Notes
1. -ma. (Maxim Ziese), “Murnau: ‘Sonnenaufgang’,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 541, 19 November 1927.
2. On the film emigration see John Russell, Strangers in Paradise. The Hollywood Émigrés 1933–1950 (London: Faber & Faber, 1983). The German experience is covered by Maria Hilchenbach, Kino im Exil: Die Emigration deutscher Filmkünstler 1933–1945 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1982); Jan-Christopher Horak, Fluchtpunkt Hollywood (Münster: MAKS-Publ., 1986); German Film Directors in Hollywood (San Francisco: Goethe Institute, 1978).
3. Graham Petri, Hollywood Destinies, examines several leading émigré artists of this period, including Lubitsch and Murnau. Horak, Fluchtpunkt Hollywood, pp. 2–6 offers a brief overview with emphasis on Hollywood’s economic motivation in hiring German personnel.
4. Lya de Putti earned her ticket cast opposite Emil Jannings in Varieté; Camilla Horn was introduced as Gretchen in Murnau’s Faust. Wilhelm Dieterle later recalled the standing joke in Berlin film circles that if the phone rang in a restaurant it had to be Hollywood calling to make someone an offer. See the interview by Tom Flinn, “William Dieterle: The Plutarch of Hollywood,” The Velvet Light Trap, no. 15 (Fall 1975), 23–28, here p. 24.
5. Pola Negri starred in twenty-one American pictures between 1923 and 1928—the romance and fame are chronicled in her Memoirs of a Star (New York, Doubleday, 1970). Greta Garbo, though much more tenuously linked to Germany, could also be mentioned here since she starred in G. W. Pabst’s Die freudlose Gasse en route to Hollywood. Vilma Banky was Hungarian.
6. Carl Mayer, the screenwriter for (among other classics) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Der letzte Mann, scripted two of Murnau’s American works, Sunrise and Four Devils, but never pursued an independent career in America as did Kraely.
7. Kreimeier, Die Ufa-Story, p. 146. For contemporary reactions cf. “Auszug und Nachwuchs,” Kinematograph, 11 April 1926, pp. 9–10; “Europa wird geplündert,” Film-Journal, 8 October 1926; Gregor Rabinovitsch, “Europas Gefährdung,” Film-Kurier, 5 October 1926; Georg Mendel, “Deutscher Ausverkauf?” Lichtbildbühne, 8 March 1926, and “Deutsche Filmfürsten im Exil,” ibid., 6 May 1926.
8. This is not intended, of course, as an explanation for émigré behavior. Germans went to Hollywood because the Americans wanted them and could afford to employ them on substantial projects. See the opinions of Emil Jannings, “Deutschland-Amerika,” B.Z. am Mittag, 5 January 1926, and Murnau in “Murnau ist heute abgereist,” Film-Kurier, 22 June 1926.
9. F. Henseleit, “Stellt Amerika sich um?” Reichsfilmblatt, 13 March 1926. Cf. Roland Schacht’s opinions in Das blaue Heft, 9 (1927), 259; Dr. R. Otto, “Verbeugt euch vor Europa! Europäischer Geist im amerikanischen Film,” Film-Kurier, 26 March 1926. In response to EFA, Willy Haas had compared America’s plundering of European culture to ancient Rome’s plundering of Greece. He hoped it would result in the maturation of American culture: “Reflexionen vor einem indischen Grabmal,” Film-Kurier, 18 May 1921.
10. See, for instance, “Jannings bei Paramount,” Film-Kurier, 7 October 1926; s-r. (A. Schneider), “Begeht der deutsche Film Harakiri?” Film-Journal, 22 October 1926; J. (Ernst Jäger), Ostergruss, FilmKurier, 3 April 1926.
11. Robert Ramin, “Kolonie oder Konkurrenz,” Kinematograph, 30 January 1927, pp. 9–10. Ramin commented acidly on the oaths of loyalty from German émigrés who claimed they intended only brief careers in Hollywood and then remained indefinitely, a barb obviously directed at Lubitsch.
12. On the continuity in Lubitsch’s style see Horak, “Ernst Lubitsch and the Rise of UFA.” Cf. Salt, “From Caligari to Who?” p. 123, who calls Lubitsch the only German director with an instinctive sense for American cutting rhythms and camera angles. Jacqueline Nacache, Lubitsch (Paris: Edilig, 1987), pp. 39–50. Sabine Hake, Passions and Deceptions. The Early Films of Ernst Lubitsch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), is now essential reading.
