by Hans Fallada
‘Object, my arse!’ said Jannings irritably. ‘You’re just too tight, that’s all it is! Just throw money at the old dragon, shut her up with half a million, a million for all I care – I’ll earn it all back for you! Any film I’m in, it doesn’t matter how much it costs to make, I always earn it all back! Fallada, I must show you the telegrams I’ve received from Budapest, they’re about to premiere my Broken Jug120 there. People are climbing over each other to get tickets. The theatre is already booked out two weeks ahead.’ And he showed me the telegrams. I knew enough about the film business, however, to know that these were the standard telegrams that every film company sends to its star, either directly or indirectly, to keep him happy – and Emil Jannings really ought to have known this himself. But he was a big child, for whom fame (even when manufactured to order) was the breath of life, and so he preferred to believe that these bits of paper were both spontaneous and genuine.
Jannings went over to the window and raised a threatening fist. This conversation took place in the Hotel Kaiserhof,121 which of course is just across from the Propaganda Ministry; Jannings always stayed at the Kaiserhof when he was in Berlin, and always took a suite of rooms on the top floor. ‘That’s terrific, Mr Jannings!’ I had said in response to the telegrams. ‘You see!’ he cried, and shook his fist at the Ministry building. ‘You see! I could be the greatest actor in the world, but him over there, that little spastic,122 he begrudges me my fame! I only need to get a couple of telegrams like these and he’s eaten up with jealousy! He begrudges me everything. The little creep is worried sick that I might become more famous than he is. He frets about it day and night!’ Froelich and I exchanged a quick, knowing glance behind the back of the ranting thespian, and grinned. Jannings ploughed on: ‘But that other fellow, Göring – now he’s something else! If I could only work under him – ! Then I’d be the greatest actor in the world! What does this fellow do, this Göring? His state company of actors is on tour in Kiel, and not a soul turns up to the performance. So what does he do? He gets into his yacht, sails up there and parks himself in the royal box. Well, from then on, of course, the theatre is packed – now that’s the man for me! But as for that jealous little prick – !’ And he shook his fist again. ‘But look here, Jannings’, said Froelich soothingly, ‘just calm down a bit, will you! Why get yourself so worked up? Now you’ve got Fallada writing a marvellous screenplay for you about Iron Gustav123 . . .’ Such was indeed my allotted task. But there wasn’t a lot of material to work with. There was an ancient cab driver in Berlin who was nicknamed ‘Iron Gustav’, because he clung with iron determination to his horse-drawn cab and refused to switch to a motorized taxi. After the Great War, in 1928, this indomitable old man had the idea of trotting off to Paris with his horse-drawn cab, at a time when the French were not exactly well disposed towards the Germans. The experiment had proved unexpectedly successful, and the old man had been lionized by the Parisians. Then he had returned home again and was forgotten. He had long since given up his cab, and ‘Iron Gustav’ was now selling postcards with his portrait on them at some railway station. He was said to have taken to drink in a serious way.
So not a lot of material to work with, and the story of his life prior to the Paris trip would all have to be made up – but that would not be a problem. ‘Fallada’, Jannings implored me, ‘you’re the only man who can do it. You must write me a German Cavalcade.124 A chronicle of everyday life in Germany from 1900 or so to the Paris trip. The bourgeoisie, the world war – everything. You know what I mean!’ I knew very well. The call for a German Cavalcade was one I had heard before, the ambition to make such a film burned in the heart of every German film producer. I told Jannings I would see what I could do. I asked when it had to be finished. I got the usual film producer’s answer: ‘By yesterday!’ In the film business, everything is needed in a hurry. Any idea that is not acted upon immediately is effectively useless. ‘How much time do you need, then?’ In my mind’s eye I pictured a weighty tome – the entire Hackendahl family, with all the sons and relatives, life before the war . . . ‘Three months at least’, I said. They squealed a good deal, but I would not budge. I can work incredibly fast, I can get a move on like nobody else, but what I can’t do is miracles. And I don’t have the gift for writing brief film synopses. I can only make up a story if I can describe things properly and go into detail. In effect, I had to write these people a fully fledged novel, which would then have to be boiled down by their own script department. It was a somewhat cumbersome procedure, but given the nature of my talent, it was the only option.
So this was the task I had been set, and since I had never seen the film Cavalcade, I could set about my work with no previous baggage. Of course I had to get a move on, and of course I had taken on far too much again, and of course my dear wife watched me embark on this with somewhat anxious eyes and feared I would suffer a total breakdown; but I managed it, and on schedule – in fact I delivered the text with two days to spare. In the meantime there had been another of those typical film industry crises. Rowohlt called me and told me the director, Froelich, had lost his job.125 That would probably have consequences for my film project, he opined, and suggested that I ease off and take my time. Thank heavens I didn’t listen to the voice of temptation, and sure enough, two or three days later Froelich called me in person and inquired anxiously how my work was going. In response to my surprised question – surely he had lost his job? – he replied with a laugh: yes, indeed he had, but now he was back at his desk again! I never heard anything more about this palace revolution at Tobis – not that I really wanted to. In the film business, even more than in the literary world and the theatre, everything can just change overnight! Anyone who has just reached the top is already on his way down: eagerly pursued projects are junked: everything’s in constant motion, just like the movies themselves.
