Ernst Lubitsch — The Film Wizard of Europe (1922) 🇺🇸
Ernst Lubitsch, says Mr. Howe, is a Napoleonic little gnome, a Dutch comedian who has made the whole world weep, a little man with a big smiling heart. His hobbies are the piano, the cello and, honestly, the shimmie. And he loves American chewing gum.
He thinks Chaplin is the great American artist, greatly admires Harold Lloyd and thinks Lillian Gish well nigh supreme. But Pola Negri! Lubitsch calls her a “wonderful, wonderful woman — no one is like Pola — no one!”
by Herbert Howe | illustrated by Wynn
The man who gave fame to Pola Negri, to Louis XIV of France and to Henry VIII of England — The German film wizard, master of tragedy, and the man who makes history live —
“The Griffith of Europe,” sometimes called, because of the genius with which he made “Passion,” “Deception,” and “The Loves of Pharaoh” —
Ernst Lubitsch, star-maker and king-maker, sat opposite me in the lunch room of his Berlin studio, his face beaming like a harvest moon over a platter of kalbschnitzel.
The broad smile broadened —
“My hobbies — hobbies,” he lingered over the unfamiliar English word, “Ya, my hobbies is d’piano, d’cello and d’shimmie.
“Good dancer,” he blinked, his little black eyes crinkling out of sight. “Every night I dance in New York.
“Pretty girls in America. Ya, Ziegfeld Follies. Urn!” — many ecstatic blinks — “Ya, I vill like to work in America.”
He was beaming from every pore. His secretary, a German boy whose English still has the flavor of German idiom, suddenly asked me if I had any chewing gum for Mr. Lubitsch.
“He is a great friend of the chewing gum,” said the secretary.
Lubitsch demanded to know what was being said and then endorsed with, “Ya — California Fruit.” Emphatic nods and blinks.
“It is very difficult getting him this California Fruit,” sighed the secretary. “It is not much in Berlin. Sometimes I must go all over town looking. And it is all my fault. It is not allowed to smoke on the ‘set,’ and Mr. Lubitsch did not know what to do without his cigar. So I say, ‘You must chew.’ He say, ‘Ya, but what I chew?’ I say, ‘chewing gum.’ And now I spend all my time looking down this California Fruit.
Such is the master of tragedy. “The man who never stops smiling” is what they call him around the studio. A plump, alert, restless little fellow of thirty with a broad humorous mouth, a hooked Semitic nose, crinkling bead eyes and a lock of ink hair sprawling Napoleonically over a high forehead.
As he wheels restlessly to and fro on the “set,” one arm behind him, his head cocked on the side, his eyes on the floor, he looks like a Dutch comedian doing a burlesque of Napoleon. Over a neat business suit he wears a loose linen duster, the sort his carpenters wear. He seems to have no particular place or significance on the stage. He has no puttees, no megaphone, no director’s chair with his name emblazoned across the back. In fact, he might be called a director without a country.
No sooner do you get him focused in the crowd of players and workingmen than — poof! — he has vanished like a genie. Ah, there he is! — popping up like a jumping jack beside Pola Negri. He whispers a suggestion. You wonder how she could have caught it, he is gone again so quickly.
The extras have crowded around to see the great Negri do her scene. From somewhere Lubitsch has let out a terrific bellow, — “Drehen!” meaning “Camera!” The players are in action. Extras and workmen crowd closer to watch. Pretty soon you notice a little man darting around like a terrier on the outskirts of the crowd trying to get a peek. He can’t see a thing on account of the extras, so he jumps upon a chair and looks over their heads. It’s the director, the great Lubitsch. In a second he’s off the chair and diving between the legs of the camera. He lets out another horrifying whoop. Something is wrong. He contorts his brows at fearful angles, making a diabolical face which is funnier than the smiling one of the minute before. Then he grins — as though amused by his fearful countenance, which has had no effect upon anyone but himself. He bounds among the players to act a “bit” for a little girl playing a cocotte. He is a very funny coquette, but he knows the business, every glance, every wink, every instinctive gesture of the flirt… Then off again on a feverish pace as if he had lost all interest in the affair.
I pinioned him behind the piano upon one of these excursions — he always has music with his scenes. Seeing me, he plopped down on the stool and commenced playing very sour snatches from “The Music Box.”
