+Ron Richo I Love this information age. I recently saw the Mcdonald's Moon Man Mac Tonight commercials for the first time. They sampled "Mac The Knife" Bobby Darin's version. Know I know what his muse was. Nostalgia
+Ron Richo Not I. I saw through its vapidity even as a sixteen-year old. The Threepenny Opera was playing in New York at the Theatre De Lys in the Village, and my girlfriend and I took the train in to see it and i became a Brecht-Weill, Lotte Lenya groupie! So, of course, Darin wasn't even in the running at that point!
I think Bobby Darins version is more chilling. Because he kinda blows it off like ol good times. Plus he mentions nothing about killing the only time a murderous word shows up is in the name. It's kinda what made the shining so scary. Takes you as far as your mind goes
I recent did cover live Mack the Knife, style something like Bobby Darin. Like Bobby first 2 verses did in Bb, then progressing half step till I got to last verse Eb. Last week open mic at Meadowlark and Crescent Moon in Lincoln I sang it, accompanying myself with portable electronic piano.
I've been watching this for a few years just to laugh at the comment that said their grandmother used to sing this song as a lullaby. I can't get enough
Is it so strange? How about this .... Rock-a-Bye baby On the treetop When the wind blows the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks the cradle will fall & Down will come baby Cradle & All. Lol.
The melody has haunted me since I was a boy in the 50s. My late mother used to play it on her record player though we never understood the German lyrics. Just read them here and quickly moved on to watch the full movie. Sometimes a tune or a song creeps under your skin and adheres there for a lifetime. This is one extraordinary melody and an unforgettable scene. Even today the eeriness hypnotizes me with a mournful aura, yet it glimmers brightly within the black and white overcast of the film. Danke sehr for the upload.
It’s so crazy to me how this song totally went on to live a life of its own. Send In The Clowns is similar, but I think more people know that’s from a musical than people know Mack The Knife is from Threepenny Opera. I’ve known about this song forever and only learned about this until very recently researching avant garde theater. So weird that one of the most famous jazz standards of all time is from a social commentary satire musical from Weimar Germany and that it happened ON ACCIDENT. The little crank organ stopped working during the performance, so the jazz band in the house improvised and provided music for the ballad and BOOM a jazz standard was born. I think it’s a wonderfully fitting origin story for a sleazy little song from a ramshackle opera. It’s a Threepenny Opera, of course the prop broke lol. What a happy accident.
Though set in England around 1895, the movie is really a scathing critique of the lack of real justice and morality in Weimar Germany. I use this scene in courses on The Holocaust, German History, and 29=0th century history as a background to the rise of Fascism/Nazism. Its a fascinating example of cultural pessimism arguing that there's no justice in the world.
The dominance of the National Socialists in Germany, as well as the Soviet Socialists, the Italian Fascists and to an extent the American version (the New Deal) all came out of the same post Great War cauldron that included fatalistic nihilism, collective memories of essentially the first 'factory' war in human history, of the young veterans with remnants of actual physical wounds as well as emotional wounds (we now refer as PTSD) as well as the friends, families and others who interacted with them. While revisionist, agenda based history ignores the 1930's contemporary similarities in the almost similar messages of the NAZI's, Communists, Fascists and New Dealers, all basically authoritarian branches of the same ideology, the true, enlightened historian refuses to be stupefied by idiotic 'right wing/left wing' meaningless labels. Like their counterparts today, those supporters were only too anxious to surrender individuality to a collective identity, ruled by a small group elites who 'know best' what is good for masses. Selective criminal enforcement, 2 tiered justice, elite sympathizers acceptance of police abuses to their opponents and ignoring actual criminality of who they support, sacrificing good of masses for benefit of elites and their cronies, etc. The 'villains' of each specific group (Jews, Ukrainians, etc.) were easily stereotypes for general hatred, but also had resources to seize to help fund dictators' goals. This obvious factor often overlooked. (Hitler even acknowledged, that for Germany to prosper since it lacked the colonies of UK to acquire wealth, it had to look to seizing wealth from its undesirables and its neighbors. (The NAZIs took the Polish treasury on its invasion. Captured Jews had their possessions seized and inventoried all as part.) Hate may have been a big part of NAZI actions, but greed was a very close, under reported second. My comments are like an ink blot test. Critisms will indicate more about the critics, than the hard cold facts I've presented.
