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

A BATH AT TWENTY DEGREES FAHRENHEIT

Film actors certainly have it hard at times! One example could be seen recently at the studio in Staaken, where the French director Jacques Feyder is shooting the film Thérèse Raquin for the Defu. On the set is a tumbledown country inn with a giant pool, a “lake” in which the unfaithful Thérèse and her lover drown her feeble husband. In the summer, the actors would surely have welcomed a water scene of this sort. But they are to be admired for not losing their composure and willingly and eagerly carrying out the scene, with teeth chattering, at the cold temperature of twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Gina Manés, Wolfgang Zilzer, and A. H. Schlettow are this gutsy trio.

The Defu is at the same time filming Seine Mutter [aka Ehre Deine Mutter] (Honor Thy Mother, 1928), directed by Paul Ludwig Stein. The American actress Mary Carr plays the leading role. Then there is Frau Sorge (Dame Care, 1928), directed by Robert Land, which stars Mary Carr as well. Dieterle and Grete Mosheim are also leading cast members.

B. Z. am Mittag, November 29, 1927

Ole and Axel at Beba Palace

“On the Path to Strength and Beauty” completes the film’s title. And they might have added, “and to two lovely wives,” because these two schlemiels, who so often lose their hearts to creatures with skinny legs but always have to resignedly watch others be chosen in their place, are now able to come out ahead of two sweet and somewhat asinine young men.

But the tall skinny one and the short chubby one come in handy for many things. There are two jolly girls who have been fleecing their uncle in the country under the pretense of studying painting and sculpture in the city, and when the uncle decides to drop in to visit his nieces, the two men play along with a plan to pose as Roman and Greek statues. Then they act as a droll pair of teachers in a dance and gymnastics school that the girls set up in their uncle’s country home. Paying them with love is the least the girls can do.

The plot is very amusing. Ole and Axel wind up in any number of tricky situations and always find a delightful way out. Lau Lauritzen, their standard director, staged this film with humor and a good deal of verve, thus providing quite a fun evening, received with hearty applause.

B. Z. am Mittag March 9, 1928

Der Geliebte seiner Frau (His Wife’s Lover, 1928)

AT THE MARMORHAUS

The subtitle, “A Fling into the Marriage Bed,” holds out the promise of a bawdy, funny film. But the authors, Fritz Zoreff and Siegfried Berenfeld, have diluted their wine with quite a bit of water. To their credit, they refrained from any coarseness, but they did not come up with the light touch and liveliness that would have made this overused subject matter worth seeing one more time in a silly little comedy.

The story—of the commoner’s daughter and the impoverished count who are supposed to marry to get him out of debt and get her the count’s coronet she longs for but who fall in love before the wedding without realizing who their partner actually is—is not a new one. But there’s too much squeezed in here. We’ve seen these motifs and situations in far more pleasing and appealing forms. Max Neufeld’s role as director lacks pacing and subtle nuances. Dina Gralla is not shown off to best advantage in the leading role, and her acting is uncertain. Her partner, Alfons Fryland, is equally weak. Claire Lotta tries and utterly fails to infuse her role with any spirit. Richard Waldemar, however, does breathe life into the role of a delightful old charmer.

B. Z. am Mittag, March 30, 1928

From the Studios

Out in St. Pauli, a disreputable part of Hamburg, is “The Good Anchorage” bar. The sailors who hang out there are not exactly the best. The two really bad guys are “The Nipper” (Wolfgang Zilzer) and “The Doctor” (Fritz Rasp), to whom the most beautiful girl in St. Pauli (Jenny Jugo) lures victims so they can be robbed. She is known as the “Carmen of St. Pauli,” a name that gave the title to the film (Docks of Hamburg, 1928) Erich Waschnek is now shooting in Neubabelsberg with cinematographer Friedel Behn-Grund and set designer Alfred Junge. A good and honest sailor (Willy Fritsch), who happens into this sort of bar for the first time, also winds up in her clutches. These people! We’re secretly glad that we’re only meeting up with them in a faithfully replicated St. Pauli.

The film Karneval der Liebe (Love’s Masquerade, 1928), on which Augusto Genina is working, takes us into a different milieu, friendly, light, and fun-filled.

B. Z. am Mittag, May 8, 1928

Greed (1924)

AT THE KAMERA

This small repertory theater, on Unter den Linden, which has already brought new glory to many an old film, has now become the advocate for this Stroheim film, which had to be canceled abruptly after its premiere in Berlin. There are no more signs of the outrage that erupted back then over this cruelly naturalistic depiction of the depths to which humans can sink.

But it is depressing to watch this depiction of the human condition, which consistently brings the flip side of more accustomed outcomes to the screen, yet it is also lopsided and full of meaningless symbols. Still, parts of it paint a stirring portrait of the soul of a woman whose greed arouses all her baser impulses, and the poignancy of the acting also makes it gripping. Seeing this film is not relaxing, but it is still a pleasure, though different from the usual kind.

B. Z. am Mittag, July 10, 1928

A Blonde for a Night (1928)

AT THE SCHAUBURG

It is hard to tell what the title of this film has to do with the transformation of a confirmed bachelor and misogynist into the most respectable husband. During these dog days the film could