Billy Wilder on Assignment by Noah Isenberg (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

in English. And Paul takes such a big swig out of his beer stein that the foam sticks to his mustache. The messenger boys come running: Theater a. d. Wien is on the telephone, Max Reinhardt is on the line, Herr Kalman is there with his car, Franz Lehar announces his arrival.… Fritz Wreede isn’t having an easy time of it, his friend’s fame is making things tough on him. Meanwhile, Paul Whiteman stays quiet, like a child prodigy who doesn’t know what to make of everything while the eyes of the world are upon him.

“So you’ll be performing in Vienna?”

“I’d be delighted to. But first I have three concerts in Holland, then I’ll perform in Berlin, then in Paris. In late June I could do something in Vienna. But everything’s still up in the air.”

“Do you yourself play?”

“No, not anymore. I now conduct. With my knee.”

“–?–?”

“Yes, with my knee.”

The mustache flies up onto the left half of his face; my gullibility amuses him. “Look, like this!” Whitman got up and shook his right leg as though it had just fallen asleep and he wanted to wake it up.

“Sometimes my band even plays in the dark. The tango, for example. Then I conduct with a flashlight.”

“What are your latest hits?”

“How and Dreaming of a Castle in the Air, and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.”

“Will you be playing Viennese composers?”

“Yes, Madonna, by Robert Katscher; Im Ural, by Mr. Ralph Erwin; Catharine, by Fall, was a big hit with us. Uonderfuhl !”

4.

In the afternoon, Whiteman is shown a miniature version of Vienna, a tour of the Ring, the Cobenzl Castle, and the taverns.

Fritz Wreede introduces the city hall to him as Vienna’s central kiosk, the Burgtheater as a swimming pool, and the university as our equestrian school. Not a single muscle twitches on Whiteman’s face; he doesn’t care. Dr. Katscher’s supercharged Mercedes flies up the winding Cobenzl road—if the street weren’t tarred, there would have been a big trail of dust. And the motor sings, “Mercedes, you are faster than the sunshine.” Still, Paul Whiteman is unimpressed; he is used to his $18,000, 120-horsepower car.

Upstairs, however, the view begins to bring some hint of emotion to his mustache.

We drink a quart of “Spezial” at Manhart’s. Whiteman seems to know something about wine: we’ll stay with this one! The tavern singers perform our special songs for Whiteman: “Mei muatterl war a echt’s Weana-Kind” (My Mama Was a True Child of Old Vienna) and “Im Prater blühen wieder die Bäume” (The Trees Are In Bloom Again in the Prater). “Uonderfuhl,” he says, for he is polite.

Die Stunde, June 13, 1926

Whiteman Triumphs in Berlin

AUDIENCE OF FOUR THOUSAND AT THE PREMIERE IN THE GROSSES SCHAUSPIELHAUS

Special report in Die Stunde

Berlin, June 27, 1926

The concert begins on Saturday evening at 8:15. Berlin, musical and artistic Berlin, is in a state of feverish excitement. The Grosses Schauspielhaus is sold out, right down to the last seat. Paul Whiteman, Dr. Robert Katscher, and I head off to it. The clock on Potsdamer Platz reads ten minutes after eight. The cars are backed up all the way to Brandenburger Tor, and at Schiffbauer Damm the traffic moves only in fits and starts. There are eight hundred cars standing there. All of Berlin has gathered together; Berlin is dressed to the nines. We have to get out a hundred steps before the theater or it would take too long. The people have recognized Whiteman; after all, his picture is hanging on all the advertising pillars.

People are cheering for him before they’ve heard even one sound.

Three thousand five hundred people go into the Schauspielhaus, and four thousand are inside. Folding chairs are set up; two armchairs seat three. Eight to ten people are standing in the box section.

About five hundred have finagled their way in. Out on the street, cars continue to drive up. People are already offering 200 marks (that is, 340 schillings) for a single ticket. The luminaries include Prince Joachim of Prussia; officials from the American, French, and British embassies; the editor in chief of the Berliner Tageblatt, Theodor Wolf; the editor in chief of the Vossische Zeitung, Georg Bernhard; the top music critics from all the Berlin papers; the directors of the Berlin Theater that are currently in Berlin; Emil Jannings and his wife; Fritz Kreisler and his wife; all the musicians available in Berlin, etc., etc. At 8:45, twenty-nine stylish Americans, all in tuxes, take to the podium and get to work on their instruments. Sudden silence. Whiteman gracefully prances onto the stage. Applause. Whiteman thanks the audience with a grin, his little mustache twitching, then he reaches for the baton. The room grows dark, a violet spotlight casting ambient light over the orchestra.

A call for quiet comes. It’s beginning.

The first piece is “Mississippi.” Naturalistic music. We hear the burble of water while experiencing the fabulous Mardi Gras celebrations in the river city of New Orleans. A musical piece of great interest.

Then come five American melodies. Whiteman is now conducting without a baton. His body vibrates, his double chin shudders, his mustache leaps, his knees quiver. Rhythm personified (“Tiger”), a ragtime piece (“Dizzy Fingers”), a frenetic chase across the scales (“Caprice Viennoise”), Kreisler’s violin opus transformed into jazz. The thirty men are extraordinary musicians and extraordinary actors. Right in the middle of performing a musical number, they launch into a delightful comedy. The saxophone player flirts with a lady in a box seat while Whiteman looks daggers at him. The drummer falls asleep, the banjo player holds monologues. A musical joke is orchestrated.

The concert hall grows so dark that people can’t see their programs. Whiteman keeps his boys in line with a flashlight, one after another. They are—all for one and one for all—first-class acts in a first-class music hall. As the violinist plays, he twirls his fiddle in the air, scratches his neck with the bow, then clamps it between his knees and fiddles away on the violin in this position. One of