Only small portion saved after 1939 invasion. A significant portion, as well as value of captured Polish civilian assets went to National Socialists' war effort. Revisionism concentrates only on National Socialists' hatred, which was real and cannot be denied, but greed was a very significant reason for their efforts. (Former NAZI collaboration ['60Minutes 1998 interview] and current American political puppet master, George Soros, helped inventory possessions of Hungarian Jews, for NAZIs, after their capture for extermination. This happened everywhere NAZIs captured 'undesirables'. Current American leftists advocate similar tacts for 'deporables'.) Unrelated side note, BTW: Where do you think British Empire acquired their 'gold'? From the lands they conquered and genocide they practiced. Two wrongs don't make a right. Socialism, be it National, Soviet, Democratic, Fascist (yes Mussolini was a socialist, former leader of an Italian socialist party) and current American socialists, depends on confiscation of assets by rulers, then distributed as a group of elitists as they see fit to helpless masses. Eventually assets run low, and you end with a Venezuela, or with subject at hand, NAZI Germany, that had to go outside its borders to seek more assets. If you're a National Socialist (NAZI) sympathizer, you'll hate my response, if your a 'democratic' socialist, you'll also hate my response, because all fanatics hate it when their fantasy bubble bursts.
@@doraran5158 Pretty convenient that you leave out the part where Mussolini abandoned and denounced socialism and Hitler literally put Marxists in gas chambers, but I guess you really want to pretend that democratic socialists are the same thing as Nazis. Also pretty hilarious how you'll just try to reclaim the word "Revisionist" too.
Mussolini WAS the consummate SOCIALIST! US Social Security program was modeled on Italian Fascist program. From gun control, to health care, to education, crony capitalists, contempt for religion (don't forget how Pope despised Mussolini for controls on Catholic Church and his life style. ['Rougue' priests were forcibly given castor oil by Fascist loyalists].), their version of censoring what they deemed unacceptable ('hate speech' in contemporary Democrat Socialist new speak) they were total socialists. I've spoken to many older Italians (I grew up in a mixed neighborhood with many who migrated here post WW2) who lived under Mussolini. Things great until he ran out of money then decided to exact wealth, British style, by taking colonies in Africa, that actually was about 3 centuries too late, hence his failure. With so many Italians in US, Mussolini assumed a natural alliance with America, whom Italian people loved, instead latter day imperialism poisoned this, and Mussolini forced to align with Germans, who Italians despised more recently from WW1 experience, but predated from Germanic type peoples' (Austrians' tyranny over large swaths of Italy for centuries.) This gets worse in WW2 when NAZIs used Italian (and Hungarian) forces as 'cannon fodder' ('expendable human lives) to soften Eastern Front for German forces. This under reported historical fact turned what was left of Italian support for Mussolini sour. The National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZIs) and the Marxists were rival cousins, from different branches of same socialist tree. (Think of Catholics and Protestants, basically branches of Christianity killing each other, or Sunnis and Shi'ites branches of Islam killing each other to give you a more realistic perspective of what actually happened with NAZIs killing their Marxist cousins, rather than the 'fan club' mentality that justifies brutality of the side you adore.) 'Good' over spending socialist Hitler, also ran out of money for his socialist utopian dreams, confiscating assets from Jews, later invading Poland for main purpose to seize treasury. Soviet and NAZIs, allies from '39 to '41, (Molotov-von Ribbetrof (sp?) Treaty) both invaded Poland from opposite sides. BTW: You are the revisionist. I will wager you are also ignorant of the Handshar. In Europe today, most museums have dismantled their displays of Handshar, the movement Hitler personally admired. Since this reality is embarrassing to contemporary politically correct narratives. (Handshar divisions were Muslims recruited, 300,000 raised by Mufti of Jerusalem alone, who fought with NAZIs and were only non-Aryans to be allowed to join SS.)
