Born Today December 31: Gottfried August Bürger

 

1747-1794

 

German poet and ballad writer Gottfried August Bürger was born on this day in the Prussian village of Molmerswende (now incorporated into Mansfeld in Saxony-Anhalt) to a prominent Lutheran pastor.   A fanciful and somewhat morose child who preferred to keep to himself in nature, he also began to write verses at a very early age, almost as early as he learned to write.  He was also a sensitive child who was sent off to boarding school to be groomed for a career in theology, at an unreasonably early age, causing trouble with his studies, particularly classical languages, but not for lack of intelligence. What he possessed in intelligence he lacked in discipline; as soon as he was at University in 1764 to study theology, he quickly switched his focus to literature, only to switch (after family urging) again to the study of law in 1868. He did make progress in this field, but added the study of classics to his menu in the 1870's.  He had never given up his study of literature however, and though it was well read in the literature of the continent, he was particularly found of Shakespeare and of English and Scottish balladry--both the ballads themselves and their makers (when known).  In 1773 he published his own ballad Lenore; it was to become his most famous work--widely translated and read. Gothic in nature and full of the fanciful dark places that he used to frequent as a child, it basically a ghost story--but it has also been interpreted as a vampire tale, especially in the 20th century after the 1897 publication of Bram Stoker's epistolary Dracula (and I have personally wondered more than once if the name might not be, if not the answer, at least an answer to where Edgar Allan Poe came to use the name in his own poetry).  The work certainly shows up in the writings of others, including Shelley and Dickens, but also Stoker himself. On this point, there is no doubt that aspects of the poem have been used in screenplays, for which Bürger has never once been credited (two screenplays explicitly come to mind: Dan Curtis' Dracula from 1974 written by Richard Matheson & Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula from 1992 written by James V. Hart).  Rather is is his translation and "interpretation" and "elaborations" on Raspe's novel Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia for which he gets film credit (up to a point). Bürger translated the book into other languages, including English; which were so popular that there were successive editions. To this end, Bürger admitted embellishing the tale tales and adding to some of the more excessive boasts of the Baron, but he was also improperly supposed to have written the work in the first place in England for a long time.  And it is his name that appears in the credits of the very first film made from the tales. Ironically, the film is not English, it is French and made by the master of the original trick film himself: Mèliés.  His The Hallucination of Baron Munchausen (a rough translation--for English marketing purposes--from his original French title that literally translates as The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen); a later film for him made in 1911, it gives sole credit to Bürger for the book with no mention of Raspe (probably because he was unknown to the filmmaker entirely); French novelist Théophile Gautier is also credited as the translator. The one other silent film made from the Baron Munchausen material was also produced in France the following year by Gaumont.  The Wonderful Adventures of Herr Munchausen was directed by Ëmile Cohl and credits both Bürger and Raspe for "inspiration" no other writers are credited.  Given that Cohl was a pioneer in animation, I have to wonder if the film didn't contain some animations, despite it being a short. The very next version of the film, probably the second most famous behind Terry Gilliam's version; and, disturbingly, it is also a brilliant piece of German propaganda.  Münchausen (or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), doesn't credit either of them (neither does Gilliam's version, for that matter).  They both get writing credit in the 1962 Czech language version, while Rasp gets sole credit for a 1967 and a 1979 version. Bürger again gets solo credit in a Hungarian version of the book released in 1978; and again in an animated French film released the following year. Gilliam's film was released in 1988 and that is where the credit for Munchausen ends for Bürger.  He has one more writing credit for the historical television mini-series Absender from West Germany from 1982, where he is also the subject on of one of the episodes that aired on the 24th of October.  Bürger himself continued to write and teach throughout his life with the same, if reduced, hectic approach that characterized his early life.  At one point he was given a teaching accolade with position attached to it, but without even so much as a stipend to go with it; so while he had a "major award" he was also obliged to teach for free. Naturally these kinds of turns in his life lead to poverty later in life.  By the time of his death on the 8th of June at the age of just 46, he was on government assistance.  He is buried at Bartholomäusfriedhof in Gottingen in Lower Saxony. It is a pity that none of his actual writing has been adapted for film, as he  wrote several very influential poems and his ballads (of which there are many) are considered among the best ever written in the German language. 

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Born Today December 30: Carol Reed

 

 1906-1976

 

British director Sir Carol Reed was born on this day in Putney to Beatrice May Pinney who later took the surname of "Reed." She was the mistress of English director/actor Sir Herbert Beerbohn Tree and Carol was their illegitimate child.  Despite the circumstances of his birth, he was afforded a first rate education at The King's School, located in Canterbury. It was here that he developed a personal interest in acting; and here that he began acting in his late teens. He got involved in the theatrical company associated with British pulp writer of mystery/crime/horror novels Edgar Wallace; the two had two things in common: a family background in the acting business and illegitimate birth.  Reed would eventually become Wallace's assistant in the late 1920's and would become an actor in films produced from Wallace's work. His film debut in 1929, and a turn in a Wallace film from 1930, are the reason why this legendary director has a write up here.  He made an appearance in The Flying Squad a detective story based on a Wallace novel, and was released in January of 1929. The film was directed by Arthur Maude, was fully silent and made for British Lion Film Corporation; Reed appeared as one of the "offenders," along with Bryan Edgar Wallace, son of the elder Wallace.  Reed also made a small appearance in Red Aces in 1930, another Wallace adaptation; except that Wallace himself adapted his own play for the film screen, and directed the film himself. It is also an example of a rare silent British film after 1929. These two bit parts comprise all there was of Reed's "acting career" (not counting of course his providing the opening narration for the British version of The Third Man).  He would go on to have a brilliant directing career, first taking up the seat in 1935 with the sea adventure Midshipman Easy (he is uncredited for directing work done on It Happened in Paris (1935)). He would direct a number names well known to us today, including David Niven, Robert Donat, Michael Redgrave and James Mason; but it was his direction of Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli (and Orson Welles) in Graham Greene's The Third Man for which he is still famous today.  He would go to direct a number of films that are well known, but none has been more consistently associated with his name as the 1949 film noir.  His last film was The Public Eye starring Mia Farrow and released in July of 1972.  Reed died of a heart attack four years later on the 25th of April 1976 at the age of 69.  Reed was a three time Oscar nominee for Best Director (including for The Third Man), winning once for his direction of the musical Oliver! in 1968 (the film would sweep the 1969 Oscars). He was also the uncle of late actor Oliver Reed, who he directed in Oliver!.  He was also just the second film director, and the first native born British director, to be knighted (the first was Alexander Korda).  He is buried at Gunnersbury Cemetery (also known as (New) Kensington Cemetery), a relatively new cemetery in Greater London in the borough of Ealing. 

