#2238

Pavement Butterfly (German: Großstadtschmetterling) is a 1929 British-German silent drama film directed by Richard Eichberg and starring Anna May Wong, Alexander Granach, and Gaston Jacquet. It was part of an ongoing co-production arrangement between Eichberg and British International Pictures. Pavement Butterfly - Wikipedia

The film was shot at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin and on location in Paris, Nice and Monte Carlo. The sets were designed by the art directors Willi Herrmann and Werner Schlichting.

The English title is Pavement Butterfly, and it stars the iconic Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, who was one of the first Asian-American international film stars.

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About the film, I’d like to share a few observations, which I was able to clarify with the help of AI Copilot. First, regarding the film’s nationality, which wasn’t very clear to me, and second, the title “City” or “Pavement Butterfly,” which initially struck me as possibly implying prostitution. After watching the film, such interpretations seem far-fetched or completely misleading. Here are our thoughts on these two points:

With respect to the nationality question for the film Pavement Butterfly (1929) sits right at the crossroads of late silent era European co production culture. We can say that the film is not purely German, even though the director, studio base, and much of the creative team were German. So what is its nationality? It's a crossbreed. The film is officially a British–German co production. This is confirmed across multiple sources: DBpedia describes it explicitly as a “British-German silent drama film” whereas the Academy Museum also calls it a coproduction between Germany and Britain.

It was part of Richard Eichberg’s ongoing co production arrangement with British International Pictures.

Why the confusion? Because the film feels German in many ways:

Directed by Richard Eichberg, a German filmmaker.

Shot at Babelsberg Studios in Berlin.

Designed by German art directors Willi Herrmann and Werner Schlichting.

Many cast members were German (Granach, Lerch, etc.).

But the financing and production structure included British International Pictures, and the film was intended for both markets. That dual identity was typical of Eichberg’s late 1920s output.

The Curious History of the Title “Pavement Butterfly”

The film we know today as Pavement Butterfly was actually a British–German co production, shot in Berlin but financed for both markets. Its original German titles — Nachtfalter (“night butterfly”) and Großstadtschmetterling (“city butterfly”) — carried a poetic sense of a fragile, luminous figure navigating the modern metropolis. Even the character’s name, Nai (sometimes rendered as “Nah”), evokes the idea of a “Princess Butterfly,” a delicate presence rather than a fallen woman.

When the film reached Britain, distributors replaced this poetic imagery with the harsher, more sensational title Pavement Butterfly. In 1920s British slang, “pavement girl” hinted at a woman living on the streets — a suggestion completely at odds with Anna May Wong’s dignified, self possessed character. The English title reflects marketing strategy, not the film’s content. The German titles and the meaning of Nai’s name capture the story far more faithfully: a graceful outsider moving through a city that doesn’t quite know how to see her.

So Whitetext is in contact with Terezi, as well. I’d love to see what manipulation technique he’s using on her, because he can’t just piss her off like he does to Vriska. I don’t think we’re ever seen a genuinely angry Terezi.

Maybe his style with Terezi is more philosophical - appealing to her sense of justice, and such. 

GC: BUT TH3N 1 DONT TH1NK H3 KNOWS HOW B4D SH3S PL4Y1NG H1M 31TH3R

Now, here’s a question - does Terezi’s possibly-supernatural insight extend to someone like Whitetext? He surely knows how insightful she is, so maybe he also knows how to mislead her. 

But if it does work on him, then we’re getting some very surprising information - it seems Vriska has somehow managed to pull the wool over his eyes. Whitetext is trouble, so I consider this excellent news. 

Maybe this is related to the ‘transgression’ Vriska apparently committed. She seems to have done something to piss off Whitetext, and I don’t think he’d take it well if someone actually got one over on him.  

GC: S33 1TS COMPL1C4T3D GC: YOU R34LLY N33D TO ST4Y OUT OF 1T 4ND L3T M3 D34L W1TH TH1S

If someone avenges Tavros, Vriska will retaliate. Terezi knows this, and probably figures that she can take Vriska’s revenge better than Aradia can. 

She will be proven tragically correct. 

It's probably best you listen to the advice of your friend.

And yet, the voices are as lucid as ever. They urge you to make her pay.

Aradia’s death didn’t summon the Voices - it just made then louder, and presumably harder to ignore. 

I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m pretty sure Aradia’s spirit powers are troll psionics, rather than Aspect powers. Spirits and necromancy aren’t Time-themed - if anything, they’re Doom-themed. Plus, we’ve already seen a lot of other psychic powers represented on Alternia, and this feels like a logical progression.

Not that it’s doing much good for Aradia, here. Even now, she’s being manipulated.  

Also...

...poor Ram Mom. You deserved better.

It's a shame it had to come to this. You don't like summoning the spirits of the dead to settle scores.

Now this is real necromancy. This might be relevant later on, too - even if the trolls run out of resurrection methods, Aradia can still get her allies back in the game. 

...sort of, anyway. These shades certainly aren’t as substantial as Aradia, and doubt they’re as lucid, either. Maybe a troll’s soul deteriorates over time - or maybe maybe a medium’s soul retains more of its personhood. 

But if she had to face her victims again, maybe she'd finally learn to feel remorse.

You’re wondering if Vriska feels remorse?