Die Ehe (1929)

The Marriage Dance was divided into the following four episodes: 1) The Prelude. 2) The First Episode: Adagio. 3) The Second Episode: Accelerato. 4) The Third Episode: Furioso. The performers are not matched to their characters’ names. The film is largely an illustration of van de Velde’s advice and sex-education book “The Perfect Marriage,” the classic guidebook of the 1920s. The individual episodes use examples to explore themes important to erotic life: love and desire, passion and jealousy. “The physical prerequisites of married life are also discussed in pictures,” as a review in Filmwoche put it in its issue of April 24, 1929. The same review stated that “the film’s ultimate purpose is to educate the audience in greater self-control and better introspection.” For the final episode, the filmmakers even turned to history, portraying the less-than-passionate marriage of Empress Maria Theresa and her supposedly sexually hesitant husband.