William Dieterle
In a program from 1955, introducing a screening of Juarez (1939) at Stockholms studentfilmstudio (an influential film club for students at Stockholm University), its director William Dieterle was described as a “tendensdiktare,” a word I cannot directly translate but which means something like a poet who is addressing contemporary issues. Not bad. Dieterle is today to some extent lost in the crowd, and not a single book in English has been written about him,1 but he was once a big deal. When he was, he wrote these rather poetic words:
The job of the director is, in my opinion, like that of a gardener, who puts a stick here, to help a plant to grow straight, and cuts a branch there, that the whole tree may thrive better and a good harvest result.2
Portrait of Jennie (1948) might be his most celebrated film today.3 Joseph Cotten plays a painter who meets a woman, played by Jennifer Jones, who lives in a different time, but who inexplicably appears at regular intervals in the painter's life. She somehow lives beyond time and space. It is a supernatural, metaphysical love story that is not only moving, but also poetically and sensually told and staged, with sometimes peculiar lighting. That image above should be enough to convince you.
It was a troubled production due to the overbearing producer, David O. Selnick, who went through writer after writer, and exhausted himself and everyone else. Yet it is still a marvellous film. Cotten was at the time one of Dieterle’s most important collaborators, as was the film’s cinematographer Joseph H. (Joe) August.
Dieterle once expressed his fascination for Thomas Hardy’s words “She seemed like a fugitive in a dream, who tried to move away but could not.” from the novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and those words are fitting for Portrait of Jennie too, and for the underlying romanticism and mysticism that runs through Dieterle’s work.4
William Dieterle, birth name Wilhelm, was born in 1893 in Ludwigshafen into a poor family. He was interested in the theatre from an early age and wanted to become an actor. He first acted on the stage and from 1921 in films as well. That same year, 1921, he married Charlotte Hagenbruch, and she would be his closest associate for the rest of his career. It is well known how important Alma Reville was to Alfred Hitchcock's career, not only as a life partner but as a creative partner, and the same goes for Dieterle and Hagenbruch. In 1927 they started a production company, Charrha-Film, together and they alternated between working with theatre productions and film productions. The most famous film Dieterle acted in is Murnau’s Faust (1926), where he played against Gösta Ekman Sr. Another Swedish connection is that Dieterle played Jean in a German film adaptation of Strindberg's Miss Julie, Fräulein Julie (1922), with Asta Nielsen as Julie. Dieterle also directed several films in Germany, but unfortunately I have not yet seen any of them.
In 1930, Dieterle and Hagenbruch moved to the United States, where he was almost immediately employed by Warner Bros. The purpose was for him to do German-language versions of American films, adapted for the German market. It did not pan out, but in 1931 he got the chance to direct his first American film. It is called The Last Flight (1931) and is about four pilots during the First World War who, after the armistice, drift around in Paris and Lisbon. They suffer severely from post-traumatic stress disorder, with various tics and depressions, and they try to drown their growing desperation and pain with alcohol. They meet a woman at a bar, and she becomes one of them, just as injured as they are. When the movie is over most of the characters are dead, for one reason or another. It is an attempt to make a film in the same spirit, and with the same themes, as Hemingway's early novels. The acting is often stiff, and the line reading does not flow naturally, but apart from that it is an impressive and powerful film. It depicts the lost generation with uncompromising sincerity. The script was written by John Monk Saunders and Byron Morgan, based on Saunders’s novel,5 and Richard Barthelmess and Helen Chandler play the main roles.
Most of what Dieterle did in the next few years, such as Lawyer Man (1932), A Man Wanted (1932), Jewel Robbery (1932) and Fashions of 1934 (1934) are of less interest. But even if they are banal, they are elegantly staged with fast dialogue, a moving camera and fine use of deep focus. The usual history of early 1930s cinema often claims that the advent of sound led to unnatural dialogue and rigid camera sets, even though this was only the case in the very beginning and far from all films. Another common notion is that deep focus was something that appeared in the late 1930s in the films of a few directors, despite being used in all sorts of genres and by all sorts of directors throughout the 1930s and before that as well. These early films by Dieterle are yet further evidence of how this conventional wisdom is just wrong.