“You know the Moosic Box sonks?” he asked, grinning. “Und ‘Sally’” — more soggy notes, with Lubitsch beaming over them as if to coax them into melody by the sunshine of his smile.
We talked of American films. I asked him which of our stars he considered best.
“The best of all — the greatest actor in the world — le plus grand,” he emphasized in three languages, “is — Ch’pln. Great tragedy actor — Ch’pln.”
“Chaplin a great tragedy actor?”
“Ya, — Ch’pln greatest actor of everything.”
If Chaplin [Charles Chaplin] is the great tragedian, Lubitsch, the tragedy-maker, is the great comedian.
But he is entirely serious in his appraisal of our films and players.
“Harold Lloyd —,” he blinked his pleasure. “I saw him in New York — good — good — very good!”
Of the women —
“Ah, Pickford [Mary Pickford],” he nodded.
“And Miss Lillian Gish, Mr. Lubitsch,” interposed the secretary.
“Ah — Lillian Gish — Orphans of the Storm — Lillian Gish — ah, ah, ah,” he teetered on his heels and went into a veritable paroxysm of blinks.
His enthusiasm was so intense that I was moved to ask if Lillian were not the greatest actress in the world. But he would only blink rapturously, which was to say, “enough said.”
He considers Foolish Wives a masterpiece in detail, but when he saw it on the opening night in New York, “The story, the story — it — um,” — he couldn’t express his idea save with a movement — a very energetic cramming movement of the hands. With the right story he thinks Von Stroheim [Erich Von Stroheim] will do great things. He added an interesting observation on the picture. He said that he did not believe it would pass the German censors as it stood on the opening night when he saw it. The German censors, contrary to our supposition, are not licentious. But they do have ideas as to what is relevant and necessary in the depiction of life-drama — an idea which our censors have yet to grasp.
Orphans of the Storm is the best picture Lubitsch saw in America, and he was enthusiastic about it. He admires Griffith [D. W. Griffith]; believes Broken Blossoms one of the screen’s immortal classics.
“Have a drink,” he popped suddenly, offering me a tall glass of pink fluid.
“What is it?” I demanded somewhat suspiciously after I had taken the first sip.
“It is Mr. Lubitsch’s special drink,” said the secretary. “Strawberry juice and mineral water.”
My illusions as to studio life in Berlin were fast blowing out. I had looked forward to the flowing bowl at lunch. What I got was a tall drink of lemonade. Everybody had the same, so there was no room for kick about discrimination against Americans. And the amber beverage which was circulating the cafe “set” was a drink compounded of coffee,
When I entered the Lubitsch studio I felt as though I had plunged suddenly from Berlin into the depths of Hollywood. There were the same treacherous cables to ensnare your brogues, the same, or almost the same, arc lights, spots and banks. The same blasé extra girls with switches that didn’t match their hair. They sat about staring into space with the same vacuous contemplation of life that you see on the face of a normal holstein. Now and then they would powder themselves for want of anything else to do.
Extra girls — the same the world over — listless and bored and limp, looking as though
they ought to be put to bed at once with a hot water bottle. There was a spotted actor, trying to get a little attention by sitting on the back of a chair, his feet on the level with the keys of the piano, and playing La Marseillaise. But the national anthem of the hated French failed to ruffle the general apathy. Only one little extra girl raised a limp finger to shake weakly at the piano.
It was noon and everyone was awaiting the arrival of Pola Negri. She usually makes her entrance at about twelve o’clock. Some one came in and told Lubitsch that she was actually in her dressing room employed in making up. He celebrated the fact by taking another drink of strawberry water and bursting into song.
Things grew a little more tense in expectancy. Lights were adjusted. Players began to take their places in the “set,” which was an exact reproduction of a famous Parisian cafe of 1860. A huge bar maid in décolleté took her place behind the glasses and bottles, her shoulders looming over the bar like a range of the snow-capped Alps. The camera men began to jimmy with their instruments, as camera men always do. And then — somehow — you felt La Negri had arrived.
I couldn’t see her, but the presence was conveyed, psychically and by murmurs. The secretary scurried past me whispering, “She’s here — back there by the door to the cafe.” I kept my position, however. It was peaceful and secure, and I’d been told that Pola was not feeling very well.
