Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives

by Wieland, Karin

  28 “Something unexpected to everyone involved in the movie occurred at the premiere in Berlin. A good many newspapers in Berlin found the film’s romanticism phony and ran negative reviews. The most prominent of these critics were Jews. This was in early 1932. Riefenstahl had just read Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Inspired by his theories, and a perennial sore loser, she now took the negative statements about her film as a reason to become a passionate anti-Semite overnight.” Sokal, “Lebt wohl, Leidenschaften! Erinnerungen eines Filmproduzenten,” p. 99.

  29 Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 6.

  30 Arnold Fanck, Er führte Regie mit Gletschern, Stürmen und Lawinen. Ein Filmpionier erzählt (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlag, 1973), p. 253.

  31 Ibid., p. 254.

  32 Film-Kurier, no. 108 (May 10, 1926).

  33 For a general overview, see Hans-Michael Bock, Wolfgang Jacobsen, Jörg Schöning, and Erika Wottrich, eds., Deutsche Universal. Transatlantische Verleih-und Produktionsstrategien eins Hollywood-Studios in den 20er und 30er Jahren (Hamburg: edition text + kritik, 2001).

  34 “One of the jobs he certainly did was to fit out the expedition to shoot the film S.O.S. Eisberg, a polar adventure with Luis Trenker [and] Ernst Udet.” Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life (New York: Pantheon, 2003), p. 51.

  35 “A cost estimate projected film expenses of Mk 7,000,000. The four airplanes were estimated at Mk 60,000, including fuel and oil; 600,000 m of film stock, developed and copied, also estimated at Mk 60,000; fees for the director Mk 95,000, for the lead actors Leni Riefenstahl and Ernst Udet Mk 35,000 each, Sepp Rist Mk 12,000, for the cameramen Hans Schneeberger and Richard Angst Mk 1000 and Mk 800 per month.” Werner Klipfel, Vom Feldberg zur weissen Hölle von Piz Palü. Die Freiburger Bergfilmpioniere Dr. Arnold Fanck und Sepp Allgeier (Freiburg: Schillinger Verlag, 1999), p. 37.

  36 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 166.

  37 Hans Ertl in the movie Der Gratwanderer. Die Lehren des Filmpioniers Hans Ertl, by Hannes Zell (1995).

  38 Ernst Sorge, With ’Plane, Boat, & Camera in Greenland: An Account of the Universal Dr. Fanck Greenland Expedition (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc., 1936), pp. 77–78.

  39 Fanck, Er führte Regie mit Gletschern, Stürmen und Lawinen. Ein Filmpionier Erzählt, p. 266.

  40 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 152.

  41 Ibid., p. 154f.

  42 Ibid., p. 157.

  43 Ibid., p. 158.

  44 Ibid.

  45 Ian Kershaw’s biography of Hitler concludes, unsurprisingly, that Hitler did not in fact appreciate people who contradicted him or posed awkward questions; he would note their names and, sooner or later, they fell from favor. Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 342.

  46 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 159.

  47 Ibid.

  48 Ibid., p. 160.

  49 Ian Kershaw writes, “In the giant state of Prussia, embracing two-thirds of Reich territory, the NSDAP’s vote of 36.3 per cent made it easily the largest party, now far ahead of the SPD which had been the dominant party since 1919. Since the previous election, in 1928, the Nazis had held six seats in the Prussian Landtag. Now they had 162 seats. In Bavaria, with 32.5 per cent, they came to within 0.1 per cent of the ruling BVP. In Württemberg, they rose from 1.8 per cent in 1928, to 26.4 per cent. In Hamburg, they attained 31.2 per cent. And in Anhalt, with 40.9 per cent, they could nominate the first Nazi Minister President of a German state.” Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, p. 364.

  50 Sorge, With ’Plane, Boat, & Camera in Greenland, pp. 202–3.

  51 “As one looked into Hitler’s face and tried to think of some social group which looked approximately like that, there came to mind the dubious peddlers of dubious postcards as carriers of similar faces, those peddlers of a certain type who climb up and down the stairs of city apartment houses.” Max Picard, Hitler in Our Selves, trans. Heinrich Hauser (Washington, D.C.: H. Regnery Co., 1947), p. 80.

  52 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 181.

  53 Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years, trans. John Toland (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1994), p. 193.

