After World War I Sfinks gave a boost to another star – Jadwiga Smosarska, one of the most famous actresses of Polish interwar cinema. Smosarska appeared in many melodramas comprising the so-called 'Sfinks golden series', such as Niewolnica Miłości (Love’s Slave, 1923), O Czem się Nie Mówi (What We Don’t Talk About, 1924), Iwonka (1925) and Trędowata (Lewar, 1926) which did not survive until the present. The audience loved these simple love stories, unlike the critics, who wrote about 'Hertz's next leprous productions' and claimed that only the mythological Sphinx could help these trivialities become successful. Starting with Iwonka, Sfinks started to produce more and more rather tasteless patriotic films; they did, however, skillfuly use genre conventions. The adaptation of Władysław Reymont's The Promised Land (1927) directed by Zbigniew Gniazdowski and Hertz, created on the occasion of twentieth anniversary of Sfinks's activity, was the most ambitious and favourably assessed one.
After Aleksander Hertz's death in 1928 Sfinks never regained its former glory. Popular sound films like Trędowata (Lewar, 1936), Piętro Wyżej (One Floor up, 1937), and Ordynat Michorowski (1937) were created in its studio in the 1930s, however, the company ended their own productions with an adaptation of Stefan Żeromski’s book Dzieje Grzechu (The History of Sin, 1933). From today's perspective it is not easy to assess the studio's achievements. Press reviews suggest that Sfinks produced kitschy films on a low artistic level, reproducing mass culture schemes. On the other hand, they suited the audience's tastes and encouraged people to visit cinemas. Regardless of the artistic assessment, Hertz's film studio played a vital role in the earliest stages of the development of cinematography in Poland. Hopefully our knowledge about this period will improve and Sfinks's productions that disappeared (or at least extracts of them) will be found in Poland or abroad.
Originally written in Polish by Robert Birkholc, June 2018, translated by Karolina Mroczkowska, July 2018