Iza néni (1933) Online

The review of : F Gwynplaine MacIntyre: According to our knowledges (Hungarian movie catalog) the film is lost. It would be nice to find the copy mentioned by F Gwynplaine MacIntyre. The inspiration of the film was the so-called irredentism. Hungary was on the wrong side in WW1, therefore has signed a treaty with the Entente Cordial pays (France, Great Britain, Italy)in the palace of Trianon near Paris. According to this treaty, Hungary has lost the 66% of its former territories. Roumania,Yugoslavia,Austria and Czechoslovakia have got these territories, with significant Hungarian minorities. Beregszasz, where Sári Fedák was born, became the part of Czechoslovakia too, not only Selmecbánya as in the film. The name of the battle against this situation was the irredentism. (Lord Rothermere of Great Britain was almost the only citizen of the Entente Cordial who supported this Hungarian diplomatic battle for getting back the former territories). The irredentism was the platform of this film produced Sári Fedák herself. As far as I know, the film was not only expensive, but wastefully. It was made in the age of white-black era of the film history, but Sári Fedák bought very expensive stuffs for costumes in Paris. The scenery was planned by a Hungarian planner living in Paris (Marcell Vértes),needlessly vivid from expensive materials for a white-black film and very expensive too in vain. The producer of the film was Fedák Sári, and all her wealth went away with this film, because it was not a success neither in America, nor in Europe. But the world was not intrigued of this special Hungarian problem. Therefore was the film a failure. However, it would be nice to see the Hungarian copy (even with Czech subtitles), but we know nothing about where a copy is in the great world.

I don't know who gets to decide that these movies are 'lost': several years ago, I viewed a print of 'Iza néni' with its original Magyar (not German) soundtrack and Czech subtitles ... a bilingualism which is somewhat ironic, given this movie's storyline. I attended a screening at which another audience member kindly translated some (but not all) of the dialogue for me, and I was able to follow most of the action.

'Néni' is roughly the Magyar equivalent of 'Fraulein' as a formal term of address for an unmarried woman, so this film's title means 'Miss Iza'.

The reasonably attractive actress Sári Fedák plays a beloved schoolmarm in a Hungarian town on the Czech frontier. Her forename is Iza, so her students and most of the townspeople address her as 'Iza néni' ('Miss Iza'). In addition to possessing every other possible human virtue, Miss Iza is a deeply patriotic Hungarian. Unfortunately, her town straight away gets annexed into Czechoslovakia, making Iza and everybody else hereabouts Czech citizens. But Iza is a loyal Hungarian ... so she demonstrates her undying loyalty for Hungary by rushing off to Paris, where she becomes a cabaret singer! In her Parisian cabaret turn, Miss Iza is a somewhat more modest version of Josephine Baker ... by which I mean that she casts herself as an expatriate, evoking the ambiance of her native Hungary in her French act, in much the way that Baker evoked a stereotype of Africa and black America in her Parisian performances.

SPOILERS COMING. Miss Iza is fortunate enough to receive the sympathy of a military man in Paris, a British expatriate. She is soon making excellent money (in francs), but she lives as frugally as possible and funnels most of her dosh to the beloved priest in her Hungarian hometown. The priest is played by Rezsö Harsányi: everyone in this movie addresses him as 'Pap', but apparently that means 'father' rather than being his character's name. The priest uses Miss Iza's money to help the townspeople, who of course are now suffering under Czech rule.

I'd be grateful to hear from anyone who can enlighten me about the real-world political events which this movie purports to depict, since I know very little about the politics of that part of Europe. Did Czechoslovakia ever in fact annex any Hungarian territory? Were the people better off for this, or worse? In this Hungarian film, they're definitely worse off for becoming Czechs, but there's nothing about this movie which leads me to believe that the depictions hare are impartial.

There's an annoying subplot concerning a trusty woodsman (played by Pál Jávor) who loves Miss Iza but must console himself with Irén Ágay, whom I found to be slightly sexier than Sári Fedák. Stepping out from underneath all those accent marks, the real revelation of this film (for me, at least) is Hungarian character actor Beregi Oszkár, who was previously unknown to me yet whose name I recognised. That's because his namesake son, Oscar Beregi (Junior) later had considerable success as a character actor in the United States, including his excellent performances in three episodes of the original 'Twilight Zone' series. There's a facial resemblance between the father and son Beregi actors. In 'Iza néni', Beregi (Senior) is cast as the British officer who assists Miss Iza in her nightclub career. I found Beregi utterly implausible as an Englishman, but since this movie was meant for non-Anglophone audiences that doesn't matter. He brings conviction and virility to his performance here.

'Iza néni' benefits from some very pleasant music (especially during Sári Fedák's cabaret turns) but is considerably handicapped by some woefully unfunny comedy. For me, the biggest flaw of this film was that I found it wildly implausible that demure schoolmarm Iza -- at least, as Fedák portrays her -- would spontaneously just up and become a big nightclub star in Paris ... and motivated by patriotism, no less. I'll rate this movie just 5 out of 10, and I wish I knew how much of its political material is accurate.