freyermuth.com Fluchtpunkt Hollywood Die ungeschriebene Folge 8 Eine ganze Kultur wanderte aus, als die Nazis die Macht übernahmen. Mit Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges wurde die Neue Welt zur letzten Zuflucht. Eine Spurensuche bei letzten Überlebenden des deutschen Anti- Nazi-Exils in Hollywood Reprint Mann unter Wölfen Fluchtpunkt Hollywood war auf zwölf Folgen angelegt. Während die Publikation bereits lief, wurde die Serie von der stern-Chefredaktion – aus einem aktuellen Anlass, den ich nicht mehr erinnere – auf sieben Folgen reduziert. In der achten Folge, an der ich zu diesem Zeitpunkt schrieb, porträtierte ich den Romancier und Drehbuchautor Curt Siodmak. Weiter > 1988Von Gundolf S. Freyermuth vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 1/44 freyermuth.com Die ungeschriebene achte Folge Nachdem ich 1988 die Arbeit an der achten Folge der Serie abbrechen musste, sollten neun Jahre vergehen, bis ich Gelegenheit fand, das Porträt zu Ende zu schreiben – und dann auf Englisch und für ein amerikanisches Publikum. Der Artikel erschien 1997, kurz nach Curt Siodmaks 95. Geburtstag, in der Los Angeles Times. Dass die Berlinale im darauf folgenden Frühjahr ihre Retrospektive den Gebrüdern Siodmak widmete und Curt dazu auch persönlich nach Berlin kam, bot die Gelegenheit, diesen amerikanischen Artikel auf deutsch in der Berliner Zeitung sowie einen zweiten, kürzeren in der Frankfurter Rundschau zu platzieren. Ein letztes Mal schließlich schrieb ich dann im Jahr 2000 über Curt Siodmak für Die Welt – den Nachruf. Zwischen diesen Artikeln bestehen etliche Überschneidungen. Jeder Text bietet aber auch neue Szenen und Einsichten, weshalb ich sie alle im Reprint dokumentiere. Zu meinen aktuellen Publikationsplänen gehört freilich die Fortsetzung und Beendigung der Reise in die Verlorengegangenheit auf den Spuren des deutschen Anti-Nazi-Exils, deren erster Band 1990 erschien. vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 2/44 freyermuth.com In einen solchen zweiten Band werden dann diese Artikel sowie das umfangreiche, noch nicht verwendete Material einfließen, das ich über anderthalb Jahrzehnte hinweg bei mehreren Besuchen, regelmäßigen Telefonaten und im Briefwechsel mit Curt Siodmaks über sein Leben und Werk gesammelt habe. Despite His Fate, He Found His Fortune / 5 vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 3/44 freyermuth.com So nahe an 100 Prozent / 17 Weltbürger im Wolfsmannpelz / 27 Ein Mann unter Wölfen / 37 vol. 2009.08 inhalt info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 4/44 freyermuth.com Despite His Fate, He Found His Fortune Curt Siodmak, 95, writer of classic Science Fiction and Horror who brought The Wolf Man to Hollywood, Sees His Career Coming Full Circle Weiter> Erstpublikation 1997 vol. 2009.08 infoinhalt info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 38 5/44 freyermuth.com Follow Old River Road, but be careful not to drive too far, or you end up on the ce- metery! I warn you, they like to keep people there,« Curt Siodmak said on the phone. He spoke Anglo-Saxon: American words with the heavy accent of Dresden, where he was born in 1902, in another age, when Saxony was still a monarchy ruled by His Maje- sty King Friedrich August. A few days later, I was driving down to Siodmak’s Old South Fork Ranch in Three Rivers. At God’s acre I made the right turn, and it was like gliding into a Henri Matisse painting touched up by Norman Rockwell. A pastoral landscape with high old trees, their thick leaves softening the blistering sun, a serene gorge with a narrow bridge, the river mur- muring all the way up to the hidden ranch house. In front of it, an energetic elderly gentleman was waiting for me. He had a broad smile on his face, little hair on his head and an air of existential impatience about him. Behind him a slim white-haired lady appeared and put her left arm lovingly around his hip. vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 6/44 freyermuth.com »My greatest achievement in life is marrying this woman!« Curt Siodmak introduced his wife Henrietta, beaming as if they were newly weds. »But living with an angel isn’t too easy either.« That’s how I re- member our first en- counter twelve years Curt Siodmak on his ranch in ago. Now, on August Three Rivers, California, 1985. 10, Curt Siodmak has (Photo: Michael Montfort) turned 95, and almost nothing seems to have changed. Henrietta, his companion for more than seventy years, is still his angel, and the Old South Fork Ranch with its sandy hills and breathta- king vistas is still his paradise on earth. vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 7/44 freyermuth.com In Curt’s office, however, the small room with the ancient computer and the bulky copier, you’ll see a second framed letter on the wall. The first one that was always hanging there was written in 1937 by Curt’s German publisher. It coolly states: »I he- rewith inform you that all copies of your book have been confiscated by the Geheime Staatspolizei [Secret Police]. Yours truly ...