Viktor und Viktoria's Darling of the Gods

Before The Cafe, Lesser Ury, 1920s

Guest blogger Karin (aka/Whistlingypsy) of Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows is a freelance technical writer living in the Austin area. She has contributed to Reel Life in the past, treating readers to lyrical prose as well as a unique exploration of her subject in every case - from her two-part series on legendary art director Van Nest Polglase in 2010, to her entry on composer Bernard Herrmann for my Vertigo blog event early in 2012, to her contribution, "The Feminine Mystique of Mad Men," for my Mad Men blog event later that year. Karin's current fascination is Weimar-era Berlin's art, cabaret, cinema and music scene...
                                                                                      ~  The Lady Eve


Classic films offer the viewer an opportunity to glimpse, however briefly and dimly, the world in which the audience and the performer lived. Classic films can also provide an imperfect record of the psychological and sociological issues of concern to the public. For many of us, German cinema during the Weimar era remains frustratingly elusive, while art and auteur

Renate Müller performs "Castle in Spain"
 in Viktor und Viktoria

cinema rightfully have a place in the nation’s legacy, popular cinema has suffered neglect with critics and fans. Thomas Elsaessar, in Weimar Cinema And After: Germany’s Historical Imaginary, states this is due, in part, "to a bias on the part of the Weimar cultural elite for art films or American popular cinema, a scarcity of surviving examples from other genres, and a persistent myth that German cinema was incapable of producing really good comedies after Ernst Lubitsch left for Hollywood". The development of Weimar cinema coincided with the transition from silent films to sound pictures and German filmmakers excelled in making cabaret-style comedies and popular musicals. Most film fans are familiar with Viktor und Viktoria (1933) as the inspiration for not one but four remakes. The original material also acts as a small crack in the otherwise accepted perception of German cinema as a dark mirror reflecting a nation’s soul and authoritarian traits.

She Represents 
Jeanne Mammen (1927)

The film certainly reflects Weimar era sauciness in all its manifestations, but referring to the film as a spoof of Vesta Tilley, London’s famous male impersonator, is to ignore the influence of Berlin’s inclusive cabaret history. Berlin’s cabarets were home to some of Europe’s most creative and experimental individuals, encouraging a free exchange of ideas and influencing art, cinema, literature, music and philosophy. The cabaret scene brought into being an incisive and satirical world of humor and music, exploring fads and fashions, political ideologies and sexual mores in the city and Germany at large. In fact, the tension between conservative and liberal, experimental and quotidian made Berlin’s cabarets simultaneously attractive and a target to competing factions. Cabarets, most importantly, supported a tradition of male, as well as female, impersonators who fashioned stage personas meant to depict gender ambiguities, outwit censors and reflect life.

Fans of Blake Edwards’s 1983 version of the film will find many similarities in Reinhold Schünzel’s dynamic and provocative original. Susanne Lohr (Renate Müller), a young aspiring actress, is befriended by Viktor Hempel (Hermann Thimig) after both audition for but fail to get work. The pair consoles one another in a local café, Susanne sharing her aspirations to become a cabaret performer, Viktor revealing his ambition to be a serious actor. Viktor admits that he is presently working as a female impersonator, and when illness prevents him from performing his act, he persuades his new friend to perform in his place. Susanne and Viktor’s luck changes over night and the pair is launched on a European tour that eventually takes them to London. Susanne becomes the toast of society, and the object of Robert’s (Anton Walbrook, billed as Adolphe Wohlbrück) fascination.

The film rightly deserves acclaim for achieving in the early sound era what others such as Rouben Mamoulian were not. Schünzel’s use of sound and image to comic effect, and his integration of singing and dancing in the plot, foreshadowed the integrated Hollywood musical. Viktor und Viktoria (1933) is not simply a brilliant example of the early sound era musical, but a joyous exploration of the rhythm of speech and music. The entire film is in blank verse, rhyme or sprechgesang (the spoken song), in combination with carefully orchestrated blocking, camera movement and editing. The film also reflects irony and nostalgia for operetta, once a part of the cabaret legacy and denounced in 1913 as ‘the worst enemy of German theatrical art’. The more optimistic film operettas of the late Weimar era reflect a myth that luck could bring overnight prosperity. Susanne’s discovery and instant fame integrate cabaret humor and the operetta myth in a post-Weimar era film.