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Born Today December 29: Karel Sabina

 

1813-1877

Czech writer Karel Sabina was born on this day in Prague; he was born illegitimate from an extra martial affair and was not treated well as a child, growing up without privilege or money.  He was apparently given to family of servants that may have worked for the rather wealthy family into which he was physically born--the son of of one their unwed daughters.  Despite his background, he was able to attend University, where he set his sights on studying the law and doubling up with a major in philosophy.  He did not, however, graduate. He did discover a talent for writing. In the late 1840's Sabina became involved with the Czech democratic movement, a quite early version of several similar movements to follow over the next 60 years. Any sort of movement advocating an electoral government was a threat to monarchical rule.  In 1848 he founded both a political secret circle and became an member of what amounted to the earliest form of the Czech National Congress (he said his political ideas of organization had been deeply influenced by the Irish struggle for independence). This is when he first found the need to write under pens names (he had so many by the end of his life, they are still not all known to a certainty). Under pen names, he wrote political tracts, while simultaneously working the news business (in addition to journalist, he also edited news magazines). There are two things to keep in mind about this period in Czech history. One was these types of political movements were very new at the time, it would be another 30 years before any of them came to any sort of prominence (although the Czech National Revival had it's inception as far back as the 18th century). The second is by far the most important. It is not well known that Czech, a West Slavic language, along with it's closely related tongue Slovak, were endangered languages by the 1830's, largely by both lack of standardization and because Czech speakers were regarded as second rate (and Protestant) by the Catholic aristocracy--largely German speakers. Both were pulled back from the brink of extinction by 1840's.  Linguists Josef Dobrovsky and Josef Jungmann were principally responsible for the revival and standardizing of the Czech itself. Because the language was so tied up with other aspects of Czech identity, the language itself became, if not a political statement, then a type of political tool.  It is hardly surprising then, that several of Sabina's articles were censored upon publication.  The most serious moment of his adult life came in 1849, when he was arrested of planning on taking part in a coup, in 1851, he and 24 other men were convicted and sentenced to death, before the emperor commuted the sentences to 18 years of hard time.  They were all released six years later, when on the 8th of May in 1857 a general amnesty was declared and he was released. He returned to Prague and set himself up as a freelance writer. His sense of freedom was not to last however. Though during this time, he made the most of his writing skills from 1857 through 1870.  He wrote novels, plays and librettos--he was for a time even celebrated. One of his librettos was for the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana another celebrated revivalist who is now regarded as father of Czech music. He wrote the libretto for Prodaná nevesta (The Bartered Bride), a hugely popular comic opera, in the mid-1860's.  It was first performed as a live opera in 1866; and was later made domestically into the a film for the first time in 1913 by early Czech film director Max Urban.  His Prodaná nevesta was a bit unique by early film standards, as it was a film of a performance, though it was without actual singing. Filmed in Prague, it's unclear if it was intended to be accompanied by live music, or perhaps one of the newer amplifications of some form of recorded music. But for a writer, first and foremost, of Czech revivalist pamphlets and literature, it is important that the first film made from his work was a Czech one. One more film was made from libretto during the silent era, also in Czechoslovakia; this one-unlike the first-was actually a developed into a conventional screenplay by director Oldrich Kmínek.  His Prodaná nevesta was made through the Czech production/distribution company Atropos and was filmed in Prague; it was released in September 1922.  Given it's popularity, it is not surprise that The Battered Bride is the only one of his works so far to be adapted for film.   It's first turn in a sound production was also no small thing! Legendary German theater director Max Ophuüls, who was to go on to a famed directing career in film in both France and the United States, was just getting into film directing at the time he made Die verkaufte Braut in 1932. The film was a full on musical adaptation (compare it to say, The Sound of Music) filmed at Bavaria Studios; it was his third film and his second to last feature made in Germany before he had to flee to France in 1933 because he was Jewish.  It's next adaptation was also a German one, albiet a West German television production some 25 years later:  Die verkaufte Braut aired on Christmas Day in 1958.  While the American series The Metropolitan Opera Presents, a series airing on PBS, presented The Bartered Bride as one of it's early episodes in November of 1978 (directed by Kirk Browning).  It was most recently presented as a 2-hour television production in 2006 on Czech television, airing on the 26th of September. As for Sabina himself, his life began to unravel in 1870.  He first successfully sued a German language  newspaper in 1870 who had published that he had been, and continued to be, a police informant--supposedly dating back to his incarceration. In 1872, though, things came completely apart for the writer.  A sanctimonious group of eight Czech nationalist  intellectuals, lead in part by Jan Neruda, held a trial of Sabina and found him "guilty" of being a police informant. For the rest of his life, he had to live in hiding, skulking about Prague quietly and often in disguise. There is little evidence that he was an informant and it is a stain on the life of Neruda, who like Sabina was a writer of many styles/genres and also worked in Czech language news journalism (thank goodness that are buried in separate cemeteries in Prague!).  Sabina became such an outcast, posters containing his name at opera houses where removed; and his books, though not officially banned, were no longer sold. It was during this time that he wrote under many pens names, many of whom have to this day not been properly worked out (a singularly frustrating task taken on by more than one scholar over the years)--the result is that a complete bibliography of his works simply does not exist. It is hardly surprising to learn that Sabina died in extreme poverty on the 8th of November in 1877 at the age of 63. He was given a proper burial in Prague's historic Olsany Cemetery.