  54 Ibid.

  55 Film-Kurier, August 17, 1929.

  56 Josef von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry (San Francisco, CA: Mercury House, 1965), p. 228.

  57 See Werner Sudendorf, “Produktionsgeschichte” in Sudendorf, ed., Marlene Dietrich, Dokumente, Essays, Filme (Munich: Hanser, 1977), pp. 65–76.

  58 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 137.

  59 Heinrich Mann, Ein Zeitalter wird besichtigt (Berlin: Aufbau, 1973), p. 345.

  60 See Luise Dirscherl and Gunther Nickel, eds., Der blaue Engel. Die Drehbuchentwürfe (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2000).

  61 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 231.

  62 There are many versions of how, why, and where Sternberg discovered Marlene Dietrich. Nearly everyone involved claimed to have been the one to have led him to her. The discussion that follows draws primarily on von Sternberg’s own account.

  63 From the 1984 documentary film Marlene, directed by Maximilian Schell.

  64 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 235.

  65 Friedrich Hollaender, Von Kopf bis Fuss. Mein Leben mit Text und Musik (Bonn: Henschelverlag, 1996), p. 219.

  66 Marlene Dietrich, in a conversation with Maximilian Schell in the 1984 documentary film Marlene, directed by Schell.

  67 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 237.

  68 Dietrich, in a conversation with Schell in Marlene (1984).

  69 Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler: A Memoir, trans. Oliver Pretzel (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002), p. 84.

  70 See “Das Kollektiv der Dichter. Jannings’ erstes Tonfilmwerk,” in Film-Kurier, October 26, 1929.

  71 The National Socialists drove the musicians in this outstanding band out of Germany. One of them, Franz Wachsmann, became an important film composer in Hollywood; another, Martin Roman, was sent to Theresienstadt and there founded the Ghetto Swingers. Roman survived both Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, and died in 1996.

  72 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 145.

  73 Ibid., p. 146.

  74 “The other actors in The Blue Angel cast were not exactly sociable. Yet that was nothing compared to Emil Jannings, who hated all of creation, himself included. Sometimes we had to wait two full hours in our dressing rooms until Jannings was at last ‘ready to work,’ and during these two hours, von Sternberg would put to use all of his inexhaustible imagination to lure this psychopathic stellar performer onto the set.” Marlene Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1987), p. 81.

  75 Ibid., p. 82.

  76 Ibid., p. 84.

  77 Theodor Fontane, “Berliner Ton” in Heinz Knobloch, Der Berliner zweifelt immer. Seine Stadt in Feuilletons von damals (Berlin: Verlag der Morgen, 1977), pp. 172–79.

  78 Film-Kurier, December 21, 1929.

  79 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 226.

  80 Letter from Josef von Sternberg to Frieda Grafe, August 31, 1969, in Frieda Grafe, Aus dem Off. Zum Kino in den Sechzigern (Berlin: Brinkmann U. Bose, 2003), p. 196.

  81 Riza von Sternberg (née Royce) was two years younger than Marlene, and also an actress. She and von Sternberg had married in 1926.

  82 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 225.

  83 Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich (New York: Knopf, 1992), p. 63.

  84 “Marlene Dietrich geht nach Hollywood,” in Tempo, no. 37 (February 13, 1930).

  85 Film-Kurier, February 14, 1930.

  86 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 242.

  87 “Every object seen in The Blue Angel is there because the director wanted it there; nothing comes before the camera accidentally. Sternberg abominated what he called ‘dead space’ between the camera eye and the actors, and he filled this with a profusion of props. At the same time, however, he wanted to stimulate the imagination by concealing par
ts of his set: through objects looming into the frame from above or below, or double framing it with stove-pipes or screens or pillars, or draping gauze over part of it.” S. S. Prawer, The Blue Angel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 33f.

  88 Haffner, Defying Hitler, p. 87.

  89 Riva, Marlene Dietrich, p. 66.

  90 Die Filmwoche, April 9, 1930.

  III Success (1932–1939)

  Hollywood

  1 Bremen Passenger List Archive of the Handelskammer Bremen Archive Ident. No. AIII15-April 2, 1930 N. There were 1,208 passengers on board.

  2 Reichsfilmblatt, May 17, 1930.

  3 Berliner Börsen-Courier 62, no. 156 (April 2, 1930).

  4 Raoul Ploquin, “Ein Gespräch mit Heinrich Mann,” in Revue du Cinéma 2, no. 17 (December 1, 1930); quoted in Werner Sudendorf, Marlene Dietrich, Dokumente, Essays, Filme (Munich: Hanser, 1977), p. 92.

