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January 28, 2014 (Series 28: 1) , UNDERWORLD (1927, 80 minutes)

Academy Award—1929—Best Writing, Original Story:

Directed by Josef von Sternberg Written by (scenario) and Ben Hecht (story) Produced by B.P. Schulberg Cinematography by Second Unit Director Presenters Jesse L. Lasky and

George Bancroft...'Bull' Weed ...'Feathers' McCoy …Rolls Royce Wensel ...'Buck' Mulligan

JOSEF VON STERNBERG (b. Jonas Sternberg, May 29, 1894 in , -Hungary [now Austria]—d. December 22, 1969 (age 75) in , , ) directed 35 films, including 1957 Jet Pilot, 1953 Ana-ta-han, 1952 Macao, 1946 Duel in the Sun, 1941 , 1939 , 1938 The Great Waltz, 1937 I, (unfinished), 1935 , 1935 The Devil Is a Favorite Sport?, 1962 Hatari!, 1959 Rio Bravo, 1955 Land of the Woman, 1934 , 1932 , 1932 Pharaohs, 1953 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1952 Monkey Shanghai Express, 1931 , 1931 Business, 1952 The Big Sky, 1949 I Was a Male , 1948 Dishonored, 1930 Morocco, 1930 , 1929 , 1948 Red River, 1946 The Big Sleep, 1944 To Thunderbolt, 1928 , 1928 The Dragnet, Have and Have Not, 1943 , 1943 Air Force, 1941 1928 The Last Command, 1927 Underworld, 1927 Children of , 1941 Sergeant York, 1940 , 1939 Divorce, 1926 , and 1925 The Salvation , 1938 , 1936 Come Hunters. He produced 7 films: 1953 Ana-ta-han, 1935 The Devil and Get It, 1936 , 1935 Barbary Coast, 1934 Is a Woman, 1934 The Scarlet Empress, 1932 Blonde Venus, , 1932 Scarface, 1930 The Dawn Patrol, 1929 1931 An American Tragedy, 1928 The Docks of New York, and Trent's Last Case, 1928 A Girl in Every Port, and 1926 The Road 1925 . He also edited 6 films—1934 The to Glory. He wrote 25 films, among them 1971 The French Scarlet Empress, 1932 Blonde Venus, 1931 Dishonored, 1928 Connection, 1952 Monkey Business (screenplay), 1951 The The Honeymoon, 1928 The Wedding March, and 1925 The Thing from Another World, 1943 The Outlaw, 1938 The Dawn Salvation Hunters—and was the cinematographer for 2—1953 Patrol (story), 1938 Test Pilot, 1932 Scarface, 1930 The Dawn Ana-ta-han and 1935 The Devil Is a Woman. Patrol (adaptation & dialogue), 1927 Underworld (scenario), 1925 The Road to Yesterday (titles), and 1924 Tiger Love, and HOWARD HAWKS (b. Howard Winchester Hawks, May 30, 1896 produced 22: 1970 , 1966 El Dorado, 1965 Red Line in Goshen, Indiana—d. December 26, 1977 (age 81) in Palm 7000, 1964 Man's Favorite Sport?, 1962 Hatari!, 1959 Rio Springs, California) directed 47 films, among them 1970 Rio Bravo, 1955 , 1952 The Big Sky, 1951 The Lobo, 1966 El Dorado, 1965 , 1964 Man's Thing from Another World, 1948 Red River, 1946 The Big Sleep,

Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—2

1944 To Have and Have Not, 1943 Corvette K-225, 1941 BERT GLENNON (b. Robert Lawrence Glennon, November 19, Sergeant York, 1940 His Girl Friday, 1939 Only Angels Have 1893 in Anaconda, Montana—d. June 29, 1967 (age 73) in Wings, 1938 Bringing Up Baby, 1934 Twentieth Century, 1933 Sherman Oaks, California) was the cinematographer on 133 , 1932 Scarface, 1931 , and films and television shows, including 1963 The Man from 1923 Quicksands. Galveston, 1963 “77 Sunset Strip” (TV Series), 1960-1963 “The Dakotas” (TV Series, 13 episodes), 1960-1962 “Lawman” (TV BEN HECHT (b. February 28, 1894 in , New Series, 64 episodes), 1960 “Sugarfoot” (TV Series), 1960 York—d April 18, 1964 (age 70) in New York City, New York) , 1959 “Bonanza” (TV Series), 1956 Davy won 2 , in 1929 for Best Writing, Original Crockett and the River Pirates, 1955 “'s Wonderful Story for Underworld (1927), and 1936, Best Writing, Original World of Color” (TV Series), 1953 Thunder Over the Plains, Story for The Scoundrel (1935), shared with Charles MacArthur. 1953 The Moonlighter, 1953 House of Wax, 1951 Operation He wrote 160 films and TV shows, but was often uncredited. Pacific, 1950 Rio Grande, 1950 , 1949 Red Light, Among them are 1964 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, 1963 Cleopatra, 1962 1947 Copacabana, 1947 Mr. District Attorney, 1946 Shadow of a 's , 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty, 1962 Walk on Woman, 1946 Night and Day, 1945 San Antonio, 1943 The the Wild Side, 1959 “The Ten Commandments” (TV Movie), Desert Song, 1943 Destination Tokyo, 1943 , 1957 , 1957 A Farewell to Arms, 1956 The 1943 , 1941 They Died with Their Boots On, Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1956 Trapeze, 1956 Miracle in the 1941 Dive Bomber, 1941 Virginia, 1940 Our Town, 1939 Swanee Rain, 1955 The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, 1955 The Man River, 1939 , 1939 , with the Golden Arm, 1955 Guys and Dolls, 1954 , 1953 1939 Young Mr. Lincoln, 1939 Stagecoach, 1937 The Prisoner of Indiscretion of an American Wife, 1952 Angel Face, 1952 Hans Zenda, 1936 Lloyd's of , 1936 The Prisoner of Shark Christian Andersen, 1952 Monkey Business, 1951 Strangers on a Island, 1934 She Was a Lady, 1934 The Scarlet Empress, 1933 Train, 1951 The Thing from Another World, 1950 “The Billy Alice in Wonderland, 1933 Morning Glory, 1933 Gabriel Over Rose Show” (TV Series), 1950 September Affair, 1950 Edge of the White House, 1932 The Half Naked Truth, 1932 Blonde Doom, 1950 Where the Sidewalk Ends, 1949-1950 “The Front Venus, 1928 The Patriot, 1928 Street of Sin, 1928 The Last Page” (TV Series, 18 episodes), 1949 The Twentieth Century, Command, 1927 The City Gone Wild, 1927 The Woman on Trial, 1948 , 1948 Rope, 1948 “” (TV 1927 We're All Gamblers, 1927 Underworld, 1927 Barbed Wire, Movie), 1948 , 1947 The Paradine Case, 1927 Hotel Imperial, 1926 Good and Naughty, 1925 Wild Horse 1947 , 1947 Kiss of Death, 1946 Duel in the Mesa, 1924 Worldly Goods, 1924 Changing Husbands, 1923 The Sun, 1946 Notorious, 1946 , 1945 “The Front Page” (TV Ten Commandments, 1923 You Can't Fool Your Wife, 1922 The Movie), 1945 Spellbound, 1944 Lifeboat, 1943 The Outlaw, 1942 Woman Who Walked Alone, 1921 Nobody's Fool, 1921 The Roxie Hart, 1940 , 1940 , Torrent, and 1916 Ramona. 1940 Foreign Correspondent, 1940 I Take This Woman, 1940 The Shop Around the Corner, 1940 His Girl Friday, 1939 Some HENRY HATHAWAY (b. Henri Leopold de Fiennes, March 13, Like It Hot, 1939 Wuthering Heights, 1939 Stagecoach, 1938 1898 in Sacramento, California—d. February 11, 1985 (age 86) , 1937 The Prisoner of Zenda, 1935 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California) directed 67 films and Barbary Coast, 1934 The President Vanishes, 1934 Twentieth television shows, among them 1974 Hangup, 1971 Raid on Century, 1934 Viva Villa!, 1933 , 1933 Queen Rommel, 1969 True Grit, 1968 , 1966 , Christina, 1932 Million Dollar Legs, 1932 Scarface, 1932 The 1965 , 1960 , 1958 From Beast of the City, 1931 The Front Page, 1927 The American Hell to , 1957 Legend of the Lost, 1956 23 Paces to Baker Beauty, 1927 Underworld, and 1926 The New Klondike. Street, 1954 Prince Valiant, 1953 Niagara, 1951 The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel, 1951 Rawhide, 1951 You're in the B.P. SCHULBERG (b. Benjamin Percival Schulberg, January 19, Navy Now, 1949 Down to the Sea in Ships, 1948 Call Northside 1892 in Bridgeport, Connecticut—d. February 25, 1957 (age 65) 777, 1947 Kiss of Death, 1947 , 1945 The in Key Biscayne, Florida) produced 108 films and TV shows, House on 92nd Street, 1944 Wing and a Prayer, 1942 Ten including 1943 City Without Men, 1942 The Adventures of Gentlemen from West Point, 1940 Brigham Young, 1940 Johnny Martin Eden, 1937 Blossoms on Broadway, 1937 She Asked for Apollo, 1936 Go West Young Man, 1936 The Trail of the It, 1937 She's No Lady, 1937 Her Husband Lies, 1936 Meet Nero Lonesome Pine, 1935 The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, 1934 Come Wolfe, 1935 Crime and Punishment, 1934 Little Miss Marker, On, Marines!, 1933 Under the Tonto Rim, 1932 Wild Horse 1933 Jennie Gerhardt, 1933 Pick-up, 1929 The Virginian, 1929 Mesa, 1932 Heritage of the Desert, and 1930 Behind the Make- The Love Doctor, 1928 Sins of the Fathers, 1928 Street of Sin, Up. He was the second unit or assistant director for 19 films— 1928 Red Hair, 1927 The Rough Riders, 1927 Underworld, 1927 1930 Morocco, 1930 The Texan, 1929 The Virginian, 1929 The Rolled Stockings, 1927 Wings, 1927 Children of Divorce, 1927 Wolf Song, 1929 Redskin, 1929 The Love Doctor, 1928 The Fashions for Women, 1927 Blonde or Brunette, 1926 Man of the Shopworn Angel, 1928 The Awakening, 1927 The Rough Riders, Forest, 1926 We're in the Navy Now, 1926 The Eagle of the Sea, 1927 Hula, 1927 Underworld, 1927 The Way of All Flesh, 1926 1925 Free to Love, 1925 Capital Punishment, 1924 White Man, Mantrap, 1926 Bachelor Brides, 1925 Ben-Hur: A Tale of the 1923 April Showers, 1923 Are You a Failure?, 1923 Poor Men's Christ, 1925 Grounds for Divorce, 1925 The Dressmaker from Wives, 1923 The Hero, 1922 The Woman Conquers, and 1921 Paris, 1925 The Thundering Herd, and 1924 Open All Night— Get Your Man. produced 6—1967 , 1966 An Eye for an Eye, 1966 Nevada Smith, 1960 North to Alaska, 1957 Legend of the Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—3

Lost, and 1937 —assisted on 3—1964 Of Human Why Men Forget, 1919 The Other Man's Wife, 1918 Daybreak, Bondage, 1925 Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, and 1923 The Ten 1917 Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman, 1917 The Millionaire's Commandments—and appeared in 1—1917 The Storm Woman. Double, 1916 The Iron Woman, 1916 The Spell of the Yukon, 1916 The Soul Market, 1915 The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and 1914 A Gentleman from Mississippi.