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Born Today December 28: William P. S. Earle

 

1882-1972

 

Silent film director William Pitt Striker Earle was born on this day in New York City. He attended university locally at Columbia and worked as a still photographer.  He became facinated by motion pictures and the story that he told was that he snuck onto the second Vitagraph studio lot located in Brooklyn to observe directors and camera operators at work. Whether this was a true story or not is anyone's guess at this point; but we do know that he wrote and directed his first film in 1915: For the Honor of the Crew, a short romantic melodrama about a Columbia rowing crew was made for Vitagraph.  It was his only film that year and his only direction for a while that was not a co-diretion of some sort.   His very next film bears mentioning not just because it was his first outing as a "junior director" but also that he was paired up with Vitagraph's female screenwriter Marguerite Bertsch for The Law Decides (May 1916), a melodrama that she wrote.  His next solo outing as a director was on the completely forgotten Vitagraph short dramatizing forest fires in The Curse of the Forest (October 1916).  For a large part of his career at Vitagraph, his directing partner was New Hyde Park native Wally Van, who also did not direct any films beyond the silent era. Later in 1916, he was the junior director on the the war feature Whom the Gods Destroy, co-directed by senior in-house Vitagraph director Herbert Brenon and Vitagraph founder J. Stuart Blackton.  The film is historically important in that it is thought to have been the first film to depict a reigning British monarch, with Thomas R. Mills in the role of  The King of England. But, the film was also personally important for Earle; I am sure that he knew Blackton from around the studio (Earle said that he met him in 1915--which is probably true), but he had not formally worked with him prior to this. Not only did it provide a stepping stone to his directing features at Vitagraph, but it is important on the even more personal level in that in many years later he marry Blackton's widow, actress Evangeline Russell (he was also responsible for Blackton interment at Forest Lawn Memorial Park after Blackton's untimely death and inability of his estate to afford a proper burial; the family such as they were were eventually interred there together).  The work that he did on Whom the Gods Destroy, lead him to directing the feature The Courage of Silence (1917), starring Alice Joyce--also the the star of Destroy--who plays the "vampish" Mercedes in this "corrupting woman" melodrama. This proved to be Earle's biggest break to date, and his first solo feature direction. His next film was a another war feature also starring Joyce and featuring documentary footage of President Woodrow Wilson. Womanhood, the Glory of the Nation, a co-direction with Blackton, saw the debut credit of his older brother Ferdinand Earle who would also go on to direct for Vitagraph. By the end of 1917, he was one of Vitagraph's most prolific and important directors and had switched to directing ingenue Gladys Leslie.  Unfortunately, Vitagraph was, by the time Earle arrived, already in financial trouble. The studio was overly dependent on European distribution, so obviously the outbreak and length of World War I was not just painful for the company, it was a death knell. It was not situation that could remain stable for a director, so in 1918, Earle went to work for the Selznick's at World Film. His first film for them was Heredity, released in August of that year.  Following in 1919, he got his second writing credit, adapting a  J. Breckenridge Ellis comedy novel with Arthur Edwin (his only credit) for Lillian Walker's production company: The Love Hunger was a comedy starring Walker who had also been an actress at Vitagraph. He next directed the Clara Kimball Young production The Better Wife (July 1919), a melodrama that starred Young, along with Nigel Barrie and her own actor father Edward.  Also in 1919, he went to work for David O. Selznick's earliest production company, making The Broken Melody back in New York; the film was written by Ouida Bergère, another woman managing to do break-through work as a screenwriter at the time.  His first film of the new decade was his second film for Selznick Pictures; Whispers (May 1920) starred Elaine Hammerstein of the famed New York theater family and was shot in Washington D.C. (except for at least one scene in Penn Station)--it is today most certainly a lost film. It would be the first of several films for Selznick that he directed starring Hammerstein, the last of which was The Way of a Maid (November 1921)--a copy of which is preserved in Library of Congress. He made just one more film for Selznick (Love's Masquerade--1922) before leaving the company to found his own production company.  His first film under this new venture was Destiny's Isle, a romantic melodrama shot in Miami, he set himself up as the presenter, finding distribution through American Releasing Corporation, which was released it on the 30th of April in 1922.  His next production was a romance set in ancient Egypt which he adapted himself (his third and final writing credit) from a story written by his second wife Blanche; The Dancer of the Nile was filmed in the California desert, and released through Film Booking Offices of America on the 28th of October in 1923.  He would not make another film for two years and he only made a total of two more films in his directing career. Both of them were actually Mexican films and both were made for Amex films.  Tras las bambalinas del bataclan was comedy released in 1925; while Milagros de la Guadalupana was a drama released in May of 1926. Both films were shot in Mexico (likely the northern part of the country). He reportedly lost all or most of his personal money in the crash of 1929, though he had stopped making films several years before this and seems to have nothing to do with his retirement from making films. After he left Selznick's company and attempting things on his own, he seems to have been forgotten as a filmmaker--though he was regarded as one of the very best that Vitagraph had produced.  He had long since moved to California, where he stayed. He had though come from serious money back on the east coast, as both his father and grandfather were hotel owners and operators in New York of serious repute. I have no idea if that money eventually helped him out later in life, though he would go on to live a very long live in the Los Angeles area.  As mentioned above he paid for the funeral expenses for his former boss J. Stuart Blackton in 1941.  His second wife died in 1952, so in 1954 after striking up a friendship with Blackton's widow, he married her, and stayed married to her until her death in 1966.  He passed away on the 30th of November in 1972, almost one month to the day before his 90th birthday.  Also as mentioned above, they are all interred together at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, with a plaque emblazoned with the Earle surname.

