The Devil's Passkey (1920)

豆知識

The Devil's Pass Key is a 1920 silent drama film directed by Erich von Stroheim. Considered a “lost film”, no print is officially known to exist.

Production

The cast for The Devil’s Pass Key was assembled from vaudeville and musical comedy personnel reflecting von Stroheim's predilection for naturalistic acting and his antipathy towards stage-trained performers. Actor Sam de Grasse, now a von Stroheim cast regular, was joined by Mae Busch, Maude George and Clyde Fillmore to play the leads in the film.

Von Stroheim shot his film “in sequence” allowing the cast to discover and develop their characters. He personally “acted out each part for each player”, fully entering into the dramatization so as to elicit “realistic” performances from his cast.

Shooting for The Devil’s Pass Key ended on 4 December 1919 and marked the beginning of a protracted editing process that took nearly five months to complete. The immense amount of footage was a product of von Stroheim's “habit of shooting dozens of takes in the hope of making a magical selection in the cutting room.”

In terms of its length, The Devil’s Pass Key measured approximately 7500 feet; the finished film totaled a modest running time of about two hours, suggesting none of the profligacy in the duration that characterized subsequent von Stroheim films, first manifested in his Foolish Wives (1922). Despite these delays in editing, The Devil’s Pass Key was completed with notable “efficiency and dispatch.”

The final print was shipped to New York on 4 April 1920 for press screening and to arrange for booking by Universal's sales department. The film would be premiered on 8 August at New York's Capitol Theater.

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