Book Vs. Film: LA CHIENNE Vs. SCARLET STREET
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
BOOK VS FILM Brian Light author’s commentary on the incestuous bed- counterpoint to the plotline. The book is fellows of art and commerce. frank in its depiction of the sordid relation- ew French writers in the first In his preface, de la Fouchardière calls ship between Lulu and Dédé and the pseudo half of the 20th century could attention to the theatrical staging used to romantic/financial arrangement between rival the output of Georges de set up the narrative structure of the story: Lulu and Legrand. la Fouchardière. He produced “I have chosen a technique borrowed from In 1931, Jean Renoir adapted the book 33 humorous novels and crime dramatic art…each of the characters who to the screen with the same title. An early Fthrillers, over a dozen of which were adapted participate in the story will in turn take the example of poetic realism, this was only for the screen in the 1920s and ’30s. He was a stage and tell in his own way about events Renoir’s second talking picture, and, to his prodigious journalist and devout pacifist who in which he has been implicated.” In chap- credit, he shot the entire film using actual covered WWI and WWII for two newspapers, ters titled “He,” “She,” and “The Other,” Parisian street locations. The preceding year La Vague and Paris-Soir, and he also wrote a we are provided with three distinct points of Alfred Knopf published an English transla- column for the weekly journal Paris-Sport. In view. “He” (Maurice Legrand) is the princi- tion of La Chienne, titled Poor Sap, which 1929, he published La Chienne (The Bitch), pal storyteller, and, as such, he is depicted enjoyed a second printing. Paramount Stu- a Zola-esque, if somewhat pedestrian, story with psychological nuance and complexity. dios—with Ernst Lubitsch at the helm as of the entanglement of a prostitute, her pimp, “She” (Lulu) and “The Other” (Dédé) are production chief—acquired the American and a love-struck, but naïve, older gentleman. more one-dimensional, possessed of shal- film rights a few years later. In January What distinguished La Chienne from similar low, transparent motivations. De la Foucha- 1935, a story conference was conducted tawdry tales was oil paint on canvas, and the rdière uses their voices to provide a narrative with Lubitsch and Joseph Breen to discuss filmnoirfoundation.org I WINTER 2016 I NOIR CITY 49 Michel Simon played the amateur painter in Renoir's 1931 version of La Chienne it was indeed a sweet deal for Lang. intrigued by the novel’s narrative structure Not only was he designated the and, in less than two months, he crafted a company president, he would also treatment for what would become Scarlet be given a “Produced and Directed Street. Milton Krasner, who shot Woman by” title card for every feature. in the Window, would once again man the In addition, Lang could take full cameras, and from the beginning Lang had advantage of Wanger’s connections Edward G. Robinson earmarked for the French novelist Georges de la Fouchardière at Universal Pictures, which would lead. He greatly admired Robinson’s emo- also handle distribution. tional range and regarded him as the Ameri- a film adaptation with a tentative cast fea- For their first feature, they decided to can Peter Lorre. Joan Bennett and Dan Dur- turing Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, tackle Poor Sap, and undertake the daunting yea also returned in what was shaping up to and George Raft. The plot followed the same process of crafting a treatment that would be a distorted mirror image of his previous general outline of the book, and Breen indi- appease the Production Code. Lang admired film. This was Bennett’s third film for Lang, cated that the relationship between Dietrich Dudley Nichols’ screenplay for Manhunt, so and while he had little regard for her acting and the two male leads would be subjected he sent him the book to read. Nichols was abilities, he was clearly infatuated with her, to further discussion when a treatment was doting endlessly on her costumes and per- submitted. Several writers were assigned to formance. As recounted by Patrick McGil- the adaptation, but were unable to produce ligan in Fritz Lang, The Nature of the Beast: a screenplay acceptable to the Production “Edward G. Robinson recalled a time during Code. It appears that Universal Pictures sub- the filming ofScarlet Street when the direc- sequently acquired the rights sometime in tor spent an hour ‘rearranging the folds in 1938 because, in October of that year, Mau- Joan Bennett’s negligee so she would cast a rice Pivar, supervising editor of Dracula and certain shadow he wanted.’ Editor Marjorie Frankenstein, submitted another treatment Fowler recalled another day ‘….where Ben- to Breen, who still deemed it “unaccept- nett was lying across a bed, and Fritz was able under the provisions of our Production fascinated. He had to have a particular take Code.” It went back on the shelf. that showed the rise of her breasts. And he In 1944, as Fritz Lang was basking in the was very articulate about it! That was the success of Woman in the Window, he was also take we were going to use, and we were in the process of extricating himself from a going to play the hell out of it.’” Lang and contentious contract with David O. Selznick, Duryea got on well together, as McGilligan and simultaneously forming an independent explains: “…on the set they held long dis- production company with Joan Bennett and cussions on what it means for an actor to her husband, producer Walter Wanger. Diana base his career on playing ‘the incarnation Productions—an adjunct to Universal Pic- of evil.’ ‘The audience always remembers the tures—was created in the spring of 1945, and villain,’ Lang assured Duryea.” 50 NOIR CITY I WINTER 2016 I filmnoirfoundation.org As for Lang, this was also a transitional described “Sunday Painter” whose devotion tapped his friend and fellow émigré John period in Robinson’s career. He had become to daubing continued throughout his life. Decker, the Hollywood portraitist, to paint a free agent in August of 1943 after negoti- Lang also had a refined artistic sensibil- the canvases that would play a pivotal role ating a payout from his contract with Jack ity; he studied painting in Munich and Paris in the movie. An artistic chameleon, Decker Warner. Leading roles were harder and where he had an exhibition of his own art- was able to replicate the technique and styles harder to come by and he was struggling work in 1914. For the film, however, Lang of the old masters. As Stephen Jordan details to distance himself from his Little Caesar in Bohemian Rogue: The Life of Hollywood persona. Adding to this was the discord in Artist John Decker: “Throughout his life he his personal life—a rebellious, maladjusted passed off his own paintings as original van son and an emotionally unstable wife—all of Fritz Lang greatly Goghs, Rembrandts, and Rouaults, among which might account for his low regard for numerous other famous painters of the past. the film, and his performance in it. In retro- admired Edward G. He made thousands of dollars in the pro- spect, it seems to have been the role he was cess. These magnificent works fooled the destined to play. By this point, Robinson had most celebrated art critics and art collectors amassed one of the most prestigious collec- Robinson’s emotional of his era.” Decker, however, was known to tions of French Impressionist paintings in lament: “I can paint like any other painter, private hands. His love for art was such that range and regarded but I still haven’t found my own style.” In not only did he open his home galleries for addition to famous portraits of John Bar- his Hollywood friends, but as a vehement rymore and W.C. Fields, he painted twelve supporter of America’s Armed Forces, he him as the American portraits of Charlie Chaplin in twelve differ- also graciously welcomed military personnel ent styles. He also supplied the portrait of into his home to view his paintings. He, like Peter Lorre. Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs. Carrolls. his character Christopher Cross, was a self- For Scarlet Street, Lang encouraged Decker filmnoirfoundation.org I WINTER 2016 I NOIR CITY 51 Both Lang's version and Renoir's depict the final, fatal comeuppance of the scarlet woman who manipulated and betrayed her naive idolator to produce paintings in the spirit of Henri Village, Scarlet Street, as Rousseau. Rousseau was a completely self- written by Nichols and taught artist, like Cross, and thus regarded realized by Lang, followed as the embodiment of the “Primitive” school the novel virtually scene of painting. This created a tangle of paral- by scene. Renoir’s La Chi- lels. Decker would reproduce the painting enne would share the same style of a historic self-taught painter for a structural framework, but fictitious self-taught painter, who in turn the two films could not be would allow these paintings to be exhibited more dissimilar in tone. and sold as the work of a fraud—an artistic Renoir’s film opens with inverse of Decker’s real-life forgeries. For the a playful puppet show… we see an organ grinder’s monkey dancing film, Decker produced 13 striking canvases, a nod to the “dramatic” underpinning in on the sidewalk, entertaining the delighted some bordering on Surrealism, which were the novel. “The play that follows is neither mistress (a grim foreshadowing of Cross’ reportedly exhibited at the Museum of Mod- comedy nor drama…it has no moral whatso- soon-to-be relationship with Kitty.) ern Art, New York, in the spring of 1946.