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Born Today December 27: Marlene Dietrich

 

1901-1992

 

Consumers, no matter how casual, are familiar with Marlene Dietrich whether they know it or not. Her voice is often used to denote the sultry German voice of a by-gone age, but she got her start in film in the era before sound when she was barely in her twenties. Born Marie Magdalene Dietrich on this day in Berlin, "Marlene" was a nickname. Her first wish was to become a musician and she actually studied the violin as a teenager, but due either to lack of obtainable skill or an actual wrist injury this was not to be. She did have a job for a about a month or so playing in a pit orchestra for a silent film house.  She had been interested in theater since at least her early teens, so she made her way onto the stage as a chorus girl in the early 1920's.  She eventually found her way into small dramatic stage roles from there. Her accepted film debut came in 1923 in the biographical drama The Little Napoleon, directed by Georg Jacoby and starring Egon von Hagen as the diminutive Bonaparte (it was one of only two known film roles for Hagen; his other appearance in 1927 was also in the role of Napoleon). [Note:  Dietrich is unconfirmed in the 1919 Im Schatten des Glücks] She would appear in three more films in 1923. It would not be until 1927 that she moved from bit and small parts to minor supporting roles and not until she appeared in the melodrama Cafe Electric (released in November of 1927 in Austria) that she garnered a leading role, starring opposite Willi Forst. Along the way, she appeared in two Alexander Korda films--A Modern Du Barry & Madame Doesn't Want Children both in 1926--when he was working his way from Hungary toward England, where he would settle into work in the British film industry.  By her next film, Art of Love (1928), she was back in a smallish supporting role. Her first turn in a film with sound was the partial silent I Kiss Your Hand Madame released in Germany in January of 1929. I don't think it's to much to state that her lead in this film made her a star. She starred opposite the Prussian born star Harry Liedtke; it was a romantic melodrama filmed on location in Paris.  Her first absolute top billing came in her next film, the fully silent Three Loves directed by Curtis (Kurt) Bernhardt, who would go on--like Dietrich--to have a career in Hollywood, the film can best be described as a "love intrigue." Her last film of the decade is a bit of a surprise--and not just because it was directed by Maurice Tourneur, but because it was also fully silent. The Ship of Lost Men puts Dietrich together with Fritz Kortner (who was her male lead in Three Loves) and British actor Robin Irvine--then working in Germany for a time--as a young American doctor. Though the 1920's had made a continental star of her, she was not yet the exotic foreign Hollywood icon that she was destined to become. In fact, her first film of the decade that normalized talking films was also fully silent.  Nights of Love was a comedy that made late fun at the old "vamp genre" by way of  putting it together with plot that is similar in some respects to Hitchcock's The 39 Steps or even Capra's It Happened One Night, films made years later.  It should also not be forgotten that Dietrich continued to work on the stage all through out the 1920's and importantly (and rather predictably) wound up in musical revues.  Among fans of these revues, she was far more of a draw in both Vienna and Berlin than she was in her film roles.  It is then a point of importance to mention that she has, at this point, more credits in soundtracks than she had in life as an actress. Also important, the first of these actually came in 1929, with the song on "Wer wird weinen wenn man auseinander geht" (No Use Crying) on the soundtrack for Richard Eichberg's Why Cry At Parting? released in August if 1929.  She sung the song in duet with German Baritone Gerhard Pechner; this little film features among it's cast another who would make his mark on Hollywood, albeit as a character actor S. Z. Sakall (you may have seen him recently in Christmas in Connecticut) . Of course, once you get to 1930, classic film fans know her career pretty well. Famously her international break out role came in Josef von Sternberg's norish nightclub melodrama The Blue Angel.  The production of this film began in 1929 in Berlin and it marks so many milestones it's a bit exhausting contemplating them.  First of all, top billed Emil Jannings was on his way back from a Hollywood career when he appeared as Professor Immanuel Rath; it was his first film back in his home country and his first all sound film--and the first performance in a long slide into both obscurity and infamy for the actor.  The opposite was true of Sternberg and Dietrich--who had a very famous/semi-public love affair during the production--for Dietrich this was her last domestic film before being gobbled up by the Hollywood machine (Sternberg was already a Hollywood veteran).  Secondly, the film features one her most famous singing performances of the song "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)" written by German composer Friedrich Hollaender, who reportedly had to tailor the song to Dietrich's vocal range.  The song was recorded for release separate from the film and became so popular that several record labels in 1930's licensed the performance for release. This was also one of those early sound films that actually made two versions of the same screenplay in two languages: German and English (running two production simultaneously). It was the early sound answer to the old multinational casts that comprised the backbone of the German film industry in the 1920's. Obviously, this was before dubbing. Having said that, for many years, the English version of the film was presumed lost until a copy turned up in a German film archive; by 2009 it had been completely restored. [taking deep breath....and moving on!]  Her very next film was also her first Hollywood production; she starred opposite Gary Cooper in the cabaret romance Morocco (1930).  The Blue Angel had landed her a contract with Paramount (they badly wanted her as a rival to MGM's Swedish Greta Garbo) and Morocco was a deep collaboration between her and Sternberg. Helpful to both of their career's, was that the English language version of Blue Angel was actually released after the big premiere of Morocco; so American audiences had two films to flock to during the darker days of winter to bask in the sultry gaze of the exotic Marlene.  She would make three more films with von Sternberg--one of which was the legendary Blonde Venus opposite Cary Grant (though Shanghai Express was more financially successful)--before finally being directed by another Paramount man.  She appeared in the romantic drama The Song of Songs (1933), directed by Rouben Mamoulian and set in Berlin, though shot at Paramount Studio lot in Hollywood. She would appear in two more of Sternberg's Paramount pictures:  The Scarlet Empress ( a film that featured a small part for her 10 year old daughter Maria*) and The Devil is a Woman; but, Sternberg was dismissed from Paramount and the two never worked together again. Her first "post Sternberg" film was the crime comedy Desire directed by Frank Borzage, released in February of 1936, where she again appeared opposite Cooper. She would go to have roles in a number of films we today regard as classic of the golden age of Hollywood, but gradually her film career slowed.  She made just one film in the 1960s after appearing in Orson Welles' 1959 noir Touch of Evil; Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) a Stanley Kramer film with Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark and Spencer Tracy (she did have a cameo in the 1964 Audrey Hepburn comedy Paris When It Sizzles). She instead spent some twenty years touring the world performing live shows. She was persuaded to come out of retirement for an role in Just a Gigolo in 1978, a drama set in post World War I Berlin starring David Bowie. Dietrich lived another 14 years, dying of kidney failure on the 6th of May in her apartment in Paris, France. She was 90 years old. Her funeral mass was held in Paris, but she was buried back in Berlin at the Friedhof Schöneberg III, located in the Friedenau district.  Despite that she wished to be buried in her place of birth, her coffin was draped with an American flag, as she had become an citizen of the U.S. in 1937.  Dietrich's acting credits may have ended in the 1970's, but her voice lives on in film to this day.  The most recent use of one of her performances came in the Melissa McCarthy comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? (performer of "Illusions") in 2018. Dietrich was only nominated for a one Oscar, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Morocco, the little gold man went instead to veteran actress Marie Dressler. I can't imagine she minded much.