CLIVE BROOK…Rolls Royce Wensel (b. Clifford Hardman Brook, June 1, 1887 in London, England, UK—d. November 17, 1974 (age 87) in London, England, UK) appeared in 107 films and television shows, some of which are 1963 The List of Adrian Messenger, 1944 , 1942 Adventure in Blackmail, 1940 Convoy, 1937 Action for Slander, 1936 Scotland Yard Commands, 1933 Midnight Club, 1932 Sherlock Holmes, 1932 Shanghai Express, 1931 24 Hours, 1931 Tarnished Lady, 1931 East Lynne, 1930 Anybody's Woman, 1929 The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1929 The Four Feathers, 1929 A Dangerous Woman, 1928 Interference, 1928 Midnight Madness, 1927 , 1927 Human Desires, 1927 Underworld, 1927 Barbed Wire, 1927 Afraid to Love, 1926 Three Faces East, 1925 Seven Sinners, 1925 When Love Grows Cold, 1924 Christine of the Hungry Heart, 1924 White Shadows, 1923 This Freedom, ...'Bull' Weed (b. September 30, 1882 in 1923 Through Fire and Water, 1922 The Experiment, 1922 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—d. October 2, 1956 (age 74) in Married to a Mormon, 1921 Daniel Deronda, and 1920 Trent's Santa Monica, California) appeared in 54 films, including 1942 Last Case. Whistling in Dixie, 1942 Syncopation, 1941 Texas, 1940 Little Men, 1940 North West Mounted Police, 1940 When the Daltons FRED KOHLER...'Buck' Mulligan (b. Fredrick L. Kohler, April Rode, 1940 Young Tom Edison, 1939 Agent, 1939 20, 1887 in Burlington, Iowa—d. October 28, 1938 (age 51) in Each Dawn I Die, 1939 Stagecoach, 1938 Angels with Dirty Hollywood, California) appeared in 141 films and TV shows, Faces, 1938 , 1937 A Doctor's Diary, 1936 Mr. including 1938 Returns, 1938 Painted Desert, 1938 Deeds Goes to Town, 1933 Blood Money, 1932 Lady and Gent, Gangs of New York, 1936 The Accusing Finger, 1936 The 1932 World and the Flesh, 1930 Derelict, 1930 Ladies Love Plainsman, 1936 The Texas Rangers, 1936 Heart of the West, Brutes, 1929 Thunderbolt, 1929 The Wolf of Wall Street, 1928 1935 Hard Rock Harrigan, 1935 Border Brigands, 1934 The The Docks of New York, 1928 The Showdown, 1927 The Rough Last Round-Up, 1933 Queen Christina, 1933 Under the Tonto Riders, 1927 Underworld, 1926 The Runaway, 1926 The Rim, 1932 Wild Horse Mesa, 1931 Corsair, 1931 Other Men's Enchanted Hill, 1925 The Pony Express, 1924 Teeth, 1923 Women, 1930 Under a Texas Moon, 1929 The Leatherneck, 1928 Driven, 1922 The Prodigal Judge, and 1921 The Journey's End. The Vanishing Pioneer, 1928 The Dragnet, 1928 The Showdown, 1927 The Gay Defender, 1927 Open Range, 1927 Shootin' Irons, EVELYN BRENT...'Feathers' McCoy (b. Mary Elizabeth Riggs, 1927 The Rough Riders, 1927 The Loves of Carmen, 1927 October 20, 1899 in Tampa, Florida—d. June 4, 1975 (age 75) in Underworld, 1927 , 1927 The Way of All Flesh, Los Angeles, California) appeared in 126 films and television 1927 The Devil's Masterpiece, 1925 The Prairie Pirate, 1925 shows, including 1960 “Wagon Train” (TV Series), 1950 Riders of the Purple Sage, 1924 The Iron Horse, 1923 North of Again... Pioneers, 1944 Bowery Champs, 1943 The Seventh Hudson Bay, 1923 The Eleventh Hour, 1922 Perils of the Yukon, Victim, 1942 The Pay Off, 1942 Wrecking Crew, 1942 Westward 1922 The Milky Way, 1922 , 1922 With Stanley in Ho, 1941 Holt of the Secret Service, 1939 The Mad Empress, Africa, 1920 The Lone Ranger (Short), 1919 Soldiers of Fortune, 1939 Daughter of the Tong, 1938 The Law West of Tombstone, 1912 His First Skate (Short), and 1911 The Code of Honor 1937 Night Club Scandal, 1937 The Last Train from Madrid, (Short). 1937 King of Gamblers, 1937 Jungle Jim, 1936 Hopalong Cassidy Returns, 1936 The President's Mystery, 1935 Home on Philip Carli. “Philip Carli brings both prodigious musical talent the Range, 1933 The World Gone Mad, 1931 , and a committed scholarly outlook to his lifelong passion for the 1931 The Pagan Lady, 1930 Madonna of the Streets, 1930 music and culture of the turn of the last century. He discovered Framed, 1930 Slightly Scarlet, 1929 Fast Company, 1928 The at the age of five and began his accompaniment career Mating Call, 1928 The Showdown, 1928 The Last Command, at thirteen, with a performance for ’s 1923 version of 1927 Underworld, 1927 Blind Alleys, 1927 Love's Greatest The Hunchback of Notre Dame. While at college he programmed Mistake, 1926 The Jade Cup, 1926 The Impostor, 1926 Love 'Em and accompanied an annual series of silent films, and also th and Leave 'Em, 1926 Queen o'Diamonds, 1925 Lady Robinhood, organized and conducted a 50-piece student orchestra using 19 - 1925 Alias Mary Flynn, 1924 Silk Stocking Sal, 1924 My century performance practice. Since then, he has continued his Husband's Wives, 1924 The Desert Outlaw, 1924 Arizona studies of the film, music and culture of the late nineteenth and Express, 1922 Married to a Mormon, 1922 Trapped by the early twentieth centuries, earning a doctorate from the Eastman Mormons, 1921 Sybil, 1921 The Door That Has No Key, 1921 School of Music. He has at the same time toured extensively as a Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—4

film accompanist throughout North America and Europe, STERNBERG, “JOSEF VON” (Jonas Sternberg) from World performing on keyboard and with orchestra at such venues as Film Directors v.I. Ed. John Wakeman. H.W. Wilson Co. NY Lincoln Center and the Museum of in New York, the 1987. Entry written by Philip Kemp National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Cinémathèque Québécoise in Montreal, the National Film Theatre in London, American director, was born in Vienna, eldest child of a and the International Film Festival. He is the staff poor Orthodox Jewish family. His father, Moses Sternberg, “was accompanist for the George Eastman House in Rochester, New an enormously strong man who often used his strength on York, and performs annually at several film festivals in the me….After each beating, the punishing hand was extended to be as well as at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Italy. kissed, this in a noble tradition then prevalent.” Moses’ wife “In matters of musical style, Dr. Carli’s central dictum for Serafin (born Singer), whom her son described as “gentle, with film accompaniment is that the score and performance should no experience taming a lion,” could do little to protect the serve the film above all, regardless of the particular genre of the children. When Sternberg was three, his father, unable to find music. In an ideal performance, the audience should be caught up work in Vienna, left for America to seek his fortune, planning to in the excitement – or humor, or pathos – of the drama without send for his wife and children later. Meanwhile the boy was left specific awareness of the largely to his own devices, happy to accompaniment, even while it is explore the “children’s paradise” of helping to intensify the film’s emotional Vienna, and especially the nearby Prater message. For his own accompaniments, amusement park, until he was sent to he draws on his deep knowledge of school at the age of six. Here he was “period” musical materials, including taught compulsory Hebrew by “a both popular forms of the frightening monster with beard and and the highly chromatic music piercing eyes” whose favorite diversion— developed for nineteenth-century opera. according to Sternberg—was to terrify his The colorful scores, whether they are young pupils until they messed their organ or piano improvisations pants, and then beat them for doing so. conceived on stage in tandem with the In 1901 Moses Sternberg sent for film or original compositions for full his family to join him in New York, orchestra, help the audience to bridge though without providing any money for the cultural gap between their everyday their fares. Somehow Serafin transported lives and the film images produced and herself and her three children to edited generations ago. An exciting Hamburg, and from there across the score in an idiom that would be familiar Atlantic. In New York Sternberg picked to the original audience for the film up basic English and attended the local leads the modern viewer to accept public school. “The three years spent dramatic conventions that might there are an absolute blank. Not one otherwise seem stilted or even single day can I recall, nor one teacher.” unintentionally comical, rather than At the end of those three years Moses highlighting these as more “modern” Sternberg, who had managed to find only scores can do. The musical translation pulls viewers deeply into menial, dead-end jobs, returned with his family to Vienna. “But the world of the film by engaging their emotions in musical not long after, like a squirrel that keeps turning a cage, he once terms that are still familiar and strongly compelling today. more left to try his fortune, went again to the same country, and “Dr. Carli has accompanied hundreds of films over the again in vain.” In 1908, his family once more followed him, this years on piano and organ, and recorded piano accompaniments to time for good. Sternberg attended high school on Long Island, over seventy films for video release by the , a but dropped out after a year spent “doing nothing but struggling number of film and video companies, and for broadcast on the with the English language.” American Movie Classics and the cable An aunt who owned a millinery store offered him work channels. In 1996 his orchestral score to Herbert Brenon’s Peter as an apprentice, from there he moved to the stockroom of a Pan (1924) received its world premiere under his direction at Le large lace house on Fifth Avenue. At seventeen he changed his Giornate del Cinema Muto, performed by the Flower City name to ‘Josef’ and left home. He lived anywhere, took any work Society Orchestra of Rochester, New York, which Mr. Carli he could find, and in his spare time read all he could and studied founded in 1993. His score for full orchestra to ’s art, determinedly making up for his scanty and haphazard Stella Maris was recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic education. A chance encounter during a rainstorm led to orchestra for video release by Milestone Films and the Mary Sternberg’s first contact with films: he became apprentice to a Pickford Foundation in 1999. The Flower City Society Orchestra man who coated, patched, and repaired film stock, a job that also has also recorded his scores for Captain Salvation, involved occasional stints as a projectionist. Rapidly gaining skill commissioned by Turner Classic Movies, and The Poor Little and expertise, in 1914 he joined a more prestigious organization, Rich Girl, commissioned by the Pickford Foundation.” the impressively named World Film Corporation of Fort Lee, New Jersey, becoming chief assistant to the director general, William A. Brady. Sternberg’s instincts for the visual image Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—5