Georges et Georgette (1934)

During the early sound era, the practice of filming additional versions for foreign markets was common in both Europe and Hollywood. The same year Viktor und Victoria was filmed in German; Georges et Georgette (1934) was filmed for French language audiences. Anton Walbrook reprised his role as Robert, Meg Lemonnier took over the role of Susanne and Julien Carette (La Grande Illusion) appeared as Georges. In 1935, Jessie Matthews, the dancing divinity, princess personality and the girl Bette Davis called ‘England’s greatest star’ appeared in a British Gaumont-Gainsborough remake.

First A Girl (1935)

The plot of First A Girl (1935) is expanded to include a job in a dress shop for Elizabeth (Matthews), which allows for additional song and dance numbers. Viktor und Viktoria (1957) is an Agfacolor quality film and strays the farthest from the original. Erika (Susanne in the original) invents a brother as part of her "cover story", and when Erika can no longer maintain the charade, she tells Viktor she has “killed” her brother, Erik. Through a comedy of errors, Erika is arrested for the “murder”, and her beloved Jean (Robert in the original) confesses to complicity in the murder. A comparison of the double-exposure travel montage from Viktor und Viktoria to the same from First A Girl reveals the latter's faithful adaptation (the quality of the first is a bit squiffy, the dialogue is in German, but Susanne sings "Castle in Spain" in English).

Robert and Susanne get "uncomfortable"

Schünzle’s film is certainly available for gay and gender film scholarship, but in its charmingly prim manner, the premise extends few invitations. The material for Schünzel’s Viktor und Viktoria becomes a sophisticated adult comedy and adds levels of gender ambiguity, when the traditional plot of a woman dressing as a man evolves to a woman passing for a man. The film also expands the notion of pre-code films and takes the screwball comedy to levels Lubitsch and Mamoulian would not have been permitted to explore, in which feelings are present but denied or thwarted. However, contemporary audiences and non-German speaking viewers are at a disadvantage in appreciating the film’s allusions and nuanced jokes. The most skillful effort of translation can take the viewer only so far in understanding an element of humor uniquely rooted in Berlin joke-telling. In his book Berlin Cabaret, Peter Jelavich recounts an experience of a visitor to the city, “No gestures, no wry faces, no smirks: the Berliner is dry and cold-blooded when he jokes. He displays an intentionally deadpan countenance, which stands in such contrast to his words that it never fails to provoke laughter” (many cabaret performers stood absolutely still while performing). This aspect of Berlin and cabaret style humor is reflected in Robert and Susanne’s inexplicably tense manner of flirtation, which initially seems counter-intuitive to notions of joke delivery.

Viktor und Viktoria's ensemble cast

Robert’s bemused fascination quickly turns to gleeful torment after discovering Susanne’s secret and realizing the many ways he can use this against her. Although a visit to the barber and a visit to a seedy cellar cabaret play-out ironically, Susanne remains a sweet, if baffled, young woman in over her head, showing no hint of the transparent sexuality Dietrich displays in her Lola-Lola or Amy Jolly characters. This is hardly surprising given the political climate in Berlin at the time. Work on the film began, and the film's premier occurred, within month's of the Nazi accession to power. In October of 1932, Berlin’s chief of police ordered a ban on same-sex couples dancing in public. In January of 1933, the process of gleichschaltung (“the forcing into conformity”) brought artistic organizations under state control while eliminating objectionable artists from the field. The hugely popular Eldorado cabaret became the headquarters of the Sturmabteilung (SA), and in February of 1933, Hermann Goering ordered closure of similar establishments and instituted the arrest and imprisonment of gays and transvestites.