 

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*Maria went on to her own acting career under her married name of Riva; she is best known today as Mrs. Rhinelander in the holiday classic Scrooged, playing the wife of Robert Mitchum's cat crazy Preston Rhinelander character. 

 

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Born Today December 26: Géza von Bolváry

 

1897-1961 

 

Hungarian born director Géza von Bolváry was born Bolváry-Zahn Géza Gyula Mária on this day in Budapest (his birth name is sometimes given as Gáza Maria von Bolváry-Zahn).  He was educated at a military academy and served in the Hungarian Army in World War I. After the war ended, he entered the Hungarian film industry, already peopled with a number of names that would become world famous.  He started as an actor and first appeared on film in Tilos a csók in 1919.  The only person associated with the film even slightly well known in Hungarian film circles is actress Ila Lóth, who acted prolifically in the Hungarian silents, retired and came back in the late 1940's. His directorial debut came the following year in the Hungarian film A kétarcú asszony, which also garnered him his first screenplay credit, co-writing with professional screenwriter Richárd Falk just before Falk's untimely death (Bolváry had acted in a film that Falk co-wrote with József Pakots--A tizennegyedik--in 1920). And speaking of acting, he never directed himself in a film and gave up acting 1921; his last job in front of the camera was in the film Jön a rozson ät! directed by Béla Balogh--the director who first directed him in 1919. As of 1922, he had began dedicating himself solely to directing.  In late 1922 he was hired under contract by a German film company in Munich, were he moved shortly after. His last Hungarian film was Mesország, released in April of 1922.  His first German film was Mädchen, die man nicht heiratet (1923) starring Ellen Kürti as Das Mädchen.  During the 1920's, actors from other countries often spent time acting in the German film industry, something easily accomplished with silent cinema--you did not need to know the language to work. Several of these foreigners made it into his film in in the later part of the decade.  They included: Guy Newall (British), Carmen Boni (Italian), Jack Trevor (British), Agnes Petersen (Danish), Betty Balfour (British), Glen Byam Shaw (British), Carlyle Blackwell (American), Benita Hume (British), Joseph Striker (American) and Welsh actor Ivor Novello famous for appearing in a couple of Alfred Hitchcock's silents. And speaking of Hitchcock, Bolváry made his own version of Joseph Jefferson Farjeon's play Number 17 in 1928, four years before Hitchcock made his talkie version in 1932.  In addition to the international list of actors, very many of his late 1920's productions were multi-national as well. For example: his Number 17 was a German/UK production and The Bold Dragoon (1928), which stars Novello, was a joint production of Germany, Hungary and the UK.  His last film of the decade, though, was a completely German affair: Vater und Sohn, was a fully silent film starring German actor Harry Liedtke and was premiered in Berlin in October of 1929.  It's not clear that his first film of the new decade was a talking picture either. Liedtke appeared along side French actress Dolly Davis and Hungarian actor Károly Huszár in Der Erzieher meiner Tochter, which came out in January of 1930. His next film, Delikatessen, most certainly was an all sound film; released domestically in March of 1930, it also starred Liedtke.  von Bolváry stayed in either Germany or Austria through World War II, working at various production companies in Berlin and Vienna, but after the war was over, he left for Italy.  While there, he became a go to director for operas.  In the 1950's he settled in Munich, where he finished his film career in 1958 directing the West German production Ein Lied geht um die Welt. He then retired to Bavaria, where he passed away from heart disease on the 10th of August just three years later. He was 63 years old.  I can find no information on his burial site at this time. He was married to actress Helene von Bolvary (birth name: Ilona Mattyasovszky) until her death in 1943, he never remarried. 