Dieterle had a new breakthrough in 1935 when he was reunited with Max Reinhardt, with whom he had collaborated on a series of productions in Germany in the 1920s. Together they now made a famous film adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream starring James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Mickey Rooney, Dick Powell, and many others. It was a film in which Dieterle could show off his expressionist side, although it would be a while before he was allowed to unlock that side of him again. What followed now was instead the most famous phase of his career, when he became Warner Bros' most prestigious director with a string of biographical films. First three films with Paul Muni in the title roles: The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), The Life of Emilé Zola (1937), and Juarez. Then two with Edward G. Robinson in the lead role: Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940) and A Dispatch from Reuters (1940). They were made by a team consisting of producers Hal Wallis and Henry Blanke, in addition to Dieterle. Since they were important to Warner in terms of both money and prestige, it was not considered appropriate to let any artistic experiments or personal whims risk the projects. Still, at least The Life of Emilé Zola is an impressive film. These films were also examples of Dieterle’s political side. He was a democrat, an anti-fascist, leftwing, and that can be seen in those biopics, as well as in many of his other films. It was also apparent when he made a film about the Spanish Civil War, Blockade (1938). It is not a studio film but an independent production, Walter Wanger was the producer, and written by the communist John Howard Lawson. It is not a good movie, stiff and tense, with weak performances (except for Henry Fonda in the lead role) and a mixture of political confusion and people talking solemnly about the importance of doing the right thing. As the Production Code (or Hays Code) in Hollywood was strict about films that criticized foreign countries, such as Spain, it is not even clear who is fighting against whom.
The following year, Dieterle made one of his best films, in which the expressionist, gothic, and political coincide in a rewarding way, and which also became one of his biggest box office hits: an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) with Charles Laughton in a magnificent performance as Quasimodo. The film is powerful and tense, and visually spectacular. It is obvious that Dieterle and the team, from the set designers to the cinematographer, Joe August, deliberately tried to recreate the German expressionism of the 1920s. By this time, Dieterle had left Warner. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was made for RKO, a more artistically favourable studio for him.
Dieterle continued the expressionist track with another independent production, this time he himself was the producer: The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941, also known as All That Money Can Buy). Inspired by the Faust legend, it is about a farmer who sells his soul to the devil. He gets happiness (more apparent than real) and wealth but is naturally corrupted. The Devil is enthusiastically played by Walter Huston and the Farmer by James Craig. Daniel Webster was a real politician (the film takes place in the 1840s) and in the film he regularly appears, played, very well, by Edward Arnold. The film is creatively staged and lit, combining rural lyricism with a surreal tone, and Joe August was again the cinematographer. Dieterle once wrote that “Since the camera is handled by a specialist, the director has to work closely with that man, which is the cameraman. This relationship cannot be too intimate. He is really to the director, what the brush is to the painter.”6 He and August must have had such a relationship.
This is Dieterle’s most artistically interesting period, from 1939 until the early 1950s, when he was not under contract with Warner but moved around as a freelance director. He made several of his best films, in various genres but with a romantic vein and often elements of the expressionist and sometimes supernatural, such as The Devil and Daniel Webster. In the late 1940s/early 1950s, Dieterle also made some thrillers with Lizabeth Scott. The most famous of them is probably Dark City (1950), an exciting, elegant, and well-acted thriller set in New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles with Charlton Heston in his debut role. As mentioned, Dieterle also worked repeatedly with Joseph Cotten in the male lead, including I'll Be Seeing You (1944), Love Letters (1945, also with Jennifer Jones), Portrait of Jennie, and Peking Express (1951). The last one is a remake of Shanghai Express (1932), and Dieterle does a reasonably fine job but he is not Josef von Sternberg and, even more of a problem, Corinne Calvet is not Marlene Dietrich. The many long conversations of politics are quite interesting on the other hand.
Dieterle also made the absurd but wonderful Rope of Sand (1949), with Peter Lorre and Burt Lancaster. Another post-war film is The Searching Wind (1946), with a screenplay by Lillian Hellman, about the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe seen through the eyes of a naive and isolationist American family. Sylvia Sidney excels in an otherwise rather pale cast, but the best thing about the film is Dieterle's exquisite staging, use of mise en scène and cinematic space, with long shots in deep focus.
Both these two films were produced by Hal B. Wallis, whom Dieterle had worked with in the 1930s at Warner Bros. and was now reunited with. Neither man was associated with Warner by this time, and Wallis would produce at least nine more of Dieterle’s films, making him one of his most important partners.7 The first of the post-war ones was Love Letters, which I like a lot.
As mentioned, Portrait of Jennie was produced by Selznick, and he also produced I’ll Be Seeing You. Selznick’s mega western Duel in the Sun (1946), of which King Vidor directed the largest part, was another one with which Dieterle was involved. He directed enough scenes to feel that he should get a co-director credit, and Selznick agreed, but their case was dismissed and Vidor is the only one credited.8
In addition, Dieterle was Selznick's talent scout, to see if there were any new European directors that might be something for Selznick to sign a contract with. One of those that Dieterle was interested in was Hasse Ekman, and they held talks in Rome. But for some reason there was never any collaboration between Ekman and Selznick.
In Italy, Dieterle also made two films: September Affair (1950) with Joseph Cotten and Vulcano (1950) with Anna Magnani. I have not seen the latter one but it was made as a response to Roberto Rossellini's film Stromboli (1950), with Ingrid Bergman. September Affair is about two middle-aged people who meet by chance in Italy. Even though they are both married they start a relationship that eats away at their consciences. This time Cotten plays against Joan Fontaine, and it is a low-key and delicate depiction of love, longing, and responsibility.