Renate Müller

In the absence of a definitive biography, Renate Müller’s life and early death have acquired legendary proportions. However, a search of available publications makes it possible to sketch a less sensational portrait of the actress’s last days. Renate Müller's skills as a singer and her knowledge of foreign languages made her the ideal actress for musical comedies. The actress made twenty-five films between 1929 and 1937, and her role in Reinhold Schünzel’s Peter der Matrose (1929) was the first of seven comedies in which she appeared for the director. Her sister, Gabriele Müller, described Renate’s screen appeal and why she captivated Weimar era audiences, “A new type of character was born in German film: after the ‘vamp’ and the ‘cute girlie’, there appeared a girl with heart who wasn’t a sweetheart, who was smart but not a bluestocking, charming yet not coy – a down-to-earth and bracingly natural girl.” Her trip to England in the summer of 1931 to film Sunshine Susie, as part of a British Gaumont-Gainsborough-Ufa film exchange, was reported widely in the cinema related press, and her personal appearances drew large crowds of fans.

Renate Müller 
in Sunshine Susie (1931)

Her girl next-door persona and her wide-ranging popularity would prove to have a darker responsibility once the Nazis reached power. She is said to have been brought to the attention of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who saw in the actress a Hollywood style star, and one who could fill the void left by Marlene Dietrich after she emigrated from Germany. She continued to play coquettish and self-confident females, however, in 1937 when UFA became "the most horizontally and vertically intergrated German film conglomerate under the Nazis"; she found her career increasingly sidelined and she was forced to take a role in Togger (1937), a blatant propaganda film. In May of the same year, People Of The Studios, reported “O.E. Lubitz, once producer-manager for Bavaria and Atlantia films, has formed a company with Styria-Film of Vienna, with offices in Berlin. Renate Müller, one-time English star takes the lead in a film version of the Strauss operetta, Die Fledermaus", in fact, the role went to another actress. The mystery surrounding Renate Müller’s death on October 7, 1937, officially attributed to a cerebral hemorrhage, lead to increasingly wilder speculation including a rumored suicide.

A musical number from Liebling Der Götter

Phil M. Daly reported on May 20, 1947 in his column, Along The Rialto (The Film Daily), director Henry Wilcox and his wife, actress Anna Neagle, would produce a film “based on the life and exploits of Renate Müller”. The reporter proceeded to refer to the actress as a “Nazi spy, film actress and musical comedy star” and the proposed film as a “spy thriller”. The actress's biography would eventually receive the cinematic treatment, over protests of surviving family members, in Liebling Der Götter/Darling of The Gods (1957). Tim Bergfelder in International Adventures: German Popular Cinema and European Co-Production describes the film's grim opening, “Even audiences previously unfamiliar with Müller’s fate would have known not to expect a happy ending after an introductory, and rather didactic, caption at the beginning of the film informed them that the narrative would 'portray the life and death of an artist in unfree times'. Contemporary viewers hoping to find a dramatic re-creation of the actress’s life will undoubtedly be disappointed (a bit a trivia, Peter Van Eyck, who plays Renate’s love interest in the film, is said to have been romantically involved with Jean Ross).

I would like to thank Lady Eve for her gracious invitation to contribute to her always elegant blog. I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable help provided by DocTom (Thomas) in understanding certain nuances of the German language.

Reference Material: Berlin Cabaret, Peter Jelavich; Film and the German Left in the Weimar Republic: from Caligari to Kuhle Wampe, Bruce Murray; International Adventures: German Popular Cinema and European Co-Production, Tim Bergfelder; The Film Daily, December, 1930, March 1932, May 1947; Weimar Cinema And After: Germany’s Historical Imaginary, Thomas Elsaessar; World Film News and Television Progress: People Of The Studios, May 1937.
 
Click here for all of Karin's contributions to Reel Life.

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The Feminine Mystique Of Mad Men

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.”

 - Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

Although the title might suggest the notion; this is not a discussion of feminism in Mad Men’s very male dominated industry. The inspiration is, in part, taken from the photograph above: a provocative portrayal of beautiful women and men perfectly accessorized and stylishly coiffed. The division of these individuals into feminine and masculine, light and dark, personal and professional, implies not only different natures and different worlds but a separate mystique.