 

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Born Today December 25: Joseph M. Schenck

 

 1876-1961

 

Two movie moguls in as many days! And...Joseph Schenck was the kind of studio executive that people think of when we use the term.  Born Joseph Michael Schenck (or possibly Ossip Schenker) on the 25th of December in Rybinsk, Russia; he and his brother Nicholas, emigrated to the United States in 1892.  They started a business together in the New York area that eventually involved getting into real estate.  Some seventeen years later the pair got into the film business in the New York area, forming a partnership with Marcus Loew, who would go on to found MGM.  Loew at the time was a well connected and prosperous owner of a chain of movie theaters--something almost completely new at the time.  The Schenck's purchased the Palisades Amusement Park in 1910 and marked their first real foray into performative arenas in regards to cinema (they are been involved with amusement park activities for some, but Palisades had performance stages).  Despite that he and Nicholas had been in the film industry as business people for several years, Schenck's first direct credit for an individual film doesn't show up until January of 1917, as a direct producer of the Allan Dwan directed Siberian-set melodrama Panthea--starring Vitagraph girl Norma Talmadge, whom Schenck had married in 1916. At this same time, through actual theatrical investments and distribution associations he got into the movie "presentation" business.  His first "presentation" was the now famous Roscoe Arbuckle/Al St. John slapstick short The Butcher Boy (April, 1917). The film featured a comic actor by the name of Buster Keaton. There are some sources that make a great deal out of his association with Buster Keaton, giving him unwarranted credit for "discovering" Keaton (now, mind you--most of these are old at this point, but it was a narrative that was around for a long time). Trustfully Joseph, unlike his rather serious brother Nicholas ("Nick"), was a wheeler and dealer. His meeting of Norma, for example, is a classic example of what we today recognize as grooming (he would later do the same with another Norma: Norma Jean Mortenson). Schenck was nearly twenty years her senior and was in "cahoots" with her very controlling mother to "manage" her career. It's a wonder that the marriage lasted as long as it did! Keaton was already in Arbuckle's world when he first appeared in Butcher Boy. No one can be said to have "discovered" Buster Keaton, he was a talented player on the vaudeville stage from childhood--Arbuckle knew his work, and would sometimes reportedly use some of his stage gags in films with his nephew Al St. John.  Keaton (and others) always said that his film debut in The Butcher Boy was basically accidental (though I suspect the shrewd Arbuckle did have designs on Keaton's abilities for films--Keaton was not just invited, but persuaded, to attend the filming that day). Keaton's association with Schenck came only in terms of physcial proximity. Arbuckle's new Comique Film Company had set up shop on the third floor of a building on 48th in Manhattan--on the first two floors....productions by the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation were working. Arbuckle must have made a deal with Joe and Nick for the space, because no one made deals with Norma (even after their divorce in 1934, Schenck continued to act as her financial advisor).  Schenck's deal with local theater ownerships and partnerships meant that he could legally be a "presenter" for Arbuckle--hence the credit on The Butcher Boy.  Keaton would, of course, go on to have a disasterous marriage to Norma's sister Natalie!  Guess how he met her in the first place?!  As a producer Joseph was directly involved in all the Norma Talmadge Film Corp. releases during this time; as a "presenter" he gets credit for most of the New York Comique releases as well.  By 1919, Schenck was also involved in presentation/production of the Constance Talmadge Film Company as well (Constance, of course, being another sister of Norma). A good example of one his "presentations" from her company is A Virtuous Vamp, released in November of 1919; the feature film is now part of the National Film Registry. Buster Keaton did not marry into the Talmadge family formally until 1921, but Schenck treated Keaton's career as if he were a family member before (and don't mean this in a positive light). Joe Schenck was in some way or another involved with Keaton's films after Keaton had parted ways with Arbuckle as a film partner. If you look at Keaton shorts from 1920, you find Schenck's name somewhere within the credits--sometimes as a producer, most times as a presenter. Take Convict 13 as an example; co-directed by Keaton and Edward S. Cline (as Keaton's shorts were), Schenck is listed as both the producer and presenter. So bankable was Keaton, that one narrative has Schenck seriously pressuring Keaton's marriage to Natalie to solidify familial legal ties. And, by this time, the entire entourage had moved west to Hollywood. While his wife's career slowed with each passing year, Keaton's star kept ascending. You would be hard pressed to look at a list of Schenck's credits from the 1920's and forget for a minute or so that you are not looking at Keaton's credits from the same time period.  Aside from a few titles sprinkled in that a any die-hard Keaton fan might not recognize--the list is almost identical.  Okay, so I am a life-long Buster Keaton fan....so it goes that, yes, I am biased--but it is hard for me not to envision that Schenck exploited the master comedian for his own ends. One does not see any let-up in this activity until the making of Keaton's famous The Cameraman. The last famous "pairing" of the two was on Steamboat Bill, Jr. in 1928.  