After the usual interminable wait, while lights and cameras and extras were changed all around again, Lubitsch came clambering into view. He took a place belling the cameras. Gave a quick squint and then — “Nay-gree!”
Swish, whish of silken skirts. A voice, somehow suggesting Camille, called tremulously, “‘Allo! ‘Allo!” And Negri came strolling flirtatiously into view, casting mesmeric eyes to right and left, tapping an old gentleman on the ear with her pert green parasol, finally pausing at the steps to greet a gallant who rushed forward to kiss her hand. Then she rolled her great black eyes and winked — the wickedest wink a woman ever wunk.
The scene was enacted as though it were entirely impromptu. Unless you hear the camera click or observe very closely you never realize Negri is acting; her naturalness is perfection. She requires no direction.
“All she needs to know is the story,” observed the secretary. “She does not need to study or think about it. It is instinct with her.”
The same appears true of Lubitsch. He directs by instinct.
The part Pola was playing was that of a Parisian demi-mondaine who falls in love after a life of amorous adventure. Her lover, whom she inspires to success, is about to put her aside because she is a handicap to his position. When she realizes the insincerity of his love she throws herself from a balcony on to the pavement below and is killed.
But here comes the good old Americanizing touch.
There will be two endings, one happy and one sad.
I don’t know exactly how the tragedy will be turned into a happy-ever-after comedy. Perhaps there will be a shot showing Pola falling on to the studio mattress instead of the supposed paving blocks.
The American public — the American public with the mind of a twelve year old child, you know — it must have life as it ain’t. Yet that public swept Passion into one of the greatest successes of film times. And Passion ended with the lovely Negri head beneath the blade of the guillotine — and no pardon on horseback to save her.
However, there are Iwo endings. It’s entirely up to you. Drama is supposed to be Life. Unfortunately we have no choice as to our endings in Life.
As a director Lubitsch is a dervish. He can whirl through more work in a day than most directors can get past in a week. The most spectacular scene of The Loves of Pharaoh was shot in three days. He doesn’t rehearse his players before starting a picture, as Griffith does. And he does not rehearse very much during actual filming.
Before he turns a camera upon the production, however, every detail of the story has been charted and all the research work has been completed by the art director. In collaboration with Lubitsch the scenarioist has turned the story into continuity. I saw the bulky script lying in state on a table some distance from the “set.” Lubitsch never went near it. It was like a lovely white corpse awaiting final disposition. Yet every detail of that scenario was being observed as scrupulously as the last wishes of the dead. Lubitsch does not improvise as many directors do. Chaplin, for instance, starts with a seed which gradually germinates. Lubitsch has written the story in carbon on his mind; every phase is indelible.
He has an uncanny memory. I will never forget the awe-stricken look upon the face of Frederick James Smith, Photoplay’s managing editor, when Lubitsch recognized him in the crowd at the premiere of Orphans of the Storm. The astounded Frederick swore it was the first time a director had ever recognized him. The little film wizard had met hundreds of interviewers and film people during his few weeks in America yet he could remember a face and a name in an instant. His secretary told me that he could call any extra man by name who had worked for him years ago.
Lubitsch is a fast stepper on the “set” he certainly is a shimmie dancer in the cutting room. You would imagine that he was mad at the film. He tears at it until you almost think you hear him growl. Now and then he holds it up to the light and gives it a blink — swish, crackle, zipp — and another five hundred feet goes a-reeling. “The Flame of Love,” the Negri picture he just finished, required about three days to cut and assemble. Any other director I’ve ever observed would take two weeks for an ordinary program feature. The Loves of Pharaoh, originally in ten or twelve reels, required less than a week.
This faculty for rapid cutting must be attributed to a supernatural memory, one which carries the story so perfectly that lightning decisions are possible. Some directors spend as much time on assembling a picture as upon photographing it, for it is generally conceded that this part of the production is of vital importance.
Lubitsch cannot work slowly. He must work while his enthusiasm is ablaze. Ask him which he considers his best pictures and he will always reply that it is the one he is working on. That is his real conviction; if it weren’t he couldn’t keep at it.
I chose a happy time to visit Ernst Lubitsch, and perhaps a little of his exuberance was due to his approaching marriage to Irni Kraus [Helene Kraus], a Berlin girl who has played small parts in several German pictures but who has yet to make her debut in a Lubitsch film.