Mad Men artfully dramatizes the many ways female identity can wiggle and re-shape in even the narrowest spaces, from captivating leading ladies to intriguing supporting characters. The show has explored some popularly held notions of femininity, some of which were already ossified by the 1960s, by placing these notions within the context of an advertising campaign. When Paul Kinsey proposed his "new concept" for the Playtex account in "Maidenform," (S2, E6), "All women want to be Jackie Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe", he wasn't referring to their conservative or liberal politics. He was putting a mid-century spin on the old Freudian concept of "the chaste versus the loose" woman. The return of the show for season five is a great opportunity to look back, and in the words of advertising man Leo Burnett, see “the inherent drama of everyday life” through the eyes of Peggy, Joan and Betty, Mad Men's powerful feminine mystique.

Be unforgettable,
disarming and sensational
in MYSTRECE by Hanes.

The quote at the top of the page was introduced in the storyline of "Flight" (S2, E1) and in this context seems to be a wholly masculine concern, but there is no reason why a woman wouldn't want her personality to seem "beautiful, interesting and modern". In 1963, Betty Friedan published her groundbreaking work on the nature of the female, titled The Feminine Mystique, which I will attempt to highlight: her goal was to dispel the notion that women were not only best suited but exclusively suited to the role of wife and mother, an instinctive role portrayed in terms worthy of a mythical character: the feminine mystique. She frankly addressed the false notion that a woman's suppression of her natural role, sublimated by a desire for an education and/or a career, would lead to grave discontentment. Her premise would have taken issue with Ann Margaret singing "How Lovely To Be A Woman" and Nancy Kwan singing "I Enjoy Being A Girl." Why? Despite these songs celebrating the woman of the late Eisenhower era, with humor and irony, Friedan would have claimed each woman’s cause for celebration is too dependent on a phone call from a man, and implies all the trappings of femininity is meant to help catch a husband.

By Appointment to
Her Majesty,
Mrs. Homemaker.

Friedan also appraised the advertising industry from the perspective of inducing women to believe each new product was necessary to her role in the feminine mystique. The adage “a housewife's work is never done”, was behind the notion that so long as a woman is busy, she will never question her role as wife, mother and consumer of household goods. The development of a range of cleaning products and household items was intended to keep women busy (and presumably content) Monday through Sunday, sunrise to sunset. This could certainly be interpreted as a woman's guide to elementary Freud with a proto-feminist spin, in Friedan’s defense, we know this is partly true. However, the book has been criticized, after the passage of fifty years, for a limited view of women’s choices and for the research’s exclusion of women of color and a narrow focus of sexual orientation. It would be foolish to assume American women had no options fifty years ago, each life was as different as the woman who would tell the story.

“I’m Peggy Olson, and I want to smoke marijuana,” Sterling Cooper’s only female copywriter informs her male colleagues in "My Old Kentucky Home," (S3, E3). A young woman who knows her mind, she later tells her secretary, in response to a comment informing her actions have consequences, “Don’t worry about me. I am going to get to do everything you want for me”. The question is why Peggy doesn’t tell her, “I am going to get to do everything I want,” perhaps she isn’t so certain after all. Peggy has a steep learning curve her first day on the job at Sterling Cooper advertising agency.

A promotional tie-in:
Underwood Red nail polish
& Underwood 150 typewriter.

Her secretarial school training would have prepared her to take and translate shorthand, type and make carbon copies, but unlikely to have equipped her for the intrigues and romantic values of a mid-century Manhattan advertising office. The agency's office manager, Joan Holloway, implies she is Peggy's senior in all the subjects that matter and happy to advise her as she begins her new life. Peggy goes decidedly "off lesson plan"and her innovations result in a heartbreaking scene in "The Wheel," (S1, E13) when she turns away from her newborn child. Peggy's entry into the world of copy writing is made possible not solely based on a clever turn of phrase when she hands Freddie Rumsen a "basket of kisses". He recognizes her ability to create "word images", a skill he is certain will be invaluable in persuading female consumers to buy an entire line of similar products. When her talent is not enough to persuade her male co-workers to take her seriously, and they fail to include her in an important meeting, she arrives at the bar where they have taken the client dressed to accentuate her advantage over her male colleagues. In response to her question regarding her bad luck with men in "The Jet Set," (S2, E11), Kurt, Sterling Cooper's freelance artist, tells her "you are old style" and offers to give her a new hairstyle.