One of Joseph's first film's that he got into distribution that didin't have anything to do with Keaton or the Talmadge family was Tempest. Set in Czarist Russia (where he was born) the film starred John Barrymore, featured Camilla Horn in the female lead, sported three directors--with Sam Taylor getting the official credit, was released in May of 1928 and won an Oscar (for Best Art Direction:  William Cameron Menzies).  Tempest was also a partial silent; Schenck was never again involved in the making of another silent film after.   By the time that his wife made her The Woman Disputed--there was no longer any ambiguity as to who was in charge; the film was produced by his namesake company Joseph M. Schenck Productions--the company that he set up to produce some of his last films with Keaton. There were no more Talmadge sisters production houses.  The last film that he produced and presented in the 1920's was New York Nights, which was released on the 28th of December, three days after his 53rd birthday and just two days before the dawning of the new decade. The film, which starred his wife, was a "jazz age" crime romance and was directed by Lewis Milestone.  His first two film associations in that new decade couldn't be more different from one another. The very first was a little dandy short musical that his company produced called Glorious Vamps, starring Bobby Watson as himself and a featured a joke walk-on role by Joyzelle Joyner.  The other film was about as opposite from that as a film could be. Lummox was a serious drama about a poor immigrant woman played by Winifred Westover and featuring a story of a hard working woman facing the privileged people for whom she works (it was Westover's last acting role and her only speaking role--she had been previously married to western star William S. Hart).  Later in 1930, as a kind of "blast from the past," Schenck was a silent executive producer on D. W. Griffith's first sound film Abraham Lincoln (Schenck was a founder of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; though many think Griffith was, he was not)--to my knowledge the two giants of early New York cinema had never worked together before. With the coming of the 1930's however his production influence broadened significantly; so did his power in the financially weakened studio system. In 1933 he partnered with Darryl Zanuck (who was a much younger man than he, so it was a shrewd move on both of their parts) to create Twentieth Century Pictures. There was significant help from Louis B. Mayer and Schenck's brother Nicolas (quite the feat considering that Mayer and Joe Schenck literally hated each other before and long after the deal was sealed). Schenck had been a big player in the distribution side of the business with United Artists for years--it went back to before his move to the west coast. So, for a short time 20th Century as an independent studio, it released it's films through U.A., and became the biggest independent studio success in film history for two short years. The fall of the stock market in 1929 and the Great Depression that it caused had significant impact on Hollywood studios. Most of them were smaller outfits and many went belly up, but one was not small.  Fox Film Studio was in deep financial straits and that obviously made it vulnerable to a take-over.  So when 20th Century bought out Fox in 1935...well we've all heard of 20th Century Fox, enough said. Schenck's name, though is not one of the names that easily comes to mind in regards to this important merger in film history, but in truth his involvement was crucial.  His hands-on involvement in films came to an end in 1936. His last formal credit came as a distribution presenter of the action adventure film White Fang which was released and distributed by 20th Century Fox on the 17th of July. And there is a reason for this rather abrupt end to his passion of sort-of making films. Joe Schenck was not the sort of guy to retire to a completely behind the scene studio executive...his brother Nick was that guy. But in 1936 he was the one person busted for making a pay-off to a younger remnant of Al Capone's old gang William Morris Bioff.  Boiff literally shook Hollywood down and they all paid (for among other things not having their theaters set on fire); only Schenck paid one of the pay-offs with a personal check. This landed him under indictment toot-sweet and then convicted. He actually served prison time! So here is where I find myself in a weird place this Christmas night....trying to finish a long post, knowing that it about a very important figure in Hollywood history and silent film....and having, in 2020, to talk about Presidential pardons.....but here we are.  Schenck served four months in prison before receiving a pardon from Harry Truman (Schenck's involvement was through "tax issues"--his personal check had set off alarms at the IRS).  He returned to Hollywood relatively unscathed and continued to work, albeit behind the scene, until his retirement in 1957 at the age of 80, which he had no time to "enjoy" (as he simply wasn't the sort to retire in the first place), as he suffered a stroke very soon after. Although he lived another four years, he never really recovered. He died in Los Angeles on the 22 of October of 1961 at the age of 84.  He was not buried in California however. His body was transported back to New York, where he was laid to rest at Maimonides Cemetery in Brooklyn in an elaborate crypt. As a founder of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences he was given what amounted to an lifetime achievement award in 1952.