« The second letter arrived in 1992. It is signed by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany and declares that Curt Siodmak has been awarded the Bundesverdienst- kreuz Erster Klasse, the German equivalent to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. »They gave that to me,« says Siodmak with a weary smile, »because they couldn’t catch and kill me back then.« The sarcasm hides some satisfaction. Curt Siodmak’s autobiography for which he couldn’t find an American publisher has recently been translated into German. The Ber- lin film museum Kinemathek has bought his personal archive. And the next Berlinale, the Berlin film festival, will honor him – together with his late brother, the director Robert Siodmak (The Spiral Staircase) – with a retrospective. vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 8/44 freyermuth.com All that shows that Curt Siodmak has come full circle. For it was in Berlin, the vibrant German capital of the Weimar years, where his remarkable career took off. There the young man from Dresden with the Ph.D. in mathematics, second son of a Jewish fur merchant, found work as a reporter. His first scoop: being hired as an extra by Fritz Lang for Metropolis and becoming the only journalist to get to see the closed set. Then, in the late 1920’s, he had the idea for Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday). Friend Billie Wilder, who in the US would change his first name to Billy, expanded the basic idea into a loose shooting script. Curt Siodmak financed a large part of the low budget of this semi-documentary, a masterwork of neo-realism before neo-realism was even invented, and Edgar Ulmer and brother Robert Siodmak directed. The movie became an instant hit, and a few weeks later the Siodmaks and their colla- borators had well-paid contracts with Erich Pommer, the legendary Ufa-producer (The Blue Angel). Curt worked successfully on a dozen movie scripts. Even more important for him was that he got to write his first score of novels. One of them was F.P.1 Doesn’t Answer, a science fiction novel that came up with the concept of aircraft carriers. Siodmak himself adapted the novel to film. vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 9/44 freyermuth.com When the movie was released, however, the thirty year old hotshot writer didn’t care anymore. His world was falling apart. I lived in Pfalzburger Straße, close to Kurfürstendamm,« he remembers. »Night after night, I was lying there in the dark, helplessly listening to the shouting and ghastly songs of the Nazis marching by. I’ll never forget how they sang: Wenn das Judenblut vom Messer spritzt ... [When the Jewish blood will splash from our knives ...].« »I will not stay here one day longer,« Henrietta finally told Curt. And till today the resolute old lady, descendant of an old aristocratic family from Switzerland, repeats this sentence with an emphasis so strong as if only sixty days and not sixty years had passed. Like his brother Robert, like Billy Wilder and Erich Pommer, like so many friends Curt and Henrietta Siodmak escaped into exile. Their first stop was Paris. To write in a foreign language was difficult enough, but the linguistic problems were nothing com- pared to the bureaucratic hurdles they faced. Neither France nor Great Britain, where Henrietta gave birth to their Geoffrey, granted them permanent residency. Curt Siod- vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 10/44 freyermuth.com mak had to shuttle between countries, a migrant author often working under assumed names. He wrote a few movies, and he wrote one last novel in German: Die Macht im Dunklen (The Power in the Dark), in which he foresaw the Nazi’s attack against Poland. When the book got published, 1937 in Switzerland, he was already on his way to Curt and Henrietta Siodmak Hollywood. »Henrietta with their son Geoffrey in the Hollywood Hills, California, pushed me. She saw early 1940s. much clearer than I did that there was no future for us in Eu- rope.« Being by now a movie veteran and an experienced survivor as well, he needed only a year to make enough money so that he could send for Henrietta and their boy. »You see, in Hollywood, at that time, almost nobody knew English well. That’s why I could make a living until I had mastered the language.« vol. 2009.08 info fluchtpunkt hollywood. folge 8 11/44 freyermuth.com Siodmak, however, didn’t just make a living as he modestly puts it. He created science fiction and horror movies that are cult classics by now: The Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney and Claude Rains, Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked With a Zombie (1942) and Son of Dracula (1943), directed by his brother Robert.