were by now well developed. His main task was to cut, patch, scene, Sternberg got his chance to direct a picture of his own. He retitle, and generally doctor the crude products of Brady’s was approached by a young British comic actor, George K. company. Arthur, whose Hollywood career was flagging. Arthur had a When the United States entered the war in 1917, script he had written entitled “Just Plain Bugs,” and a few Sternberg joined the Signal Corps,where he helped make training thousand dollars of savings. He was prepared to finance the films; , Wesley Ruggles, and movie and to pay Sternberg $500 to direct him in it. Sternberg were among his fellow workers. After being discharged he read the script and returned it with the advice that he burn it returned briefly to the World Film Corporation, before leaving to before anyone else could see it. In its place said Sternberg, he gain wider experience on a number of independent productions would provide a script of his own, at no extra cost—an offer in America and Britain. His first credit as assistant director was which Arthur accepted “with tears in his eyes.” Sternberg, for his on The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1919) directed at the Fort part, was attracted by directing a film without interference and Lee studios by the emigré Frenchman Emile Chautard. In 1921 with no restrictions apart from those imposed by the minuscule he traveled to Europe, staying for two months in Vienna, where budget. he met the Viennese autor Karl Adolph, and undertook the The Salvation Hunters (1925) was filmed in three-and- translation of Adolph’s novel Töchter (Daughters of Vienna, a-half weeks and cost $4,900. The story concerned three young 1923). In London Sternberg worked as assistant director on derelicts (expressionistically designated The Boy, The Girl, and several films for Sir Charles Higham’s Alliance Productions, The Child) living on a huge dredge in San Pedro harbor, the including The Bohemian Girl (1922), before returning to the vicissitudes they undergo, and their eventual–and somewhat United States. In 1923 he arrived in Hollywood. unconvincing–triumph over their muddy circumstances. “There With the exception of Chautard, for whom he retained are important fragments of life that have been ignored by the both professional and personal respect, Sternberg had been motion picture,” proclaimed Sternberg’s opening title distinctly unimpressed by the portentously, “because Body is directors he had worked with more important than Thought. (although they were, he Our aim has been to photograph commented dryly, “not a Thought.” This aspiration was altogether without value, for scarcely fulfilled by the movie they showed that no special that followed, for all its pictorial skill was needed to be a originality. director”). His opinion of the found it “pretentious. . .a flat and Hollywood output he had seen largely unimaginative exercise in was scarcely any higher. Most filmcraft,” although he allowed it of it he dismissed as worthless, “a certain austere dignity.” although he appreciated D.W. Griffith’s skill with the …Already the director’s camera, and commended preoccupation with pictorial Chaplin for his “pictorial composition–especially in the sobriety” and ability to portray play of light and shadow–and his “the most primitive emotions.” relative indifference to story line One of the few directors who were clearly in evidence. earned Sternberg’s unqualified approval was , “Instead of the Elinor Glyn plots of the day, I had in mind a “who invested his films. . . with an intensity that bristled.” visual poem. Instead of flat lighting, shadows. In the place of Sternberg’s admiration for Stroheim (also, by coincidence, the pasty masks, faces in relief, plastic and deep-eyed. Instead of product of a poor Jewish Viennese family) was manifested less in scenery which meant nothing, an emotionalized background that his work—though traces of Stroheim’s visual influence are would transfer itself into my foreground. Instead of saccharine evident in Sternberg’s early output—than in the public persona characters, sober figures moving in rhythm. . . .And. . .the hero of he chose to adopt: arrogant, tyrannical, and intolerant of all who the film was to be a dredge.” contradicted him, or whose abilities he considered inferior to his The premiere of The Salvation Hunters in a small own. The last category included virtually everybody–especially theatre on Sunset Boulevard, was a disaster. “The members of actors–with whom Sternberg came in contact. the cast were in the audience, which greeted my work with In Hollywood, he soon found work as assistant director laughter and jeers and finally rioted. Many walked out, and so on By Divine Right (1923), an independent production directed did I.” However, George K. Arthur had contrived to show the by . Thanks to the film’s star and coproducer, film privately to and , both of Elliott Dexter, Sternberg acquired a further attribute in common whom responded with enthusiasm. (Chaplin is said to have with von Stroheim: the aristocratic particle “von,” which Dexter claimed, later, that he only praised it by way of a joke.) United thought would look better on the credits. The addition, according Artists bought the picture for release, and Sternberg, now to Sternberg, was made without his knowledge, but he seems to suddenly famous, was invited by Mary Pickford to direct her have made no objection, then or later. next film, to a scenario of his own choosing. After working on some half-dozen independent –Sternberg duly came up with an outline of the productions, in which he was allowed to direct an occasional proposed movie. It was to be called Backwash and Pickford Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—6