Discover the Swinging
World of Yamaha

Peggy struggles with the dichotomy of needing to be taken seriously as a woman in a male dominated industry, and she stumbles through attempts to be one of the boys while becoming one of the girls. Although her integrity will not allow her to trade on her sexuality to get ahead, she is not without contradiction and she breaks personal and professional taboos when she begins an affair with Herman "Duck" Phillips. The pressure of these conflicting desires finds an object in the person of Don Draper, a man Peggy has reason to respect and trust. She expresses her reserved anger and disappointment in "The Suitcase" (S4, E7), when she accuses him of stealing her idea for the Glo-Coat campaign. She also wonders, with the parade of women in Don's life, why not her? She doesn't harbor a secret wish to spend time in Don's bed, she has accepted the truth behind the image. Peggy does want reassurance that her desire for recognition and her need to be desirable aren't mutually exclusive, and she confides, "I know what I'm supposed to want," she says, "but it just never feels right, or as important as anything in that office."

“If this were me I would say something like ‘fun loving girl, responsible sometimes, likes to laugh, lives to love, seeks size six for city living and general gallivanting. No dull moments or dull men tolerated.’ or something like that!” Joan (Holloway) Harris, Office Manager at Sterling Cooper advertising agency comments on Peggy Olson’s notice for a roommate in "The Arrangements" (S3, E4). Joan is a competent and confident woman; she can cook and she's a good hostess; she can play the accordion and sing in French, if necessary. She makes no secret of her taste for the finer things in life, and she is certain she'll get everything she wants.

Pardon Us While We Slip Into
Something Comfortable!
The 1963 Dodge gives women options.

The trouble is, she has been married to a young surgical resident for a year, and she seems as discontented with married life as she had become with her life as a single woman. Joan’s voluptuous feminine allure appears to mask something darker, sometimes merciless, which often shows through the cracks of her well-coiffed, couture-clad exterior. Joan is in the midst of a year-long affair with Sterling Cooper partner Roger Sterling in "Long Weekend" (S1, E10) when he tells her he is free to spend the weekend with her. Joan is far from the "fun loving girl" Roger expected when she refers to The Apartment and describes a female character as being “handed around to the office men like a tray of canapés”. Joan later reveals to Roger in "Six Month Leave" (S2, E9) a vulnerability he seems unable, or unwilling, to accept. He sees the death of Marilyn Monroe as inevitable, a movie star who had everything and threw it away. Joan sees herself in Marilyn, a beautiful, sensual and vulnerable woman who, after "this world destroyed her," was destined to die alone. Joan has begun to consider the truth of being a self-aware and sexually liberated woman, much like a courtesan of an earlier era it comes with built in limitations and an equally bleak future.

She's busy...
yet she's beautiful...
she uses Pond's.
Pond's makes a woman
alluring and competent.

Joan doesn’t tolerate others defining her life or her personality, and she has an even lower threshold for whiners. When Joan asks Lane Pryce for time off to spend with her husband in "The Good News" (S4, E3), Lane alludes to her willingness to use her sexuality to get whatever she wants, "I understand that all men are dizzy and powerless to refuse you", and he adds, "Don't go and cry about it". Joan later expresses a frustration that Peggy Olson knows only too well when she throws a bouquet at Lane and tells him, he consistently makes her "feel like a helpless, stupid little girl." When her husband returns defeated after doing poorly on an interview in "The Gypsy and the Hobo" (S3, E11), Joan is so enraged by his comment that she has never known what it is "to want something your whole life" and not get it, she picks up a vase and breaks it over his head. She might feel a crack on the head is the least he deserves, after he raped her at Sterling Cooper and she quit a job in which she had made herself indispensable. She might feel his failure to notice she wants so much more from her life is typical of him; he had told her earlier she should "be home eating bonbons and watching television, not reading scripts". However, her act of rage is made all the more inexplicable in "The Summer Man" (S4, E8) when she arrives home as her husband is about to leave for basic training. "Who am I going to talk to?" she asks him and breaks down in tears when he mentions her friends at work. Her overwhelming sense of isolation could lead her deeper into a cruel deception.