With Zanuk in 1937

[Source: Elliot (Find A Grave)]

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Born Today December 24: Howard Hughes

 1905-1976

 

Howard Hughes is remembered for a lot of things; including, but certainly not limited to, being one of the very first billionaires, his eccentric behavior later in life caused by OCD; he is even remembered as a pioneering aviationist before he is remembered for being what he was first in life: a movie mogul. Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was born on Christmas Eve in Humble, Texas. Or so he stated. Conflicting records show while in one case he is listed as born on the 24th of December, his birth place is listed as Harris County...that is Houston.  A baptismal record further muddies the waters by stating that he was actually born on the 24th of September...and that record dates to a year later, 1906, and was located in Keokuk, Iowa. But Hughes himself preferred the information to be 24 December, 1905: Humble, Texas. So, we'll honor his wishes and go with that.  Wading into Hughes is complicated (heck, look at the questions about his birth above!), but suffice to say that his father was a successful inventor (Howard Hughes Sr.) and that young Howard had shown an interest in science and mechanical equipment as a very young child. He was also the the nephew actor and later producer Rupert Hughes, who was undoubtedly an early influence on him.  After the untimely deaths of both his parents (his mother in 1922 from an ectopic pregnancy, his father in 1925 from a massive heart attack) when he was just 19, the notion of getting into the film business (possibly inspired by his uncle's work) entered his head. At the time, the legal age of emancipation was 21; so he was able to have himself declared a legally emancipated minor and he and his new wife (of the famed Texas Rice family) headed west. He was completely flush with funds, after inheriting 75% of the family fortune upon his father's death.  Not wanting to be a director, he decided on producer and he had the funds for it. His first film effort Swell Hogan--directed, written & starring by Ralph Graves--was released in 1926 and landed with a huge thud!  He was after this, involved directly and indirectly through funding just a small handful of films for the rest of 1920's. He at least partially funded--though he gets no formal credit--the silent Famous Players-Lasky production Everybody's Acting in 1926.  He then got into the "presenter" side of the business officially and stayed on the Q.T. on the producer side of the affair (this despite that he was not affiated with any distribution company or the owner of any chains of theaters--as he would be later in life).  He founded the Caddo Company, and put the project that would become Two Arabian Nights into funded production; the film was released in September of 1926.  Directed by Lewis Milestone, the film was most definitely NOT a flop; in fact it won Milestone a Best Director Oscar (one of the very first) for Comedy that year. It starred William Boyd, the man who would become Hopalong Cassidy, in his leading man days. Hughes and Caddo were next involved in the production The Racket, an important "proto-noir" that was also directed by Milestone, released November of 1928 (and nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award). Caddo's last production of the decade was the fully silent the post World War I set melodrama that pits a veteran against the KKK (a sort of late retort to Griffith?) in The Mating Call. The film was directed by silent actor turned director James Cruze and released on the 21st of July in 1928.  Hughes then got wrapped up in his own directing project, a production that he self financed and took over three years of his time--this made The Mating Call the last completely silent film associated with the Hughes name and money.  Hughes was also already knee-deep in the main passion of his life--aviation. The result of this new project was an epic of a film: Hell's Angels, released on the 15th of November in 1930.  The film bears some detailed examination, not least of which is that is was originally set to be a silent film.  The project changed cast, crew and format from it's beginnings in 1927 to it's completion and release in 1930.  Not only originally intended to be a silent film, another actor turned director, Marshall Neilan (who directed Everybody's Acting) was set to direct, and Norwegian movie star Greta Nissen was hired as leading lady. The film featured a story revolving around the Royal Flying Corps and featured other aviation machines such as Zeppelins in the story. Actual bi-planes were flown during filming--not new to film, but the stunts and in-flight filming technology were. Neilan quit over clashes with Hughes' extreme interference in the production; so Hughes turned to other possibilities of working directors to replace him. Coming up short for various legal and differences of vision Hughes wound up getting the credit as director, though he did go through at least two more directors during the project (and in my opinion, they all deserve credit for their work on the film--James Whale-as a secondary director-and Edmund Goulding got some later "uncredited" credit--Neilan did not). There were a LOT of other shenanigans that took place as a result of the film taking so long to complete, edit and release (not enough time here in this post to enumerate here); but two important things do bear mentioning. One, this film marked the beginnings of James Whale's Hollywood career, though he wound up having earlier credits due to the length of time it took to release Angels. Two, the film contains the only surviving color film footage of ill-fated star Jean Harlow, who Hughes had hired personally to replace Nissen (whose thick Norwegian accent earned her a dismissal from the film when it was converted to sound). More than 70 pilots--including Hughes himself--were used during the production of this more than two hour long war epic. One scene designed by Hughes himself resulted in no other pilot willing to perform the stunt--so Hughes did it himself.  It was his first major plane crash and resulted in a serious head injury requiring surgery. It was a foreshadowing of what was to come.  The film though, was a success and was nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar for the work of Tony Gaudio and Harry Perry.  His next film presentation, The Front Page (1931), a screwball crime comedy also directed by Milestone, was again nominated for the Oscars (Best Leading Man, Best Director and Best Picture). Caddo produced three more film in the early 1930's (two of the aviation related) before the production company came out with the other film for which Hughes is well-remembered: Scarface.  The early noir was completely Hughes' idea, and it was he that purchased the rights to the novel. Somehow, despite earlier legal isssues, Hughes and writer Ben Hecht convinced Howard Hawks to get involved in the project. The film was yet another Hughes production late to theatrical release--this time due to censorship issues--when it was finally widely released on the 9th of April in 1932 (the film would be famously remade with Al Pacino in the lead role in 1983).  It was his last film association for the decade. When he returned for just one film in the 1940's, Caddo was gone and Howard Hughes Productions was behind The Outlaw. Made in 1943, but again, with a significantly delayed release--coming out nationally in 1946--it was his only other film direction and he had begun to show signs of OCD openly on the set. He also got into the theater and radio owning business in the 1940's, with his company taking a huge stake in RKO Pictures. After he gained a controlling share of the company, his erratic behavior began to become more and more public. Hughes had been in yet another near fatal--and VERY spectacular--airplane crash in 1946 (this is depicted quite accurately in Martin Scorsese's 2004 The Aviator) and had suffered further head injuries. There is now enough credible information on traumatic brain injuries to suggest that a good deal of the mental problems that Hughes developed later in life--such as extreme obsessive compulsive disorder--were likely caused by the two brushes with death that he had crashing planes, and the injuries he suffered as a result (his first crash on the set of Hell's Angels required skull reconstruction surgeries). He had also been involved in at least one very serious auto-accident in 1936 in addition to his two plane crashes.  His last film association came at RKO with the 1957 action thriller titled fittingly Jet Pilot starring John Wayne.  But, significant injuries from his brushes with death also left him addicted to and reliant on narcotic pain relief--which further interfered with his public work life. Hughes inadvertently got into the hotel and casino business when he moved into the then famed Desert Inn Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving in 1966; he had to purchase the hotel after the owners could not get him to leave; the purchase prompted a number of purchases by his company of local hotels, restaurants and casinos. Contrary to popular belief Hughes did not spent the rest of his life in Sin City. He left the area for Nicaragua because he had become so paranoid over nuclear test fallout. He wound up living his last years in The Bahamas.  It is thought that Hughes expired on a flight transporting him on an medical flight from Acapulco, Mexico to Houston, Texas on the 5th of April in 1976. He was so emaciated, that at his autopsy, fingerprints were required to make sure that he was indeed THE Howard Hughes. He was described as looking "spectral"--weighing only 90 lbs (and he stood 6'4"), with long white wild hair and extremely long fingernails. It was determined that he had died of acute kidney failure. He was 70 years of age. He was buried in an elaborate family plot located at Houston's Glenwood Cemetery.  He most important lasting legacy without a doubt is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 

 

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