What better way to begin a weekend Friday than the rare chance to see a masterpiece of silent film about a Sunday. Actually there was nothing silent about this brilliant 1930 movie, directed Robert Siodmak and Edgar Ulmer. Pianist Neil Brand and percussionist Jeff Davenport provided a wonderfully jazz-age underscore that caught the shifting moods of this quasi documentary with Gershwin-esque precision. Their playing was simply ravishing.

The movie, shot in Berlin in 1929, has a matchless pedigree: cinematography by Fred Zinneman and a story written by Billy Wilder. With a fascinating mix of roving eye documentary and charming romantic story, the film fizzes with Weimar energy. Everyday scenes of Berlin street life are contrasted with studio interiors.

The story features a group of young Berliners, amateurs, playing themselves. It follows two couples on a day out to a nearby lake resort. Wolf is a roguish cad trying to woo teenage girl friends Christi Ehiers and Brigitte Borchert (who actually died at the age of 100 in 2011). There is romantic rivalry, frolics in the woods, sexual tension but above all the sheer joy of being young and weekend-free in an exciting city.

Perhaps the most powerful image of this crystal clear new print is that of a sunnily happy Germany just three or so years before the rise of Hitler. One can’t help but look on this age of innocence with the hindsight of terrible history.

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