World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

w orld news AND TELEVISION PROGRESS (INCORPORATING CINEMA QUARTERLY) VOL. 2 NO. 6 PRICE: ONE SHILLING SEPTEMBER 1937 Introducing "The Man You Love to Hate," — Erich von Stroheim, the meteor in the celluloid constellations, the man who dared portray the senility of Central European royalty in the Merry Widow, the sophisticated pulse of the modern world in Foolish Wives and the Blind Husbands and the sordid world of Mammon in what was probably his masterpiece, Greed. A relatively short time has elapsed since then, though long and eventful in the young history of the screen. Names have come and gone. What has happened to von Stroheim in that time? To-day he speaks, but without the fire and enthusiasm of a man searching for new horizons. That fine creative damon seems somehow hushed. "I am only an actor trying to get together some money," he says. And he talks mainly of the past, lashing out at the people and methods of the Hollywood scheme of things. "I'm not frightened of talking. I say print everything. I was an outcast in Hollywood. I never had a swimming-pool and other elaborate things. I lived and I told the truth. But I was called a wastrel, a spendthrift. The dog was given a bad name, and it stuck. "In 44th Street on Times Square there was the biggest sign in the world during the making of Foolish Wives. That was the birth certificate of Universal and my tombstone. In electric lights the production costs were advertised as being a million dollars. They said it was the \ first million dollar motion picture. It was a publicity scheme to put Universal on the map. Overhead charges rivalled the production costs. I was the scapegoat. "But in Foolish Wives I started a new school in films, the real axis of things, love and sex which had been overlooked by producers who treated the public as infants. It was new and shocked the meddlers, people who had no sex outlet themselves. Freud has a name for them. As part of the publicity campaign, Universal invited twenty-two censors to come free of charge to Hollywood to view Foolish Wives. They came with their scissors. These people, some petty shyster politicians, drunk with their own importance, came, looked — and cut. "Irving Thalberg as the personal representative of Carl Laemmle discharged me in the middle of making Merry-Go-Round. This was the young man who did not know anything about films then, but had initiative. I was broken-hearted. "I then worked for the Goldwyn company who let me make Greed. I thought people after the Great War were ripe for corned beef and not chocolate eclairs, so I chose to make this film from a novel by Frank Norris. Norris was a disciple of Zola and the school of realism he had dreamed of. I worked nine months on the film and then the Goldwyn company merged when I was cutting. It became Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Irving Thalberg again popped up, having joined the company. My film was taken away from me, and I was out. It was given to a thirty-dollar-a-week cutter. I have not seen Greed myself." To use von Stroheim's own words the case against him "was mounting like an avalanche." "They (presumably the executives) hate people with positive minds. No twelve people can write a book or paint a work of art. My success was that I did everything myself, and it did have the stamp of personality. I was the first to use trucking shots. I was the first to use polished floors, real glass windows and silks. They said I was crazy. Nasty and malicious stories were told about me. I could take no action; they knew I had no money. But I didn't want to, anyway; it would mean putting myelf on the same level as themselves. I have my own mind, and that is the worst thing I can say about myself." In a scheme of things where yes-men flourish, it is logical that the independent spirit should be stoned. Yet they who cast the stones were themselves not innocent of the things von Stroheim was accused of. It is interesting to note that this man about whom the legend grew that he was the prince of spendthrifts, a legend that was partially responsible in hounding him to an undeserved destiny, actually made films that were huge box-office successes. The first film which he made for Carl Laemmle, Blind Husbands, made nearly a million dollars profit. The Merry Widow cleared about four million dollars. Comparative obscurity, however, does not lessen the perpetual interest that the advanceguard film circles have in von Stroheim. It is known that one of the heads of the Soviet £P THEY SAID I WAS CRAZY9' -VON STROHEIM film industry said to him : "You are to us in Russia what Moses was to the Israelites. We show your Greed to all our young directors." Spasmodically voices are raised sometimes in protest at the treatment meted out to him. And his future? "Perhaps one day I will direct a picture again. In France or in England." Was it rumoured that he would go to Russia to make films? "Yes. Eisenstein tried to get me to go to Russia. It is a question of my family, though. I can't take any money out of Russia, and my family does not want to go. For myself, I would like to go." The same impressive stance, the colour and gravitational power of a great personality. A click of the heels. A suggestion of a salute. "Goodbye, Mr. von Stroheim." "Goodbye." To the observer it seems that like a very sensitive spirit he must needs live in the past, dreaming of those short-lived and almost violently stirring triumphs that made film history. Leslie Perk off