  5 Josef von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1965), pp. 243–44.

  6 Ibid., p. 245.

  7 Ibid.

  8 “I had on what any German wore when traveling—a gray flannel suit and a slouch hat, very manly, and gloves. All the Americans had black dresses and pearls and mink coats and the orchids, ropes of orchids.” Marlene Dietrich, quoted by Leo Lerman in a journal entry dated August 19, 1971, in Leo Lerman, The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman (New York: Knopf, 2007), p. 351.

  9 Marlene Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1987), p. 106.

  10 Ibid., p. 107.

  11 Salka Viertel, The Kindness of Strangers (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969); p. 183.

  12 Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin, p. 108.

  13 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, pp. 158–59.

  14 Adolphe Menjou was paid $20,000 for this movie, and Gary Cooper $6,750. Dietrich brought up the rear with $5,625.

  15 Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin, p. 112f.

  16 Drake Stutesman uses the example of the hats in Morocco to show the subtlety of von Sternberg’s cinematic subtexts. See Drake Stutesman, “Storytelling: Marlene Dietrich’s Face and John Frederics’ Hats” in Rachel Moseley, ed., Fashioning Film Stars: Dress, Culture, Identity (London: British Film Institute, 2005), pp. 27–38.

  17 This scene has been analyzed in detail in queer and lesbian studies. See especially Andrea Weiss, Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film (New York: Penguin, 1993); Andrea Weiss, “A Queer Feeling When I Look at You: Hollywood Stars and Lesbian Spectatorship in the 1930s,” in Christine Gledhill, ed., Stardom: Industry of Desire (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 283–99; Patricia White, Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

  18 See Sybil DelGaudio, “Stylization as Distance: Morocco and the Devil is a Woman” in DelGaudio, Dressing the Part: Sternberg, Dietrich, and Costume (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993), pp. 99–126.

  19 Quoted in Herman G. Weinberg, Josef von Sternberg: A Critical Study (New York: Dutton, 1967), p. 56.

  20 Roland Barthes, “The Face of Garbo,” in Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972), pp. 56–57; this passage is on p. 56.

  21 Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin, p. 109.

  22 Quoted in Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Hell’s In It? Portraits and Conversations (New York, Alfred Knopf, 2004), p. 378–79.

  23 Carlo Ginzburg, “Geschichte und Geschichten. Über Archive, Marlene Dietrich und die Lust an der Geschichte. Carlo Ginzburg im Gespräch mit Adriano Sofri” in Ginzburg, Spurensicherungen. Über verborgene Geschichte, Kunst und soziales Gedächtnis (Munich: Klaus Wagenbach, 1988), pp. 7–29; this quotation is on p. 20.

  24 Franz Hessel, “Marlene als Mutter, Marlene als Kind” in Hessel, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 3, Städte und Porträts (Oldenburg: Igel Verlag, 1999), pp. 223–32; this passage is on p. 231.

  25 Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich (New York: Knopf, 1992), p. 94.

  26 Ibid., p. 102.

  27 Stephen Spender, World Within World: The Autobiography of Stephen Spender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 130.

  28 Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin, p. 118.

  29 Quoted in Diane Johnson, Dashiell Hammett: A Life (New York: Random House, 1983), p. 100.

  30 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, n.d., MDCB.

  31 A letter from European Paramount dated June 30, 1932, states that Monsieur Sieber, “qui parle le francais, l’anglais et l’allemand s’occupera specialement de la mise en scène de nos productions tournées dans ces langues.” The contract was for a term of one year. MDCB.

  32 She added that she had seen a miracle of this sort only one other time, when Luchino Visconti was making a film with his lover, Helmut Berger. Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin, p. 114.

  33 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 225.

  34 Dietrich, Ich bin, Gott sei Dank, Berlinerin, p. 115.

  35 He added, “I then put her into the crucible of my conception, blended her image to correspond with mine, and, pouring lights on her until the alchemy was complete, proceeded with the test.” Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 237.

  36 Josef von Sternberg to Marlene Sieber, May 11, 1933, MCDB.

  37 Riva, Marlene Dietrich, p. 172.

  38 Ibid., p. 173. This account is a blend of Riva’s and Dietrich’s descriptions. The passages about the preparations for shooting represent a rare instance of congruent descriptions by the two women.

