to stick to reviewing films she would be able to praise, however faint such praise might be. Eisner introduces this chapter in the memoirs on her years at the Film-Kurier by describing herself as the first female German film critic, always given the least important, least interesting assignments: ‘I rushed from one deadline to the next, and initially got the unpleasant tasks that no one else wanted to do – all manner of undesirable editorial duties, first among them covering the Ufa Kulturfilme. You cannot imagine something more boring and odious.’1