So I had delivered the goods, and now waited for the outcome – the schoolboy was keen to know what mark he’d got. I didn’t have long to wait. First came a telegram from Emil Jannings, who just thanked me effusively for creating such a splendid character for him to play, then came a letter from Tobis, which said much the same thing in its own quieter way. (I mention this not to enhance my own reputation, but simply to throw more light on the events that followed.) My job as such was now finished, but when is anything ever really finished in the film-making business? They wanted me to attend various meetings with the film’s director, so I travelled to Berlin and sat in. The meetings were boring, but they gave me an opportunity to get to know Emil Jannings a little better as a person, and that was a real delight! He was a mass of contradictions, was Jannings. For example: he was generous to a fault with his personality, he gave freely of himself in conversation, and was never too lazy to tell a story and amuse his guests. But in money matters he was just plain stingy. I have never seen him offer his guests anything, not even a cigarette. That just didn’t happen with him. I am a passionate smoker myself, I actually can’t think unless I am smoking, and there we were, five or six of us at a script conference, all sitting around rather morosely, while the sentences dripped haltingly from the mouths of the assembled men, because none of us was smoking. In the end I couldn’t stand it any longer, I took my cigarettes out of my pocket and said to Jannings: ‘Do you mind if I smoke, Mr Jannings?’, and lit up regardless. ‘But of course, my dear Fallada!’ replied Jannings. ‘I shall join you!’ – and promptly lit a cigarette himself. A sigh of relief went round the table, everybody reached into their pockets and lit up, and now the words flowed more freely, the thoughts came more easily! And it was always the same: Jannings would ring for service, and when the waiter came (we were meeting in the Hotel Kaiserhof) he would order a bottle of mineral water and ask: ‘Would anyone else like to order something?’
We would, we did, and we paid ourselves. All well and good, and perhaps just as it should be; perhaps a man like Jannings cannot be expected to pay for everyone at these meetings all the time. But then something su
rprising happened, something completely at odds with the picture I have just painted. In the middle of one of these meetings the door opened and Jannings’ manservant Ernst came in. My gaze followed him as he passed through the illustrious gathering and went up to the desk where Jannings was sitting. ‘He’ll have a message for his master’, I said to myself. But Jannings merely glanced quickly at Ernst and carried on talking. Now Ernst was not, as one might suppose from what came next, an aged, grey-haired manservant with years of honourable service behind him, who now enjoyed special privileges. On the contrary: he was a young man of about thirty. Now he was standing at the desk, and he opened up the cigar box that was sitting there and took out a cigar. Taking a knife from the pen dish, he cut off the tip of the cigar and lit it with the ornate gold lighter that was also on the desk. The manservant Ernst then walked off with a relaxed air, inhaling deeply and pleasurably on his master’s cigar, bought solely for Jannings and himself. What a strange and contradictory world we live in, how mysteriously labyrinthine is the human heart, for ever impenetrable to the inquiring mind! It has also happened that I have been with Jannings in the evening, chatting away, when all of a sudden he had to go out, and rang for his manservant Ernst: ‘Ernst, get me my coat and my hat! – Good, Ernst, and now I need money!’ The manservant reached into his pocket and placed two banknotes into his master’s hand. Jannings looked at them, and shook his head: ‘That’s not enough, Ernst. I’m off to see the women tonight!’
‘Mr Jannings – !’ The manservant’s tone was reproachful, his eyebrows raised.
‘It’s no use, Ernst, I’m off to see the women! I need more money, Ernst!’
‘Then I’ll have to open the safe, Mr Jannings’, still in a beseeching tone of voice. ‘Then do it, Ernst, my boy. I’ll wait.’ And he launched into a conversation with me, which I had great difficulty in keeping up, so stunned was I by what I had just witnessed. In the end Ernst came back and placed five hundred-mark notes in his master’s hand, not without reproach. ‘That should be enough, Ernst, and if it isn’t, I’ll have to ring and get you out of bed!’ Whereupon Jannings bade me a hasty farewell. I was completely taken aback by this bizarre domestic set-up, and this master-servant relationship, and it occurs to me only now, nearly ten years later, as I am writing all this down, that the veteran actor was perhaps just play-acting and putting on a little improvisation for his screenwriter. The fact is he never stopped being an actor. One of my most delicious memories is the time he acted out for my benefit a visit that ‘his’ Minister, Dr Goebbels, paid him when he was staying by the lake at St. Wolfgang. Much of the charm gets lost in the telling, of course. You really had to be there and see how Jannings acted out the various parts, how this fat, sallow man was suddenly transformed into Councillor Schmidt, or Dr Goebbels, or some Bavarian village cartwright. But I’ll attempt it nonetheless, not least because this little story so beautifully illustrates Jannings’ relationship with ‘his’ Minister, the man who was the focus of all our thoughts at that time. I’ll let Jannings tell the story in his own words, just as he told it to me at the time, in his characteristic Berlin dialect: ‘Look here, Fallada, you know I have this little house by the lake at St. Wolfgang. So there I am, still in bed, shortly before nine one morning this spring, still feeling nice and woozy, because we’d had a few the night before at the White Horse Inn. Suddenly, there’s somebody standing in the room. “What’s up?” I ask, pretty annoyed, because I hate being disturbed in the night. Ernst says to me, in his doleful voice – you know what he’s like: “Mr Jannings, there’s a man from the Gestapo downstairs who would like to speak to you.”