  39 Ibid., p. 174.

  40 He worked with his trusted staff: Jules Furthman wrote the script, Lee Garmes did the camera work, and Hans Dreier, a German, designed the sets.

  41 Walter Wanger had discovered Travis Banton in the 1920s in New York and hired him for Paramount. He quickly rose to the position of head designer and was one of the most prominent set designers in the movie industry. Banton worked for Mae West, Carole Lombard, and Claudette Colbert in addition to Dietrich.

  42 The Motion Picture Production Code known as the Hays Code was adopted by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1930 on a voluntary basis, and made mandatory in 1934. The Hays Code was abandoned in 1968.

  43 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, June 19, 1931, MDCB.

  44 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, June 1931, MDCB.

  45 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, June 4, 1931; quoted in J. David Riva and Guy Stern, eds., A Woman at War: Marlene Dietrich Remembered (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 19.

  46 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, December 10, 1931, MDCB.

  47 Walter Reisch to Marlene Dietrich, November 1, 1931, MDCB.

  48 Walter Reisch, who was born in 1903 in Vienna, worked for Ufa in Berlin. His screenplay credits included F.P. 1 Is Not Responding with Hans Albers. In 1933, he returned to Vienna and worked with Willi Forst. In 1937, he immigrated to Hollywood, where he worked on Ninotchka with Greta Garbo and Niagara with Marilyn Monroe. In 1954, he was awarded an Oscar for his Titanic screenplay. Like Wilder and Kolpé, he was one of Dietrich’s oldest friends. Reisch died in Los Angeles in 1983.

  49 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, December 20, 1931, MDCB.

  50 Tamara Matul to Rudi Sieber, July 21, 1931, MDCB.

  51 Von Sternberg’s silent film The Case of Lena Smith (1929) was also based on a story of maternal love. See Alexander Hortwart and Michael Omasta, eds., Josef von Sternberg: The Case of Lena Smith (Vienna: Österreichisches Filmmuseum, 2007).

  52 Telegram from B. P. Schulberg to Emanuel Cohen; quoted in Peter Baxter, Just Watch!: Sternberg, Paramount, and America (London: British Film Institute, 1993), p. 49.

  53 Von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, p. 264.

  54 Walter Reisch to Marlene Dietrich, January 9, 1932, MDCB.

  55 Riva, Marlene Dietrich, p. 135.

  56 Maurice Chevalier to Marlene Dietrich, September 23, 1932, MDCB.

  57 R
udi Sieber to Marlene Dietrich, July 17, 1932, MDCB.

  58 Rudi Sieber to Marlene Dietrich, September 16, 1932, MDCB.

  59 Dwight MacDonald, Dwight MacDonald on Movies (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969), p. 97.

  60 Rudi Sieber to Marlene Dietrich, November 22, 1932, MDCB.

  61 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, December 5, 1932, MDCB.

  62 Josef von Sternberg to Marlene Dietrich, January 21, 1933, MDCB.

  63 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated January 31, 1933, in Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. 2, October 1932–March 1934 (Munich: De Gruyter Saur, 2006).

  64 Rudi Sieber to Marlene Dietrich, March 31, 1933, MDCB.

  65 Marlene Dietrich to Rudi Sieber, March 2, 1933, MDCB.

  66 Josefine von Losch to Marlene Dietrich, March 13, 1933.

  67 Willi Forst to Marlene Dietrich, April 23, 1932, MDCB.

  68 Rudi Sieber to Marlene Dietrich, May 8, 1933, MDCB.

  69 Marlene Dietrich, “Warum ich Männerkleidung trage,” in Mein Film no. 381 (1933): 13–14; this passage is on p. 14. She explained why: “[T]hese clothes give you perfect freedom and comfort, which is more than I can say for women’s dresses and skirts. And women’s clothing requires so much time; it is so draining to buy it. You need hats, shoes, handbags, scarves, coats and all kinds of accessories that have to match. That takes a lot of thought and picking out just the right things, and I really have neither the time nor the interest for that. And the fashion changes every minute, and you have to start all over again.”

  70 Riva, Marlene Dietrich, p. 216.

  71 Janet Flanner, Paris Was Yesterday, 1925–1939 (New York: Viking, 1972), p. 97.

  72 Josef von Sternberg to Marlene Dietrich, May 10, 1933, MDCB; Josef von Sternberg to Marlene Dietrich, May 17, 1933, MDCB.