would play a blind girl living in a Pittsburgh slum. Most of the , and the title, which Sternberg thought a good one, was action would take place in her own mind, using subjective Underworld (1927). George Bancroft starred as the mobster Bull camera. Pickford, who had commended Sternberg for his Weed, with Clive Brook as his melancholy protégé–an alcoholic “freshness and originality” decided that such qualities might be lawyer who has fallen for Weed’s mistress Feathers (Evelyn taken too far the contract was terminated. Sternberg, now much Brent). in demand accepted an 8-picture contract with MGM. His first Underworld, wrote Kevin Brownlow, “was the film that assignment was (1925), a romantic drama began the gangster cycle, and it remains the masterpiece of the set in Brittany. genre, containing al the elements which became clichés in later Both studio and stars were bewildered by Sternberg’s pictures. Similar assessments of the film have often been made, idiosyncratic—and autocratic—working methods. , though not all critics would agree. thought it “less assistant director on the film, described the final product as being of a proto-gangster film than a pre-gangster film,” and John exquisitely photographed, “full of interest, and the direction Baxter wrote that its “reputation as ‘the first gangster film’ is showed the humor of which Sternberg was master.” The studio, unearned. . . .After four decades of gangster films, its histrionic however, found the film incomprehensible and had it completely and decorative styles are unconvincing, and the plot fatally reshot by Phil Rosen (as Heaven on Earth). “The result,” said episodic.” But though any claims of realism now seem hard to Sternberg, “was two ineffective films instead of one.” sustain, the film remains effective through the power of its Nonetheless, he let himself be persuaded by Louis B. Mayer to emotionally charged images, notably in the central sequence of undertake another assignment: with Mae the gangland ball. Murray. This was an even greater fiasco. After two weeks of Hecht’s initial reaction was to demand his name be shooting, Sternberg pointed his camera upwards at the studio removed from the credits. The studio, with misgivings about the roof, finding there “more interest than was apparent in the perfect film’s commercial potential, premiered it surreptitiously in a material that clung to the polished floor,” walked off the set, and minor New York theatre, without a press showing. Against all took his leave of MGM. (The picture was completed by Christy expectations, and apparently through word of mouth alone, it Cabane, who took directorial credit.) became a smash hit, and all-night screenings had to be arranged Charlie Chaplin now asked Sternberg to direct a film for to meet the demand. Hecht, having presumably overcome his him. Entitled The Sea Gull (no connection with Chekhov’s play) aversion, won an Oscar for best original screenplay, and or alternatively A Woman of the Sea (1926), it was intended as a Paramount gave Sternberg a $10,000 bonus. Possibly as a further comeback vehicle for Chaplin’s former costar, . token of their regard, the studio also asked him to cut Stroheim’s Sternberg’s screenplay, based on an idea by Chaplin, was a love The Wedding March (1928) to an acceptable length. Sternberg story set in a fishing community on the California coast. When claimed he had von Stroheim’s approval for this operation, but the film was completed, it received one private screening, after whether he did or not, Stroheim apparently never spoke to him which Chaplin withdrew it, allowing no further showings. The again. only print was eventually burned by the US tax authorities, this being the only condition under which they would allow Chaplin In 1927 Paramount had borrowed , then to list the film as a tax loss. John Grierson, one of the few people widely regarded as the world’ greatest actor, from the UFA to see the picture, described it as “a strangely beautiful and studios in Berlin and were searching for suitable properties to empty affair–possibly the most beautiful I have ever seen–of net display their prestigious acquisition. Sternberg provided patterns, sea patterns and hair in the wind.” Sternberg took the the story for Street of Sin (1928), assigned to , episode philosophically: “[Chaplin] charged off its cost against which cast Jannings in the improbable role of a Soho burglar his formidable income tax, and I charged it off to experience.” named Basher Bill; and also directed him in a far more suitable The possibility of working with the theatre vehicle, The Last Command (1928). director now took Sternberg to Germany, but the Andrew Sarris described The Last Command as project came to nothing. Returning via England he met and “Sternberg’s most Pirandellian film” Undoubtedly its plot— married a minor actress named Riza Royce, and they together suggested by Lubitsch—is more dominant and more closely traveled back to Hollywood. With four failed assignments behind structured, than usual. Jannings plays a Hollywood extra, a frail him Sternberg’s reputation had slipped badly and he was glad to old recluse who is cast as a Russian general in a war picture. A accept an offer from B.P. Schulberg of work as an assistant long flashback shows that the old man is a Russian general, who director at Paramount. He was to remain at the studio for eight once jailed as a revolutionary the man who is now directing the years and to make fourteen films for it—the bulk of his output, Hollywood movie. In the film’s final sequences the old general including all those reckoned to be his finest work. imagines he is leading a real charge against the enemy and died on the set. The story allowed Sternberg to alternate biting satire His first major assignment was to direct retakes on on the Hollywood studio system, shown as both obsequious and ’s Children of Divorce (1927), a task that involved callous, with bravura visual episodes in the revolutionary reshooting half the film within three days. Sternberg sequences. His aim, he wrote, “was to extract the essence of the accomplished this so successfully that the studio decided to Hollywood film factory and to flash the essentials of a revolution entrust him with a picture of his own—“a little one,” Sternberg without being realistic with either. I was an unquestioned later explained, “a film no one might notice if it were left authority on Hollywood, and that made it difficult to be unfinished.” The script was adapted from a story by Ben Hecht, unrealistic in picturing it. I felt more at home with the Russian baed on his experiences as a crime reporter in gangster-era Revolution, for there I was free to use my imagination alone.” Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—7

Both aspects of the film worried the studio executives, (1928)—of which prints have, fortunately, survived. This was a who maintained that Sternberg’s view of the Russian Revolution waterfront drama about a ships stoker (Bancroft) who rescues a was “distorted,” and that his “untruthful” presentation of prostitute () from drowning and goes through a Hollywood would alienate the public. The Last Command would fake marriage ceremony with her. He plans to leave her the next have been shelved , had not a major company shareholder seen it morning but at the last moment changes his mind. Sternberg and insisted on its release. The film was a considerable critical made superb use of his grimy settings, with dark figures success, gaining Academy Award nominations for best picture silhouetted against gleaming nets or looming through iridescent and best story and an Oscar for Jannings’ performance, though fogs. But he also depicted his protagonists with uncharacteristic return at box office were disappointing. affection. “He achieves,” wrote Kevin Brownlow, “a feeling of By now Sternberg had acquired his permanent warmth and humanity–he seems to care about his characters, reputation as a cinematic tyrant, an arrogant perfectionist instead of using them. . . .merely to form patterns of light and demanding total and unquestioning obedience from everybody shade.” And Andrew Sarris thought that here, “more than in any on the set, actors in particular. “The only way to succeed,” he is previous film, Sternberg has integrated spectacle and supposed to have remarked, “is to make people hate you. That psychology.” way they remember you.” Anecdotes abound concerning his Accounts of the other “lost” film. The Case of Lena outrageous behavior. Among the actors with whom he most Smith (1929), suggests that this may have been an even more notoriously clashed were Jannings, , , personal work, and perhaps the finest of his silent movies. Set in and ; the latter demanded a clause the Vienna of Sternberg’s childhood, it recounted the misfortunes in his contract exempting him from ever working with Sternberg of a peasant girl who has a child by a dissolute young officer, and again. confessed that Sternberg “scared him stiff” is said to have been an exceptionally beautiful film. Thunderbolt and recalled that the director “had the most (1929) was Sternberg’s first talkie, shot initially as a silent and infuriating way of saying something,” though she conceded the hurriedly remade with sound. The splices show, most obviously effectiveness of his methods. In his role of tyrannical genius, in the sequence where the gangster hero (George Bancroft yet Sternberg costumed himself appropriately, generally favoring again) is serenaded in the death cell by a full prison orchestra jodhpurs and riding boots. He invariably carried a cane on set, rendering negro spirituals. Elsewhere, though, the film displays and for I, Claudius he added an ornate Javanese turban. some interestingly experimental use of the soundtrack. Peter Sternberg’s own attitude was simple and –granted his Baxter singled out “an almost frenetic nightclub scene” that premise—eminently logical. He believed that “anything that “exploits the dramatic possibilities of multiple sources of sound.” aspires to be a work of art can have but one creator”—who, in But once more Sternberg’s career seemed to be the case of a film, was the in decline. Underworld apart, none of his director. Actors, therefore, were Paramount films had done well in merely one element—albeit a commercial terms. He badly needed a highly important one-of the hit—and got one, from a rather material with which the creative unexpected source. In the artist worked. “An actor is temperamental, self-indulgent Emil turned on and off like a spigot, Jannings. Sternberg the great and like the spigot, is not the manipulator of actors had almost met his source of the liquid that flows match. After completing The Last through him. . . . How can the Command–Jannings had reciprocated sculptor be honest with the piece Sternberg’s feeling that he never wanted of clay that considers itself more to work with him again. The actor important than the hands that returned the compliment. Yet word now mold it?” Such views could came from Germany, that to guide him hardly fail to arouse resentment through his first sound movie, Jannings among the majority of actors. would accept no other director than For Sternberg, the ideal player Sternberg. The film would be a was one who—like Dietrich— Paramount/UFA coproduction. Sternberg would place herself arrived in Berlin with his wife in late unquestioningly and 1929. unreservedly in his hands. Rejecting UFA’s first Of Sternberg’s three suggestion of a film about Rasputin, remaining silent pictures, two Sternberg chose a subject adapted from a may no longer exist; no prints novel by , Professor are available in any archive. The Unrath. It provided a vehicle for the first of the missing films, The archetypal Jannings role: a figure of self- Net (1928) returned to the satisfied dignity brought low. In this gangster milieu of Underworld, with George Bancroft playing a case, the protagonist is a provincial schoolteacher who becomes police detective, and William Powell a smooth gangland boss. It hopelessly infatuated with Lola-Lola, a singer in a sleazy café, was poorly received at the box office, as was Docks of New York and is utterly humiliated and degraded, ending as a stage Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—8

