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Simply Perfect

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

"Die 3 Groschen-Oper" or "The 3 Penny Opera" is a German movie from 1931, so 85 years old now, that is obviously still in black-and-white, but has sound already. And that is also the crucial thing as this film lives a lot through its music. Director is Georg Wilhelm Pabst, writer is Bertolt Brecht and composer is Kurt Weill. All three of them are still known today, at least here in Germany because of their many contributions to art and the latter was also the husband of Lotte Lenya who plays one of the major characters in here. It is interesting to see her at a younger age because so far I have only come across her as an enemy to James Bond in her probably career-defining villain performance as Rosa Klebb.The rest of the cast I have to say I am not familiar with unfortunately although many of them were prolific back then in terms of acting. And I also was not too impressed by what they did here. To me it seemed as if the story is not suited for a movie that crosses the 110-minute mark. It dragged a lot I have to say and I'd have preferred to run this one for 90 minutes max, which also would have been the usual runtime back around that era. Films weren't that long really often. The music is still the best thing about the film I guess, especially the theme song about "Mack the Knife". I knew this one already before watching the film and it certainly stayed in mind. Such a catchy tune. However, 2 or 3 good songs cannot make up for all the boredom I felt throughout watching this drama. I never was at the edge of my seat, so I did not feel this was a dramatic watch at all. Cannot recommend. Thumbs down.

I've read the reviews of this film so far with a lot of interest. I found this version of "The Threepenny Opera" to be well worth seeing multiple times. It has a great cast, a complex script and is heroic in some ways while not so heroic in its ending.The sell-out ending, a preposterous twist where Polly, temporarily at the head of her husband Macheath's gang, manages somehow for them to buy a bank; and she, Macheath and her 'king of beggars' father all wind up extolling the virtues of feeding off the poor with said bank is hard to stomach for leftist revolutionaries. We can only assume the production was under pressure while it made this film in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.I loved it visually. The cast is exceptional. While I've read everyone's comments about Lotte Lenya's 'Pirate Jenny', I adored Carol Neher's lone song even more. In my view, Neher (as Polly) breaking out in song at her wedding reception, when we know nothing about her character thus far, is the highlight of the film.(When we learn what a terrible life she lived after this movie was released one can really appreciate Carola Neher's performance. She must have been an incredible person to work with on a film, particularly during such a time as 1931's Berlin.) Overall, Pabst's 'Threepenny' isn't perfect. Still, I recommend it highly. It should be seen by film fans looking to be floored by early sound-era performances that have been criminally forgotten today.

In London, the rascal Mackie Messer (Rudolf Forster) is the king of the thieves and an irresistible pimp. When he meets Polly Peachum (Valeska Gert) on the street, he invites her for a drink and they marry with each other in the end of the night in a warehouse. When Polly's father Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (Fritz Rasp) a.k.a. the king of the beggars learns about the marriage of his daughter, he presses the chief of police Jackie "Tiger" Brown (Reinhold Schünzel) to arrest his friend Mackie; otherwise he will send a great number of beggars to protest in the coronation of the queen. "Die 3 Groschen-Oper" is a cynical musical with low-life characters in the underground of London written by Bertold Brecht and directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. This film was released in Berlin on 19 February 1931 and I saw a DVD with a matrix that was restored in 2006 for the 75th anniversary of this film. In 1986, the Brazilian composer Chico Buarque de Holanda and the director Ruy Guerra released an adaptation of this musical with the successful "Ópera do Malandro", the most expensive Brazilian production until 1986, but without the credit to Bertold Brecht. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Ópera dos Três Vinténs" ("The Opera of Three Pennies")

Those who acquired a taste for 1920s Berlin in 'Cabaret' ought to see this film inasmuch as it is the real thing. Lotte Lenya (Weill's wife in real life and the actress who played the evil Rosa Kleb in 'From Russia With Love') and Carola Neher (fled Hitler for the Soviet Union then betrayed by communism -- she died in a communist prison camp in 1942) each offer an unforgettable singing performance. Carola Neher's song alone is worth the price of admission -- she outclasses even Dietrich.