“Oh Lord, Emil”, I say to myself, “what on earth did you say last night when you were pissed out of your mind! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Emil: one of these days you’ll talk your head right off your shoulders!” But there was nothing for it, I had to bite the bullet; I threw on a dressing gown and knocked on Gussy’s door. You know, don’t you, Fallada, that I’m married to Gussy Holl?’126 I nodded. ‘“Gussy”, I say to her, “you see me now, but in a little while you won’t be seeing me any more. The Gestapo are downstairs. Say goodbye to your Emil, woman.” I go downstairs, and there’s this fellow all kitted out in Bavarian gear, the works, with lederhosen and a loden hat with a great shaving brush sticking out the top, some type from Berlin. Complete with glasses and legs like matchsticks. “Jannings”, I say, to introduce myself, and he introduces himself as “Councillor Schmidt”. And then we stare steadily into each other’s eyes. I think to myself, if you want something from me, then just spit it out. And we carry on staring, neither of us wanting to speak first. In the end the whole thing just feels silly, so I say to him: “So what can I do for you, Councillor?”
“Well”, says he, and my heart is trembling like a blancmange. “Well, Mr Jannings, the Minister wishes to pay you a visit today. That is a great honour, Mr Jannings, because generally speaking the Minister doesn’t visit people in their homes. I have already carried out an inspection of your property. On one side is the lake, on the other side there’s a stream, on the third side is a wire fence, so now we’ll have to post the sentries on the side facing the road in order to secure the property.” And the man did his job thoroughly, I will say that: you couldn’t find a bush to pee in without stepping on some Gestapo lad, all togged up for the great outdoors, with lederhosen and a hat with a shaving brush, which was thicker or thinner, depending on rank and seniority.
“Gussy”, I then say to my old lady, “we are highly honoured, the Minister is visiting me today. Now listen, Gussy, you’re a clever woman, and I need your advice. The morning and the lunch, we’ll manage that somehow. But what are we going to do then? You know what it’s like: if I spend two hours with the man, we end up arguing, he’s got his ideas and I’ve got mine. He can’t stand being contradicted – and I’m even worse. So what am I going to do with the Minister all afternoon?”
“That’s easy, Emil”, says Gussy, showing that she really is a clever woman, “there’s the lake and you’ve got a motorboat. Take the Minister out in the boat and show him the sights from the lake – the engine makes so much noise that you won’t be able to have a proper conversation anyway!”
“Perfect, Gussy”, says I, “you’ve got it sussed again. But there is one little problem. You know that the Minister has a physical deformity – dot and carry one, you know what I mean – and it’s pretty awkward climbing into the boat. How are we going to swing that, I wonder?”
“Oh Emil”, says Gussy, “that’s simple, that is! You just nip into the village, see the cartwright, and get him to make you a little stepladder. You can make up some excuse, if the Minister’s visit is supposed to be secret.” So off I go into the village to the cartwright’s place. “Master Cartwright”, says I, “I want to go out in my motorboat today, and I’ve just twisted my ankle. Would you be so good as to make me up a little wooden stepladder quickly, so that I can get into the boat more easily?”
“We know all about it”, says the cartwright, and laughs. “I’ll get it done right away – on account of Mr Dot and Carry One!”
So, the Minister turns up, and everything goes swimmingly. And after lunch I say to him: “Dr Goebbels, would you like me to show you the sights around the lake – ?” He’s very happy to go along with that, so we walk down to the boathouse together. And as we’re standing there chatting away, while my bosun fires up the engine, I see the Minister glance at the stepladder, and he sees straightaway that the ladder is new, and I know he just can’t stand being reminded of his little physical deformity. “How’s this going to end?” I think to myself, and before I’ve finished thinking the thought the Minister suddenly squats down on his haunches and bam! he’s jumped into the boat, and didn’t even look at the ladder. “That’s good”, I think to myself, “that’s pretty smart!” And then we set off. I explain all the sights to him, the engine makes such a racket that we have to bellow into each other’s ears, but it all goes well. And the whole ti
me we’re on the water I’m thinking: “Okay, he’s in the boat now, but how’s he going to get out again? He’s never going to use the ladder!” And what can I tell you, Fallada: we’d hardly tied up before the Minister squats down again, gives a great heave and shoots almost straight up in the air, and before you know it he’s standing on the jetty! He made it! And I said to myself, Fallada: “The guy’s got what it takes, the guy’s pretty smart, the guy’s all right! Anyone who’s as switched on as he is, is fine by me. He’s a poisonous, jealous little bastard, but he’s all right just the same!”’ With these words Jannings ended his tale of the Minister’s visit – showing just how ambivalent were his feelings towards the man who now held the fate of our film in his hands.