BEST INVESTMENT BOND

Vintage postcard, nr. 3942. Photo: Vogel-Sandau, Berlin.

Pretty Fee Malten (1911-2005) was a popular German film star in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. She portrayed uncomplicated, gay girls in several silent and early sound films, untill her budding career was broken off by the rise of Adolph Hitler.

Fee Malten was born as Felicitas Mansch in 1911, in Berlin, Germany. A the age of 9 she made her film debut. She was introduced by an uncle who worked as an actor In Christi Geburt (1920) she did a little dance performance. The next year she concentrated on her ballet and piano studies. In 1927 she returned to the cinema in Am Rande der Welt/ At the Edge of the World (1927, Karl Grune) and the supernatural thriller Der geheimnisvolle Spiegel/The Mystic Mirror (1928, Carl Hoffmann, Richard Teschner), credited as Felicitas Malten. In the following years she made some more silent films, now as Fee Malten, like Rutschbahn/Whirl of Youth (1928, Richard Eichberg) with Heinrich George, and Tagebuch einer Kokotte/Diary of a Coquette (1928, Constantin J. David). In those films she was often cast as an uncomplicated, cheerful girl.

Fee Malten’s film career seemed stimulated by the arrival of the sound film. In the early 1930’s, he played leading roles in several films. In the popular operetta Ein Tango fur Dich/A Tango For You (1930, Geza Von Bolvary) she was a dancer loved by two jazz singers, played by Paul Otto and Willy Forst. The following year she made with the same actors and director another operetta, Sein Leibeslied/His Love Song (1931, Geza Von Bolvary). Among her other films were the comedy Die schwebende Jungfrau/The Gliding Virgin (1931, Carl Boese), the thriller D-Zug 13 hat Verspatung/Express 13 (1931, Alfred Zeisler), and the military comedy Falscher Feldmarschall/False Field Marshall (1932, Karel Lamac aka Carl Lamac. Then her budding career was halted by the rise of the Nazis. The Jewish Malten wasn’t allowed to appear in more films in Germany. In 1937, Paul Kohner invited her to come to Hollywood. She moved to the USA with her husband, Hans Wall, and their two children. There she appeared in a few films, including in the Monogram quickie Foreign Accent (1942, William Beaudine) and - as Faye Wall - in Hitler - Dead or Alive (1942, Nick Grinde). The reviewer on IMDb, Donnie Lee, writes about the latter film: “To everyone who tells me that Plan 9 From Outer Space was the worst film ever made, I simply reply: "You haven't seen'Hitler: Dead or Alive. Watch it for laughs!” Fee Malten would never rise above supporting parts in Hollywood. Her last bit part was in Young Bess (1953, George Sidney). She died in 2005, in Los Angeles, USA.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hal Erickson (All Movie Guide), Wikipedia and IMDb.

[taken in Nov 05; film: Delta 3200; exposure: 1/90 f2.0; 50mm]