Tartuffe

Tartuffe (Herr Tartüff) is a German silent film produced by Erich Pommer for UFA and released in 1926. It was directed by F. W. Murnau, photographed by Karl Freund and written by Carl Mayer from Molière's original play. It was shot at the Tempelhof Studios in Berlin. Set design and costumes were by Robert Herlth and Walter Röhrig. The film starred Emil Jannings as Tartuffe, Lil Dagover as Elmire and Werner Krauss as Orgon. Based on the play Tartuffe, the film retains the basic plot, but Murnau and Mayer pared down Molière's play, eliminating most of the secondary characters and concentrating on the triangle of Orgon, Elmire and Tartuffe. They also introduced a framing device, whereby the story of Tartuffe becomes a film-within-a-film, shown by a young actor as a device to warn his grandfather about his unctuous but evil housekeeper.