Very few people around the studio knew of the dramatic moment approaching in the life of the little director. No one had been informed officially. I did not learn of it until the day before. Then I accounted for the puzzling scene between Negri and Lubitsch on the first day I called. I had told Lubitsch that we had heard he was married to Pola. All brimming over with glee, and afraid lest he would burst before he told her, Ernst scampered off to where his gorgeous Nay-gree was sitting. He blurted out what I had said, and chuckled as Pola tossed back her head, her hand on her breast, in a typical gesture of laughter. He also looked very pleased when she quickly leaned forward and patted him affectionately on the cheek.
“A wonderful, wonderful woman,” is the expression Lubitsch uses again and again about Negri. There is no one in the world like her — no one. He thinks Deception his best directorial effort — next to The Flame of Love — but I objected that Negri was not in it to raise it to the stellar heights.
“Of course Henny Porten is good,” I added, “But—”
“Pola is better!” shot Lubitsch triumphantly. “No one like Pola — no one.”
They have had their temperamental skirmishes. I wish I might have witnessed one. As a battler Lubitsch must be as funny as Chaplin, Pola as divine as Duse [Eleonora Duse]. These tilts always have the same ending, I’m told, Pola awarding a pat or a kiss upon the again-happy countenance of Ernst… Catherine the Great and her prime minister.
While Lubitsch was shy about confiding the joyful news of his marriage he was outspoken in his delight over the possibility of coming to America to work. “America by Christmas” is his banner cry. He may arrive for Thanksgiving, as Paramount is planning to grant his wish and allot him a few acres of floor in the Long Island studio. He wants to do modern stories of American life as a relief from the long series of historical dramas and as proof of his versatility. His ability doubtlessly can make the transfer, but I wonder if he will be as pre-eminent in the modern field as in the period. Still, what roan wants to be without a rival?
It’s a little bit mean of him, though, just when we were progressing so well in our history to drop us back into kindergarten. I never realized what a good teacher Prof. Ernst was until I visited Versailles. If it hadn’t been for Passion I would have had no appreciation for the bedroom of Louis XV. I might have thought that the little secret door by the bed was to the closet where the king kept his Sunday crown. But having seen Passion I knew that it was the door through which Madame Du Barry came each evening at bedtime to shake hands with the king and wish him goodnight.
Perhaps the fact that Mr. Lubitsch has become a staid married man also has something to do with his desire to abandon the life of kings. Kings are bad company for married men.
I inquired of the secretary if Mr. Lubitsch had ever contemplated doing the rather exciting life of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm.
“Better you should not ask him that,” advised the secretary. “The Kaiser is Mr. Lubitsch’s pet dislike.”
Before coming to America he will do one picture based on the life of Johann Strauss, the waltz king.
No honeymoon interrupted production activities at the Lubitsch plant. Indeed, Albert E. Kaufmann, Paramount’s general manager of foreign productions, was wondering whether at last Lubitsch would stop work for an entire day. The secretary was of the doleful opinion that there would be only the usual half hour for lunch, Lubitsch muttering the nuptial vows between helpings of kalbschnitzel.
Perhaps you remember seeing Lubitsch as the hunchback in his production of “One Arabian Night.” But he made his fame as an actor by playing comedy roles, on both stage and screen. He’s a natural comedian and has that constitutional shyness and modesty for which Harold Lloyd, as well as Chaplin, is distinguished among the tribe histrionique.
His friendliness is real and eager — “Be sure you come and see me when I come to America,” he urged, as though he expected to have a rather lonely time of it.
Ernst Lubitsch, a Napoleonic little gnome, a Dutch comedian who can make the whole world weep, a little man with a big smiling heart. If he isn’t a genius he’s what a genius ought to be.
And if you don’t think he’s a hundred per cent American just bring on the jazz, the chewing gum and the shimmie.
—
Wynn caught Pola Negri during the making of “The Flame of Love,” which she completed just before coming to America. Here she played a Parisian demi-mondaine who falls in love after a life of amorous adventure
—
Albert E. Kaufmann, general manager of Paramount’s foreign productions, a job requiring a combination of financial genius and grand opera managerial skill
—
As a director Ernst Lubitsch is a dervish. He can whirl through more work in a day than most directors can get past in a week. He doesn’t rehearse his players before starting a picture
—
—
Collection: Photoplay Magazine, December 1922