First On Celluloid

Have you ever wondered what the very first scene of Marisa Mell would look like when she started as an young women her film career almost 50 years ago in Vienna, Austria? No, probably not! But I have! Her first movie was shot in 1959 at the age of 20, the same year she finished her theatre school at the Max Reinhardt Seminar and had her first theater engagement. The movie was called "Das Nachtlokal zum Silbermond" (also known as "5 Sinners"), directed by Wolfgang Glück. It was an Austrian production filmed on a studio lot with some local outside shootings in Istanbul (Turkey) to give the impression being filmed in that city.

In this movie she played a dancer Lilian who is lured with a few other girls to Istanbul (Turkey) to perform as a dancer in a nightclub only to learn when they arrive that they are to perform as strippers. Having no money to return home they have to accept the offer. Luckily to their advantage there is also a diamond smuggling ring active in the club and by working with the police they can escape their destiny.

The first film scene of Marisa Mell is when the bus with the girls is on her way to the nightclub and the girls are admiring Istanbul. They are excited to be working in the nightclub. We first see a total of the interior of the bus with Marisa Mell in the background hardly recognizable.Then we get the first ever close up of Marisa Mell on film. And that's the way Marisa Mell made her entrance into the movie business as a starlet. Not very spectacular but enough to capture the attention of the audience.

Thanks to André Schneider for providing a copy of this rare movie!