European Exiles in '40S Hollywood: Their Impact on Film Noir
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LATEST NO STOCKS DVD NO SPORTS NEWS ™ ALL NOIR www.noircity.com www.filmnoirfoundation.org VOL. I NUMBER 8 CCCC**** A PUBLICATION OF THE FILM NOIR FOUNDATION MONTHLY 2 CENTS NOVEMBER, 2006 On the Director’s Centennial First Installment of a Regular Sentinel Series Otto Honored By EUROPEAN EXILES IN ’40s HOLLYWOOD: The Academy THEIR IMPACT ON FILM NOIR By Alan Rode By Marc Svetov Turhan Bey, Steven Geray, Philip Van Zandt, Special to the Sentinel Curt Bois, Walter Slezak, Ernst Deutsch; also “…So there will be no Christmas trees, Kurt Kreuger, Martin Kosleck, Helmut but there will be delousing with undamentally, forties films featuring Dantine, Otto Waldis, Carl Esmond, Paul ice water from the hoses.” émigrés haven’t dated. They still speak Lukas. to us, strongly. Shall we make a list? Actresses: Marlene Dietrich, Hedy That line, delivered by Otto Preminger in a F Directors: Otto Preminger and Billy Lamarr, Lilli Palmer, Micheline Chierel. clip from his famous role as the camp com- Wilder; Robert Siodmak and Fred Zinne- European scholars tend to overstate mandant in Stalag 17, opened a two week mann, John Brahm, André de Toth, Michael what the émigrés brought to noir in terms of tribute to the legendary director this month at Curtiz, Fritz Lang, Anatole Litvak; Max “Old World” styles, while American scholars the Motion Picture Academy in Hollywood. Ophuls, Josef von Sternberg, William seem to understate this influence — or, at (The same series played last month at the Dieterle, Curtis Bernhardt, John Auer, Alfred least, mischaracterize it. We need a fresh per- Museum of Modern Art in New York; other Zeisler, Max Nosseck; Charles Vidor, Edgar spective. versions are scheduled around the country.) G. Ulmer, Douglas Sirk, Rudolph Mate. However we begin to approach the Preminger’s life and career was artful- Was it coincidence that Austrian actor Cameramen: Karl Freund, John Alton, influence these Europeans had, we need to ly articulated by program host Peter Bog- Paul Henreid chose to make his debut as a Franz Planer, Theodor Sparkuhl, Boris understand that their talents fit into a trend in producer with the fatalistic crime story danovich on opening night, November 2. His Kaufman, Eugene Scheftan, Ernest Laszlo Hollywood filmmaking at the time. We have Hollow Triumph? Or that he chose commentary was interspersed with guest and Mate; two sides meeting: European exiles and Hungarians Steve Sekely and John Alton to interviews and excerpts from the director’s Film composers: Miklos Rozsa, Max American filmmakers, taking account of a direct and photograph the film? films. Steiner, Franz Waxman, Erich Wolfgang nebulous but palpable mood — filtering it, Korngold, Daniele Amfitheatrof, Frederick expressing it as it coalesces as historical in American filmmaking. They became part Hollander, Bronsilau Kaper, Hans Salter; serendipity — both sides enriching and rein- of an unnamed movement, co-creating a new Art director: Hans Dreier. forcing each other. What dark fruit was type of crime film. Finally, those who had the hardest lot brought forth! That they had influence cannot be dis- in America due to the loss of their native lan- Whatever artistic effects these film- puted. However, an influence was not a suf- guage: makers exerted — reaching back to aesthetic ficient explanation of why these films started Actors: Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, and intellectual roots in German Expres- being made when they did, by them and oth- Conrad Veidt, Fritz Kortner, Oscar Homolka, sionist and Weimar film — they did so with- (continued on pg.4, col. 3) DICK POWELL – NOIR ICON? The Jury’s Still Out By Don Malcolm hen it comes to “noir heroes,” Otto Preminger we have a few actors — Humphrey Bogart, Robert The audience at the Samuel Goldwyn W Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Theatre in Hollywood got a keen sense of John Garfield — who are clearly in the Preminger as a consummate auteur, but one top echelon. There are several more who whose life resembled an ad-hoc version of can play both sides of the law — Dan Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Duryea, Edmond O’Brien, Richard Conte, Otto’s well-earned reputation as a who reside in a special niche because their directorial autocrat was balanced by the screen personas seem to mesh so perfectly enduring friendships he had with Bog- with the noir sensibility. danovich and guests Eva Marie Saint and And then there’s Dick Powell. Carol Lynley. He was also a doting husband Like John Payne, Powell started his and father according to his widow, Hope, and film career as a crooner, but made a switch daughter Victoria, also in attendance. to “tough guy” roles. For many noir fans, More than his paradoxical personality, Powell’s transformation remains problem- the evening’s tribute focused on Preminger’s