13. A sketch of this phase of his career is provided by Helmut Prinzler in Ernst Lubitsch (Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 1985), pp. 29–43; Robert Carringer and Barry Sabath, Ernst Lubitsch: A Guide to References and Resources (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1978). Eight of Lubitsch’s American pictures were scripted by Kraely before they parted company in 1930. For the terms of Lubitsch’s employment see the contracts of 12 July and 7 August 1923 in Warner Bros. Archives—University of Southern California (henceforth WBA-USC), 2729, packet no. 3.
14. Ernst Ulitzsch, “Der deutsche und der amerikanische Lubitsch,” Kinematograph, 31 August 1924, pp. 15–16.
15. Th. (W. Theile), “Rosita,” Der Film, 31 August 1924, p. 39.
16. Theile, “Die Ehe im Kreise,” ibid., 7 September 1924, p. 31.
17. Hans Siemsen, “Kino. Kritik. Und Kino-Kritik,” Die neue Schaubühne, 5 (1925), 39–40, blamed the nonsense spouted about these two pictures on critical myopia, by which he meant preformed mental categories which impaired vision.
18. Dr. M-l (Georg Mendel), “Rosita,” Lichtbildbühne, 30 August 1924, p. 30. Cf. W.H. (Willy Haas) in Film-Kurier, 29 August 1924; Süddeutsche Filmzeitung, 19 September 1924, p. 9; Reichsfilmblatt, 6 September 1924, p. 59.
19. hfr., “Die Ehe im Kreise,” Lichtbildbühne, 6 September 1924, pp. 41–42.
20. Film-Kurier, 2 September 1924. Cf. Reichsfilmblatt, 6 September 1924, p. 60. Josef Aubinger, Süddeutsche Filmzeitung, 10 October 1924, p. 2, argued that although success followed from the marriage of “German Geist and American efficiency” the former enjoyed precedence.
21. Warschauer’s review is in Die Weltbühne, 20 (1924), vol. II, pp. 552–553. Cf. “Die Ehe im Kreise,” Vossische Zeitung, no. 418, 3 September 1924.
22. See note 17 above.
23. Das Tagebuch, 5 (1924), 1277–1278.
24. Cf. Lo., “Drei Frauen,” Der Film, 6 September 1925, p. 18; Cf. the preview from New York “Lubitsch, der ‘Amerikaner’,” Lichtbildbühne, 7 October 1924; reviews by W.K. (Walter Kaul) in Berliner Börsen-Courier, 5 September 1925, p. 5; and D. (K. H. Döscher?) in Vorwärts, no. 421, 6 September 1925.
25. Otto Friedrich, “Drei Frauen,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 430, 12 September 1925. Cf. the review in Welt am Montag, 7 September 1925.
26. Haas’s review is in Film-Kurier, 4 September 1925. For the general discussion see “Warum das deutsche Manuskript keine Weltgeltung hat,” ibid., 29 July 1926.
27. On Forbidden Paradise cf. Robert Ramin in Film-Echo, 7 December 1925 (Lubitsch, “with all concessions to a world audience, still proves that he matured in Berlin”); Haas in Film-Kurier, 5 December 1925; Welt am Montag, 7 December 1925. Georg Mendel in Lichtbildbühne, 5 December 1925, p. 16, charged Lubitsch with lack of tact and artistic degeneration. Roland Schacht argued by contrast that precisely the absence of German influence had raised this film to extraordinary heights: “Here is shown who really has culture and why the American, not the German cinema conquers the world.” Das blaue Heft, 7 (1925), 187–188.
28. Cf. Felix Henseleit, “Das neue Kammerspiel,” Reichsfilmblatt, 13 February 1926, pp. 14–15; reviews of “Küss mich noch einmal,” Kinematograph, 14 February 1926, p. 23; Dr. R.P(abst) in Süddeutsche Filmzeitung, 31 July 1926, p. 4.
29. Willy Haas, “Küss mich noch einmal,” Film-Kurier, 8 February 1926. Cf. his reflections on Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris in Film-Kurier, 16 September 1924.
30. See the exchange of cables between Jack and Harry Warner in WBA-USC, 2729, packet no. 2 (January/February 1926). Cf. James Harvey, Romantic Comedy in Hollywood from Lubitsch to Sturges (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), pp. 5–7. On the limitations of Lubitsch’s appeal beyond the Kurfürstendamm see “So ist Paris,” Kinematograph, 16 January 1927, p. 22. BA-UFA R109I/2440, Revisions-Abteilung, 13 December 1926, Anlage 3, shows Three Women and Kiss Me Again were high cost imports which did poorly at the box office.