clown.When Lola leaves him for another man, he returns old and …Morocco was released before The Blue Angel and broken to his school and dies at his desk. Lola was yet to be cast; Garmes (camera), Sternberg, Dietrich and Dreier (art director) against everyone’s advice, Sternberg chose a little-known revue were nominated for Academy Awards…. artiste, , who had given little previous evidence While Dietrich took a prolonged vacation in Germany, of acting talent. “Her appearance was ideal; what she did with it Sternberg was asked by Adolph Zukor to direct an adaptation of was something else again. That would be my concern.” ’s An American Tragedy. This had been The Blue Angel (1930), wrote Andrew Sarris, “is the assigned to Eisenstein, but Paramount took flight at his proposed one Sternberg film the director’s severest detractors will concede treatment, finding it too political. Sternberg, on his own is beyond reproach and ridicule.” Much of it, though—especially admission, was not interested in the novel’s political dimension: considered beside his Hollywood films with Dietrich—looks his version of Dreiser’s story of a man impelled to murder by his crude and clumsy, particularly in the English version. (The film social ambitions concentrates on the personal angle, emphasizing was shot in English and German versions; most critics prefer the the self-destructive nature of the hero’s sexual drive. He regarded latter.) Jannings’ style of acting has not worn well, and many the assignment, though, as no more than “a little finger exercise,” sequences seem static and overarranged. and his lack of involvement shows in the film, which is flat and But despite its weaknesses, the film retains remarkable cold. Dreiser subsequently sued Paramount for distorting his psychological and emotional power, thanks to the cold, ironic novel, much to Sternberg’s amusement. intensity with which Sternberg observes his characters and to the Sternberg’s concept of film as “a visual poem” reached casual sexuality of Dietrich’s performance, which created one of its apotheosis in Shanghai Express (1932), perhaps his finest the screen’s most enduring erotic icons. picture. The plot of the film concerns a train journey from Peking Siegfried Kracauer saw in The Blue Angel a to Shanghai, interrupted by a bandit attack. But the subject of the prefiguration of coming political events, asserting that it “poses film is Dietrich’s face, on which it plays an endless series of anew the problem of German immaturity and moreover variations: veiled, shadowed. Wreathed with smoke, nestling in elaborates its consequences. . . . .These screen figures anticipate furs or feathers, framed in patterns of black on white. … what will happen in real life a few years later. The boys are born “His settings,” David Thomson commented, “are the Hitler Youths.” Sternberg denied any such intentions, stating that Shanghai, Morocco, Imperial Russia and Spain only possible on he knew at the time little about Germany and nothing at all about the sounds stages and backlots of California, and the plots are as Nazism…. melodramatically separate from ordinary patterns of life as his images are from a Chinese or Spanish reality.” When, some years Response to The Blue later, Sternberg first visited Angel, in Germany and all over China, he was gratified to find Europe, was immediate and that the reality differed so spectacular. Even before the greatly from his imagined film opened Dietrich had version….Sternberg went to accepted a contract from Germany in 1932 while Paramount (offered on Dietrich prepared for Song of Sternberg’s recommendation), Songs with Mamoulian and she sailed for New York on directing. Sternberg returned to the night of the Berlin premiere. Hollywood in 1933 & signed a She was greeted on arrival by a two-picture deal with lawsuit from Riza Royce von Paramount…. Sternberg, alleging alienation of affection. The Sternberg In his last two films marriage had never been a great with Dietrich, Sternberg success (the couple had already claimed to have “completely divorced in 1927. But were subjugated my bird of paradise subsequently reunited), and it to my peculiar tendency to now collapsed in a mess of accusations, legal claims, and prove that a film might well be an art medium.” The first of these emotional scenes. Paramount tried to hush the affair up, to little films, The Scarlett Empress (1934), he described as “a relentless effect, and Mrs. Von Sternberg was granted a divorce—on excursion into style which, taken for granted in any work of art, grounds of cruelty—in June 1930. Sternberg himself never is considered to be unpardonable in this medium.” The film admitted that his relationship with Dietrich was anything but traces of the innocent young German professional, and claimed that even in that regard he lost interest princess, Sophia Frederica, into the tyrannical and sexually in her after Morocco. Against this stands the evidence of the rapacious Russian empress, . films, which would appear to trace an even more obsessive … “In its final, delirious vindication of Dietrich’s open- fascination, though tempered by ironic self-awareness, as he mouthed depravity,” asserted David Thomson, “it is American transformed a “modest little German Hausfrau” into “a celluloid cinema’s triumph of l’amour fou and a surrealist monument,” a mythic figure of ambiguous sexuality. masterpiece.”….It failed badly at the boxoffice and was condemned by the critics as self-indulgent rubbish, irrelevant to Depression-torn America…. Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—9