atic, while Payne — younger, more sullen diversified body of work. and physical — seems to fit seamlessly From his breakthrough 20th Century- into the harder-edged universe of ’50s Fox classic, Laura (1944), Otto Preminger noir. plumbed noir depths with films such as Powell, a pioneer in the evolution of Fallen Angel (1945), Whirlpool (1949), the noir hero, was the first actor to portray Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), The Philip Marlowe onscreen, in Murder, My Thirteenth Letter (1951) and Angel Face Sweet. Despite that, Powell’s subsequent (1952), before moving into different genres Powell in his 1940’s hard-boiled debut as forays into noir don’t seem to have the with varied, if frequently spectacular, suc- Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet and requisite “oomph” that many fans desire in cess. his earlier incarnation (inset) as a fresh- a credible noir icon. faced 1930’s song and dance man. After his landmark hit The Moon is Is that really the case? Or is some- Blue (1953) was released without a MPAA thing else at work here? Let’s look at code approval due to the director’s insistence Powell’s noir performances in a bit more on using such robust language as “virgin” depth, and see what we discover.l and “pregnant,” Preminger insisted on inde- (continued on pg.3, col. 1) (continued on pg.4, col. 1) 4 Noir City Sentinel Nov., 2006 EXILES (continued from pg. 1) ers; what was European became something such a world scale. Americans watched the (continued from pg. 1) Otto American, that is, the resulting product was a newsreels and war documentaries, but at a pendently producing his own projects. hybrid. remove that was almost surreal. Notice of a According to Bogdanovich, Prem- 1940: It was as America was about to loved one’s death appeared almost at ran- inger’s work from the middle 1950s to the go to war that these films began to appear in dom, in a telegram from the War early 1960s represents some of the best movie theaters. From 1940 to 1945 we see a Department. In this numbed environment, American filmmaking of that or any other flowering of the émigrés, coinciding with the wives and daughters worked shifts at the period: initial burst of creativity producing American defense factory. Carmen Jones (1954), The Man with film noir. And these half-dozen years were Newsreel documentaries — as well as the Golden Arm (1955), Anatomy of a arguably its darkest years, a classic period — crime films — were most emblematic of Murder (1959) — Boganovich: “one of the visually, psychologically, thematically. what was occurring to the American psyche. best talking pictures of the last century…” Why did pessimism and darkness The movies we now call film noir were being Porgy and Bess (1959), Exodus (1960), become the dominant mood and overriding eagerly seen by American audiences; they along with Advise and Consent (1962) and In theme? What happened? Was this a were the war era’s condensed spirit. Wartime Harm’s Way (1965), are emblematic exam- European implant? Hardly. noirs (including those notable hybrid noir- ples of Preminger’s most creative period. One obvious cause was purely practi- horror films produced by Val Lewton) were All of Otto Preminger’s motion pic- cal: wartime production conditions. It dictat- informed by a brooding sense of loss and tures display the style of a highly disciplined, ed smaller budgets, and increased austerity in despair. but artistic auteur. The supple camera move- “B”-rank productions. Art directors had to As the war progressed, film censor- ment, his long continuous takes (Preminger re-use sets already created; studios employed ship lifted: American audiences saw more described a cut as an “interruption”), the Where the Sidewalk Ends tarped-over studio back lots, because black- graphic violence. This slackened censorship, nuanced performances of his actors, and his outs prohibited shooting at night outdoors on too, had an objective influence on the mak- attention to detailed composition. acting opposite the legendary Laurence the West Coast. Cameramen cloaked film ing of crime films, as noir scholars as differ- Nonetheless, the director did not make Olivier. sets in darkness, which facilitated further ent as Sheri Chinen Biesen and Arthur Lyons movies to please himself, but crafted films When Preminger asked why she was employment of the same for other projects. point out. For émigrés, this was an entry that he believed people wanted to see. As so “stiff,” Lynley confessed to being intimi- What did a blacked-out Los Angeles point into a widened zeitgeist, a continuation Bogdanovich put it, “Otto always had the dated by Olivier. downtown street look like in 1943 if not like of their pre-war experience. highest respect for the audience.” Otto pointed to a blonde-haired, blue- a burg in a German Expressionist film, with Visual effects that had conveyed the Through the generosity of the eyed ingénue standing off-set.