31. Georg Mendel, “Deutscher Ausverkauf?” Lichtbildbühne, 8 March 1926, and “Deutsche Filmfürsten im Exil,” ibid., 6 May 1926.
32. “Auszug und Nachwuchs,” Kinematograph, 11 April 1926, pp. 9–10; Cf. “So ist Paris,” ibid., 16 January 1927, p. 22, on the predictability of Lubitsch’s American productions. “Gefährdete Zusammenarbeit,” Film-Kurier, 12 October 1926. Cf. Gong, “Meisterfilme,” Deutsche Republik, 1 (1927), 801, who named Lubitsch as the sole German director to profit artistically from the transplant to Hollywood. Fritz Olimsky, “Saisonbeginn,” Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, no. 389, 22 August 1926, p. 7.
33. Ihering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, vol. II, pp. 508–509.
34. ibid., vol. I, pp. 435–36: Ihering remarked in late 1922 when reviewing a Mary Pickford picture that poor German films usually were weak because they were not moving pictures; Hollywood productions were by contrast always moving pictures, though not without other flaws. Also see his discussion, “Der Film als Industrie,” Berliner Börsen-Courier, no. 35, 21 January 1923.
35. For reflections on Negri’s fate in Hollywood see Georg Mendel, “Bella Donna,” Lichtbildbühne, 20 September 1924, p. 30; “Belladonna,” Vorwärts, no. 446, 21 September 1924; -ma., “Maripose, die Tänzerin,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 166, 10 April 1926; Albert Schneider in Der Film, 11 April 1926, p. 18; Willy Haas in Film-Kurier, 7 April 1926; Hans Pander, “Qualen der Ehe,” Der Bildwart, 6 (1928), 726.
36. Cf. reviews of “Lieb mich und die Welt ist mein,” Der Kritiker, 9 (25 April 1927), 54; Das blaue Heft, 9 (1927), 259–260; Film-Kurier, 16 April 1927; Film-Journal, 22 April 1927; Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 182, 20 April 1927.
37. On Veidt see, for instance, reviews of “Der Mann der lacht” by Eric Kluge in Welt am Montag, 4 March 1929, and Fritz Walter in Berliner Börsen-Courier, 3 March 1929, p. 10. Paul Leni, a graphic artist and set designer prior to becoming a director and known for visual imagination more than thematic concentration, received somewhat less than average sympathy: Cf. Schacht, “Spuk im Schloss,” B.Z. am Mittag, 26 August 1927, and Das blaue Heft, 9 (1927), 569; Haas’s review in Film-Kurier, 25 August 1927; Georg Herzberg, “Der Chinesenpapagei,” Film-Kurier, 13 December 1927; Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 December 1927.
38. On Pommer see Wolfgang Jacobsen, Erich Pommer; Ursula Hardt, “Erich Pommer.”
39. Elsewhere I have treated his Hollywood pictures as part of the initial wave of war movies: “Politics, the Cinema, and Early Revisitations of War in Weimar Germany,” Canadian Journal of History, XXIII (1988), 39–40.
40. See reviews of “Hotel Stadt Lemberg” by Albert Schneider in Film-Journal, 7 January 1927; E.S.P. in Lichtbildbühne, 6 January 1927; Schacht in Das blaue Heft, 9 (1927), 50–51.
41. Kinematograph, 9 January 1926, p. 19; Felix Henseleit in Reichsfilmblatt, 8 January 1927, p. 34.
42. Cf. the comments by Kurt Pinthus on The Marriage Circle and Willy Haas on Three Women cited above.
43. The standard monograph on Murnau is Lotte H. Eisner, Murnau (London: Secker and Warburg, 1973). A succinct and elegant reading is Thomas Elsaesser, “Secret Affinities,” Sight & Sound, 58 (Winter 1988/89), 33–39. For an overview of Murnau’s career stressing the sharp discontinuity between its German and American phases see Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Ein großer Filmregisseur der 20er Jahre (Stuttgart: Deutscher Sparkasse, 1981). Robert Allen, “William Fox Presents ‘Sunrise’,” Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 2 (1977), 327–338. On American opinion see Steven Lipkin, “ ‘Sunrise’: A Film Meets its Public,” ibid., pp. 339–355; cf. Dudley Andrew, “The Gravity of ‘Sunrise’,” ibid., pp. 356–379, especially pp. 363–368.
44. “Sonnenaufgang,” Film-Journal, 20 November 1927.