What so brilliant and so obvious for being brilliant, is that the man who sings with a hand organ and an illustrative easel is instructing the public about a man who represents the direst social evil and that man is present, engaging in the type of sleeziness that the organ grinder is lecturing about. He's the narrator and he's in the performance as well. Weil and Brecht presentations, this and "Mahagonny" (sp?) are sui generis, really. The format came and went--a moment in time-- and seem forever unique, and uniquely great!
Signs of the times. The medium is the message as Marshall McLuhan used to say. Very much like what we have going on right now in our country. Things are getting bizarre, the government more corrupt all the time.
How about reading 'A beggars opera' by John Gay. 1728. Yes, thats how far back these characters go the song hadn't been composed then but Mac. Heath &c. Were all in it.
Truly amazing. Der Film ist wunderbar. Shame the film is not as well known as it should be its filled with many stars from the Berlin Cabaret Scene. Truly magnificent.
I first heard this song in a Japanese horror movie and it impressed me so much that I had to hunt it down despite not understanding the language and having fading memories to go on and I'm glad I found it.
Its funny how hardcore this is than every version later on got more veiled and metaphorical and eventually became silly barely mentioning the murders at all, its now borderline a childrens nursery rhyme.
versions I've heard some versions keep it while others dumped it. However in almost every version of the song I've heard over the years , whether it be in a performance of The THREE-PENNY opera or just a cover by some singer the verse about Jenny
Thank God the Nazis weren't successful in their attempt to destroy every single frame of this film they could find, for otherwise we would've lost the first cinematic adaptation of Brecht and Weil's trailblazing work of Weimar musical theatre, filmed and released a mere three years after the original play's 1928 Berlin opening!
This film was nothing but agitation from the left towards the right. Just like the whole George Floyd outrage and many other examples today in America that stir up racial tensions, it was meant to provoke a response and spur on revolution to undermine the right. It's fking EVIL!
I dont know about sanitized and hipster, why not make the best of both worlds and enjoy both incarnations of the tune. I mean, on that line we should be prosecuting weill for ripping off Strauss
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear. And he shows them pearly white. Just a jack knife has Macheath, dear And he keeps it out of sight. When the shark bites with his teeth, dear Scarlet billows start to spread. Fancy gloves, though, wears Macheath, dear So there's not a trace of red. On the side-walk Sunday morning Lies a body oozing life; Someone's sneaking 'round the corner. Is that someone Mack the Knife? From a tugboat by the river A cement bag's dropping down; The cement's just for the weight, dear. Bet you Mackie's back in town. Louie Miller disappeared, dear After drawing out his cash; And Macheath spends like a sailor. Did our boy do something rash? Sukey Tawdry, Jenny Diver, Polly Peachum, Lucy Brown Oh, the line forms on the right, dear Now that Mackie's back in town.
@@tonycanabal1659 Louis Armstrong originally did that, with Lotte Lenya in the audience. Great lyrics by Bertolt Brecht as well and composition by Kurt Weill, Lenya's husband.
The Lyle Lovett version ups the creepy factor by a thousand. Especially that last verse: “The child bride in her nightgown, her assailant still at large, violated in her slumbers, Mackie, how much did you charge?” Repeat
A body oozing life, a man disappears after a withdrawal, drowning by cement, was not meant to be funny. The uptempo rhythm of Mr.Darin's version made the lyrics ironic.
Kind of weird when you compare it to Bobby Darin's version, but just as entertaining and more sinister. If no one had noticed, in Bobyy Darin's version he mentions LOTTE LENYA, Kurt Weill's wife. Glad Bobby remembered to honor her.
Like to know what language it is, much trilling, (the R?). Reminded me of science fiction character, The Drack. I recent did cover live Mack the Knife, style something like Bobby Darin. Like Bobby first 2 verses did in Bb, then progressing half step till I got to last verse Eb. Last week open mic at Meadowlark and Crescent Moon in Lincoln I sang it, accompanying myself with portable electronic piano. A while back at open mic someone else sang it; I thought I'm going to learn to do it. Took some doing but finally got to where I dared perform live.
Not a great movie or a great play, but some excellent songs. The play was the source of more good songs than any other theatre piece in German history.
have yous heard ransom by Lil Tecca if you enjoyed this song you will definitely enjoy it, here's the link ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1XzY2ij_vL4.html
