KAFKA, MONA LISA AND THE MOVIES

Writer Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod rolled into Paris on September 9, 1911 and immediately went to the Louvre and joined the crowd of tourists staring at the blank space on the wall of the Salon Carre where the Mona Lisa had hung. They marveled at how the directors of the Louvre found the theft to be an opportunity to boost museum attendance by exhibiting this "mark of shame."


The next night, September 10, they went to the Omnia Pathé movie hall where they happened to see one of the many films that would be produced about the theft - a five-minute short entitled "Nick Winter and the Theft of the Mona Lisa."

According to Max Brod's description as detailed in the book Kafka Goes to the Movies by Hanns Zischler, the film opens with the character of the Louvre director Monsieur Croumolle (a not-so-subtle parody of the real director Homolle) being roused from sleep by a telegram saying that the Mona Lisa was stolen. In a panic, he gets dressed -- putting two legs into one pant, one foot into two socks -- you know, the kind of silent movie slapstick that had them rolling in the aisles in the early 1900s. (I still think that many of the Chaplin and Keaton films are funnier and more original than anything we see today.)


When a shoe button is found in the Louvre (it turns out to be Croumolle's), the detective Nick Winter poses as a shoeshine boy and runs around Paris forcing passers-by to have their shoes shined in order to catch the culprit.

The button is discovered to be Croumolle's and he is arrested for the theft. The final scene, amid lots of running around in the Louvre, is of the real thief re-entering with the Mona Lisa and putting it back on the wall. He takes Velazquez's Princess instead. No one sees this happen but then suddenly they all notice the Mona Lisa has returned. In the corner the thief has left a note: "Pardon me, I am nearsighted, I actually wanted to have the painting next to it." Croumolle is released. 

The Velazquez the thief took

The stills from the film are from the book mentioned above.  I doubt if any print of Nick Winter and the Theft of the Mona Lisa still exists.