45. Pander’s review of “Sonnenaufgang” in Der Bildwart, 6 (1928), 727–728. Cf. Kinematograph, 20 November 1927, p. 17; the programmatic remarks of Hans Wollenberg in Lichtbildbühne, 18 November 1927; Eugen Gürster, “Filme und solche, die es werden wollten,” Der Kunstwart, 41 (1928), 404–406, who called Sunrise the first real fruit of German-American movie cooperation. For quibbles about plot and characterization see Haas’s review in Film-Kurier, 18 November 1927; Ziese in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 541, 19 November 1927; Hans Erdmann in Reichsfilmblatt, 26 November 1927, p. 28, and Roland Schacht in Das blaue Heft, 9 (1927), 707–708.
46. (Felix) Gong, “Nach ‘Sonnenaufgang’,” Deutsche Republik, 2 (1927), 247–249. Cf. American judgments cited in Lipkin, “ ‘Sunrise’,” pp. 350–352.
47. On Jannings see his Theater/Film—Das Leben und ich (Berchtesgaden: Zimmer & Herzog, 1951); Herbert Holba, Emil Jannings (Ulm: Günter Knorr, 1979).
48. Cf. Hans Pander, “Der Weg allen Fleisches,” Der Bildwart, 6 (1928), 128–129; (Felix) Gong, “Jannings via Hollywood,” Deutsche Republik, 2 (1927), 312–313; Kinematograph, 27 November 1927, p. 21.
49. Pander’s review is a notable exception. The split image is forcefully projected by Eugen Gürster, “Der Weg allen Fleisches,” Der Kunstwart, 41 (1928), 335–337. Cf. Munkepunke, 1000% Jannings (Hamburg-Berlin: Prismen Verlag, 1930), pp. 108–109.
50. Haas’s review in Film-Kurier, 22 November 1927.
51. Cf. Film-Journal, 27 November 1927, and the review by Felix Henseleit in Reichsfilmblatt, 26 November 1927, p. 38.
52. Hans Wollenberg, “Der Weg allen Fleisches,” Lichtbildbühne, 22 November 1927. Cf. the earlier unsigned lead article, “Die Lehren des amerikanischen Janningsfilms,” ibid., 15 October 1927, pp. 9–10. For similar sentiments on The Last Command (directed by Joseph von Sternberg) and The Patriot (which teamed Jannings with Lubitsch and Kraely) see Deutsche Republik, 3 (1928), 22–24, and 3 (1929), 726–727; Der Film (Kritiken der Woche), 2 March 1929, pp. 261–262; Film-Kurier, 20 September 1928. Even Ihering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, vol. II, pp. 562–564, acknowledged the artistry with which Lubitsch and Jannings crafted The Patriot as a popular film.
53. Rudolf Arnheim, “Film,” Das Stachelschwein, no. 1 (January 1928), 52; Ihering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, vol. II, p. 542. Ihering’s review betrayed considerable bitterness at Jannings’s surrender to Hollywood and at the reluctance of others to criticize his conduct honestly. Cf. “Jannings: ‘Der Weg allen Fleisches’,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 546, 22 November 1927.
54. Pinthus reviewed these films simultaneously in Das Tagebuch, 8 (1927), 1036–1037. Cf. John Baxter, The Hollywood Exiles (London: MacDonald and Jane’s, 1976), p. 40.
55. Die Weltbühne, 23 (1927), vol II, p. 867. This, of course, was an artistic judgment, not a commercial one. As already noted, the trade press spoke highly of Jannings’s American work as box-office value.
56. In his autobiography Jannings treats the three pictures which received a generally favorable German press—The Way of All Flesh, The Last Command, The Patriot—and then elides the other three to discuss his return to Germany: Theater/Film—Das Leben und ich, pp. 179–188. Cf. the parallel approach of Ludwig Berger in his memoirs, Wir sind vom gleichen Stoff, aus dem die Träume sind (Tübingen: Rainer Wunderlich Verlag, 1953), pp. 240–270.
57. Even though the latter was directed by Ludwig Berger. See Herbert Holba, Emil Jannings, pp. 27–29. On The Street of Sin cf. reviews of “Der König von Soho” in Ihering, Von Reinhardt bis Brecht, vol. II, pp. 569–571; Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 248–249, 2 June 1929; Der Film (Kritiken der Woche), 2 June 1929, p. 337. On Sins of the Fathers see, for instance, “Sünden der Väter,” Film-Echo, 20 January 1930; Reichsfilmblatt, 18 January 1930.