establish his image as another exotic European import, when in In The Devil Is a Woman (1935), Sternberg “paid a fact his roots as a filmmaker were purely American. final tribute to the lady I had seen lean against the wings of a He was born in Vienna in 1894, but his family came to Berlin stage,” and it is hard not to see the film as a valedictory America seven years thereafter, and although he did return to summing-up of his relationship with the star he had created.” …] Austria between the ages of ten and fourteen, it was in Fort Lee, New Jersey, that he made his first tentative steps into the film The seven films with Dietrich are generally agreed, by business. He came to film almost randomly, as a repairer of both his admirers and his detractors, to form the central damaged celluloid, an appropriately technical job for someone achievement of his oeuvre. whose technical mastery was evident from his earliest efforts. He “His world,” according to David Thomson, “is worked, virtually from the start, at all aspects of filmmaking, as pessimistic because it mocks the idea of meaning. . . . The human cutter, cameraman, and screenwriter, and aspired always to wilfulness and stupidity that attempt to control it are true gestures combine those functions and more. Of The Scarlet Empress of vanity in the face of destiny.” Commenting on the charge of (1934), he would later remark, not untypically: “With one social irrelevance, Andrew Sarris asserted that “paradoxically, exception, every detail, scenery, paintings, sculptures, costumes, Sternberg and Dietrich today look deeper and more dazzling than story, photography, every gesture by a player, was dominated by ever, while most of the cinema of the breadlines looks me.” excessively mannered,” adding that “the subtle humor of the The first film he directed, The Salvation Hunters Sternberg oeuvre as a whole has been overlooked by critics intent (1925)—a low-budget independent feature coproduced with the on confusing seriousness with solemnity. English actor George K. Arthur—caught the attention of Charlie Sternberg’s films, in ’s view “have a Chaplin and launched von Sternberg into a directorial career that psychological power that transcends simple plot. Under his initially seemed to unravel as rapidly as it had taken shape. He scrutiny a reality emerges that is at once obvious and infinitely signed to M-G-M and made a film, The Exquisite Sinner, that complex in its implications, the world of human emotion, of love was later largely reshot by another director; its follow-up, The and its dark concomitant, the desire to destroy.”… Masked Bride, was abandoned by von Sternberg (in Andrew Sternberg described his last film, “made under almost Sarris’s account, “he turned his camera toward the ceiling and ideal conditions,” as “my best film—and my most unsuccessful walked off the set”) and finished by someone else. Chaplin then one.” The Saga of Anatahan (1953) was made in Japan…. The engaged him to make The Sea Gull (1926) but, for reasons never story furnished Sternberg with an almost clinically pure fully clarified, suppressed the film after a single public screening demonstration of his perennial thesis: the destructive power of (the only print known to survive appears to have been sexuality and uncontrolled emotion. subsequently destroyed for tax reasons). At this early stage, von …For David Thomson, as for many others, “Sternberg Sternberg had already acquired his unshakable reputation as a now stand clear as one of the greatest directors and the first poet self-vaunting artist and tyrannical taskmaster, driving his actors of underground cinema.” through endless retakes and striving, as he always would, for a monopoly of creative control. “If Sternberg set out to inspire general dislike,” Kevin Brownlow has written of the filmmaker’s relations with his Hollywood colleagues, “he succeeded impressively.” (William Powell, after starring in The Last Command, had it written into his contract that he was never again to be directed by von Sternberg; Joel McCrea walked off the set of The Scarlet Empress after a single encounter.) Von Sternberg’s technical know-how made him eminently employable, however, and in 1927 he was entrusted with Underworld, a scenario about Chicago gangsters concocted by Ben Hecht, who certainly knew something about the subject. Hecht was aghast at what von Sternberg did to his story—only a Geoffrey O’Brien: “Underworld: Dreamland” (Criterion few elements of the original had been preserved, and Hecht’s notes) hard-boiled veneer had given way to a more romantic, not to say In a photograph of Josef von Sternberg from 1937, he operatic, mood—but the film was a massive and unexpected hit, looks like a character from one of his own films: a turbaned and its success launched an eight-year association with magus with elegantly trimmed beard and mustache, holding a Paramount, by far von Sternberg’s most productive period. cigarette as he gazes out obliquely, with the hint of an ironic Underworld was followed by the masterpieces The Last expression too remote to be called a smile. It remains difficult to Command and The Docks of New York (both 1928), along with separate von Sternberg from the mythology that began to form two other silent films now lost (, 1928, and The around him early in his career, largely, if not entirely, with his Case of Lena Smith, 1929). After his first talkie, Thunderbolt encouragement. The “von,” for instance, was not his by birth but (1929), another gangster vehicle with George Bancroft, von was tacked on to his name to add an extra flourish to the credits Sternberg went to Berlin in 1930, at the invitation of producer of a 1924 film (By Divine Right) on which he had assisted , to make what would become the most famous of director Roy William Neill—it wasn’t Sternberg’s idea, but he all his films, The Blue Angel. Its worldwide impact was embraced it from the start. The aristocratic moniker helped magnified when von Sternberg brought his discovery, Marlene Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—10

Dietrich, to Hollywood and proceeded to work with her on a What is apparent from the outset is the extreme series of the most obsessively personal films ever made there. concision of von Sternberg’s cinematic language. Preambles and But when the popular triumphs Morocco (1930) and Shanghai subsidiary details interest him not at all. A gangster named Bull Express (1932) were followed by the formally masterful and Weed (George Bancroft) and an intellectual drunk whose claim commercially disastrous The Scarlet Empress and The Devil Is a of trustworthy silence earns him the nickname Rolls Royce Woman (1935), Paramount was through with him. Afterward, he (Clive Brook) encounter each other on the street in the wake of a worked only sporadically and never with the budgets—or the violent bank robbery. They bond in an exchange of glances that freedom to use them to the limits of his imagination—that he had conveys everything we need to know about them: Bull is tough, previously enjoyed. Von Sternberg, later in life, made no great generous, and stupid; Rolls Royce is capable of loyalty yet claims for Underworld, describing it in his autobiography as “an endowed with infinite irony. The two male leads represent experiment in photographic violence and montage.” He altogether opposed types: Bancroft a raucous, barreling force of emphasized the concessions he had made to the mass audience nature, brutal yet openhearted; Brook (as the first of many (that “homogeneous herd,” as he characteristically described it, protagonists one might easily take as a surrogate for the director) “united on its lowest level”): “I had provided the work with a tightly controlled embodiment of brooding intellectual many an incident to placate the public, not ignoring the moss- detachment masquerading as sardonic humor. covered themes of love and sacrifice. Human kindness was With barely a pause, we find ourselves off the streets demonstrated by showing a murderer feeding a hungry kitten.” and deep in the nocturnal world of the Dreamland Café. There Quite aside from his confidently orchestrated central love could hardly be a more appropriate name for this early example triangle, the film had other and more innovative ingredients. of the primal Sternbergian locale, the place where time is Presumably, a major part of its appeal was the profusion of then suspended so that the most elemental human confrontations and novel images, pouring out at a rapid tempo von Sternberg was transactions can play themselves out as dreamlike ritual: the never to surpass, that would unconscious as nightclub or become part of the common brothel or casino. He would vocabulary of the gangster return to such an interior again genre: a bank window and again, in The Docks of New exploding, squad cars moving York, The Blue Angel, Morocco, frantically through dark city Blonde Venus (1932), streets, loose women parading The Shanghai Gesture (1941). It themselves in underworld lairs, is, as well, the perfect the outlaw hero contemplating a simulacrum of the film studio, neon sign that proclaims “The where artifice reigns supreme City Is Yours,” a gangster shot and reality itself becomes dead in his flower shop, his malleable through the desperate killer besieged by deployment of artfully fake police in an apartment, the decor and carefully manipulated windows shattering from barrages of gunfire as the room fills lighting effects. (In his next work, The Last Command, the film with smoke. studio would be the literal setting.) Rarely again would such images be rendered with the Following a brief evocation of the scurrying of alley unyielding precision and florid magnificence that von Sternberg cats, the archetypal woman (never far to seek in his films) enters brought to them. Charting his characters’ movements through the visual field—Feathers McCoy, incarnated by Evelyn Brent as shadowy alleys and subterranean nightspots, he turned drab a sort of abstract quintessence of the flapper, sheathed in a urban spaces into an ominous labyrinth, a mythic place. feather-fringed coat and further adorned with a white feather boa Audiences may well have been persuaded that they were getting that, in a manner typical of von Sternberg, establishes itself as a the hard-boiled lowdown on a big city’s lower depths, but primary element of the movie. To identify the character with the anything like documentary realism was far from von Sternberg’s garment is not simple fetishism (if fetishism is ever simple) but a concerns. It is safe to say that gangsters and Chicago and the means of shifting the spectator to the plane of perception where, literary aspirations of Hecht interested him only to the extent that for von Sternberg, the real narrative action unfolds: the level they could be made part of that imaginary universe he was where cloth and flesh and glint of eye, texture and curvature and beginning to formulate, and that would masquerade elsewhere as depth of shadow, outweigh the plot points that serve merely to Russia, North Africa, China, Spain, and the South Pacific. direct us toward those effects. This is not to say that he indulges Neither quite European nor quite American, he created, naturally in meaningless abstraction but that he arrives through abstraction enough, a cinema of exile, taking place everywhere and nowhere. at the deep story, the inward story, for which the outer is Underworld is of a piece with the dream poetry of Morocco and camouflage. At the heart of is the real. The Saga of Anatahan (1953) and was received as such by As Feathers bends at the top of the stairs to adjust her spectators around the world. In France, it was given the resonant stocking, a loose feather floating down lands at the feet of the title Les nuits de Chicago, inspired perhaps by the patch of disheveled Rolls Royce, employed at sweeping out the place. gorgeous intertitle lyricism that opens the film: “A great city in The way the movement of a single feather seizes hold of our the dead of night . . . streets lonely, moon-flooded . . . buildings perception establishes the unique flavor of von Sternberg’s film empty as the cliff-dwellings of a forgotten age.” world. This feather, and nothing else, will be the center of the Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—11