Due to his clear leftist sympathies, and his friendship and cooperation with people associated with socialist and communist beliefs, Dieterle got into trouble during the McCarthy era and its aggressive anti-communism. It also seems as if his partnership with Wal Hallis ended after Red Mountain. They might have had a falling-out over About Mrs. Leslie (1954), which Dieterle wanted to make but Hallis instead wanted Daniel Mann to do it; a new, fresh director who had just had a success with his first film Come Back, Little Sheba (1952).9 Whatever the reasons, Dieterle’s film career came to a standstill towards the mid-50s (I am admittedly fond of Elephant Walk (1954)).
He and his wife moved back permanently to West Germany in 1958 and together they devoted themself to the theatre. Not only for the stage but he also directed plays for German and Austrian television. For a few years he was manager of the Bad Hersfeld’s open-air theatre, and after that he managed the Austrian travelling theatre company Der Grüne Wagen (The Green Wagon).10 He died in 1972.
Dieterle was known for always wearing white gloves when directing. I do not know exactly why he did that, if it was because of his superstitions (he was very superstitious, and used horoscopes to plan his life), if they had a practical significance, or if it was just a fashion statement. Either way, those white gloves were his signature.11 As for a common signature style or theme in his oeuvre, that is less straightforward. The politics are there, but far from all of his films. He often returned to expressionism, but he was not always given the opportunity to act out that side, especially not when he was under contract for Warner. But his visual style is stimulating, and he knew how to take advantage of the whole room, to let the background and the people around the main characters also be part of the image to create dynamism and a deeper sense of space. It also provides a greater degree of realism, regardless of subject matter or supernatural features. In addition, he was obviously romantically inclined, which permeates both the subject matters and the relationships between the characters. There is a forgiving aspect to his films, the characters are not punished, but rather that, as Jean Renoir once said, the problem is that there is always a reason for why people act the way they do, and who are we to judge them?
I am not claiming that Dieterle is a forgotten master. He did not start any trends or made masterpieces or defining examples of any given genre. But he was a good, solid filmmaker with ambitions and a personal touch. If you have not seen his work, it is worth exploring, and I think these five should be included in your explorations:
The Life of Émile Zola, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Portrait of Jennie, and Dark City.12
There are a couple of books by Hervé Dumont, in French, William Dieterle: 1893-1972, (1973). and William Dieterle: un humaniste au pays du cinéma (2002). Alas my French is not good enough for me to be able to read them.
From an article Dieterle wrote in Cinema Progress, December-January 1938–1939, and which is included in Hollywood Directors 1914-1940, ed. Richard Koszarski (1976).
It was also one of Luis Buñuel's favourite films.
For this article I have checked Joseph Cotten’s autobiography Vanity Will Get You Somewhere (1987), Memo from David O. Selznick (1972), edited by Rudy Behlmer, David Thomson’s Showman: Life of David O. Selznick (1993), Juárez (1983) by Paul J. Vanderwood , Starmaker: The Autobiography of Hal Wallis (1980), by Wallis and Charles Higham, Hal Wallis - Producer to the Stars (2004) by Bernard F. Dick, some encyclopedias, bits and pieces from the internet, and a couple of articles about, and interviews with, Dieterle. There is Jan-Christopher Horak’s article German Exile Cinema 1933-1950, published in Film History, Volume 8, 1996, and an interview Tom Flinn did with Dieterle in 1972, the year he died, which was published in Velvet Light Trap in the fall of 1975.
It is one of many stories Saunders wrote about aviators, in connection with the First World War. Other adaptations are Wings (William Wellman 1927), Dawn Patrol (Howard Hawks 1930), Ace of Aces (J. Walter Ruben 1933), and The Eagle and the Hawk (Mitchell Leisen 1933).
From the same Cinema Progress article as in note 2.
The nine Wallis/Dieterle films from after the war are Love Letters, The Searching Wind, The Accused (1949), Rope of Sand, Paid in Full (1950), September Affair, Dark City, Peking Express, and Red Mountain (1951).
Several others directed parts of it, including Josef von Sternberg.
A sensitive and moving drama about a lonely woman married to a recovering alcoholic, with Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster. There were several of these intimate domestic dramas in the mid-50s. Marty (Delbert Mann 1955) is another, more famous, example with Ernest Borgnine.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Gr%C3%BCne_Wagen
When I was working as a cinema projectionist at the end of the 1990s, I wore white gloves as an homage to Dieterle. Weird but true.
Of the ones he made in the US and which I have not seen, I am particularly curious about these three: Fog Over Frisco (1934), Red Mountain, and The Turning Point (1952). Maybe I save them until I retire. But I should watch some of his German films soon.