universe for as long as he decrees. The peculiar undulant beauty charge of the terms in which his work would be discussed, in of its movement, the power of its compressed radiance: such statements unsurpassed for unapologetic bluntness: “My pictures things are not incidentals but essence. In his autobiography he are acts of arrogance.” “All art is an exploration of an unreal writes: “Light can go straight, penetrate and turn back, be world.” “To reality one should prefer the illusion of reality.” reflected and deflected, gathered and spread, bent as by a soap “Actors are material with which one works.” “Marlene is not bubble, made to sparkle and be blocked . . . The journey of rays Marlene, she is me.” As curator of his own legend, he could from that central core to the outposts of blackness is the easily be seen as passing over into self-parody. Fun in a Chinese adventure and drama of light.” Laundry (1965), his disdainful, self-aggrandizing autobiography, The adventure and drama of light is anything but cold. It written in a style that alternates between heavy irony and purple finds its ultimate expression in those close-ups of faces that are patches of exotic description, manages simultaneously to the pivot points of von Sternberg’s films, everything around them elaborate his myth and to undercut it. If his is a cinema of masks, serving only to bridge the gaps between one glance and another. the I of this memoir virtually declares itself yet one more mask, If for a time, at least, he managed to be both supremely self- and one calculated more to repel than to attract. expressive artist and canny manipulator of popular taste, it was It is nonetheless one of the best books about the chaotic because he could combine in a single image the most obvious circumstances under which films are actually made, and meanings and the most ultimately as clear an infinitely variable shades of enunciation of aesthetic ambivalence. The dance of principles as any director has desire and resistance in the formulated. He speaks again relationship of Feathers and and again of the “loose ends” Rolls Royce is carried out and “slippery factors” inherent entirely in a language of in filmmaking, the random glances and gestures that has expressiveness of anything that retained its sense of intimate comes within range of the reality. This place where camera and microphone, an lovers’ eyes meet, or fail to expressiveness that must be meet—a place potentially of curtailed rather than savage cruelty and abject self- encouraged: “The director punishment, where all possible writes with the camera whether contradictions of feeling may he wishes to do so or not.” His come into play—is von art, finally, was not one of Sternberg’s native ground, expansion and profusion but of around which all the rest of his rigorous compression, world is constructed out of shadows and nets and paper eliminating everything that did not pertain to the essence of what streamers. he wished to show: “To photograph a human being properly, all Vision as erotic experience, so basic to how movies that surrounds him must definitely add to him, or it will do work their effect, has rarely been acknowledged so lucidly as in nothing but subtract.” von Sternberg’s films. This is perhaps the secret to their enduring Had von Sternberg made only his great silent trilogy— freshness: for all the baroque complication and fine-wire work Underworld, The Last Command, and The Docks of New York— with which they are put together, his worlds have the liberated he would endure as a supreme example of what it means to write mercurialness of free-floating desire, even as they penetrate into with film. We would miss only the more extreme personal undiscovered reaches of the decadent and grotesque. The great elaborations of the later work: the seven films with Dietrich centerpiece of Underworld, the criminals’ annual ball, is a (which seem more than ever a single film and a central text of the sodden, bestial mess that is made to seem lighter than air, a twentieth century) and the final masterpieces, The Shanghai delirious carnival of luminosity and exquisitely choreographed Gesture and The Saga of Anatahan, along with a handful of chaos. Here as elsewhere in the film, one can become absorbed unforgettable scenes in the mutilated Jet Pilot (1950), a simply in following the movements of bodies in space, delighting regrettably solitary example of what he could do with color. His in patterns whose rhythmic beauty exists quite apart from the high opinion of his own capabilities and his majestic sense of his brutal appetites and uncontrolled rages of the characters. poetic vocation might indeed seem like intolerable arrogance Of all directors, Josef von Sternberg most completely took were they not so undeniably justified.

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

Bon Sternberg—UNDERWORLD—12

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2014 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS SERIES 28: February 4 Jean Cocteau, Orpheus, 1950, 95min February 11 Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of Oharu, 1952, 136 min February 18 Satyajit Ray, Charulata/The Lonely Wife, 1964, 119 minutes February 25 Metin Erksan, Dry Summer, 1964, 90 min March 4 Monte Hellman, Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971, 103 min March 11 John Cassavetes, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1976, 135 min Spring break March 17-22 March 25 Agnes Varda, Vagabond, 1985, 105 min April 1 Gabriell Axel, Babette’s Feast, 1987, 104min April 8 Louis Malle, Vanya on 42nd Street, 1994, 119 min April 15 Wes Anderson, The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, 110 min April 22 Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, 2005, 120 min April 29 José Padilha, Elite Squad, 2007, 115 min May 6 , The Dead, 1987 83 min

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