“I hate this place, I hate our friends, I hate this town,” Betty Draper informs her husband in "Souvenir" (S3, E8) after an idyllic trip to Rome. Why is Betty Draper so miserable? She lives a charmed life as the wife of Sterling Cooper’s most promising advertising executive. She had an affluent childhood; attended Bryn Mawr; where she majored in anthropology; she had a brief career as a model; she is well-read and speaks fluent Italian. She lives comfortably in a beautiful upstate suburb, where she is a housewife raising three young children.

Be Bright! Be Light! Have a Pepsi!
Modern girls neither
sacrifice pleasure nor
compromise their figures.

Betty Draper is also, much like Joan Holloway, a good hostess: she knows how to dress well and set a good table. Her misery is abated with cigarettes and cocktails, horseback riding, European vacations, a glamorous wardrobe, and occasional target practice with a neighbor's pigeons. Why, then, is she fast becoming the inspiration for “Mother’s Little Helper” with her own fainting couch? Betty spends time in therapy, after exhibiting “unexplained emotional episodes,” which could be further compounded when her husband echoes her doctor’s assessment in "Red in the Face" (S1, E7), “Sometimes I feel like I'm living with a little girl." Betty could be living her life with unrealized aspirations, in a mistaken sense of loyalty to her mother, whose standards continue to haunt her. Her relationship with her husband perpetuates the parent/child dynamic. He scolds her for allowing a salesman into the home, he criticizes her bathing suit for looking desperate, and uses her as a test subject for a ad campaign. Perhaps Betty finds a few answers in her choice of reading material, The Group by Mary McCarthy. The novel explores many themes, including the notion of whether higher education makes women unsuitable as wives and mothers and the use of mental illness by husbands to control ambitious and intelligent wives.

This Spring, The blues
Are The News for Eyes!
and for Little Girl Blues.

Betty confides to her therapist in "The Wheel" (S1, E13) in her first truly honest moment "I can't help but think that I'd be happy if my husband was faithful to me”. A particularly messy exposure regarding her husband’s infidelity with the wife of a comic, finally forces Betty to face the harsh reality regarding her marriage. Betty tells Helen, her divorced neighbor, in "The Inheritance" (S2, E10) that Don has moved out of the house. She is undecided about the future of the marriage and responds, "Sometimes I think I'll float away if Don isn't holding me down." Her divorce from Don Draper, when she learns the truth of her husband’s past, and her remarriage to Henry Francis, does nothing to alleviate her feelings of insecurity. Although she made no secret of her contempt for all things Ossining, she lives in the same house with her new husband that she once shared with Don. She has never been a bad parent, perhaps a little disengaged, but she is becoming increasingly irrational with Sally and Bobby. Henry's mother observes the children during a particularly stressful Thanksgiving in "Public Relations" (S4, E1) and tells her son "They are terrified of her". Betty responds in "Tomorrowland" (S4, Ep13) when Henry asks her why she fired Carla "I want a fresh start". However, she appears overwhelmed by the prospect of leaving her old life behind and lies down on Sally's unmade bed.

This post is dedicated to Sterling, Cooper Draper and Pryce's most senior member of staff, Ida Blankenship: she was conscientious and loyal to the bitter end.

~

Guest contributor Whistlingypsy's blog is Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows.

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Bernard Herrmann - Composer Of Haunting Music and Treacherous Dreams

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

Just as my fingers on these keys

Make music, so the self-same sounds

On my spirit make a music, too.

~ excerpt from Peter Quince at the Clavier by Wallace Stevens

"I don’t think Mozart’s going to help at all."

~ Midge in Vertigo

British composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, who greatly influenced young Bernard Herrmann and for whom he had a great admiration, took the subject of film score composition seriously and in encouraging his contemporaries to do the same said, “I believe that the film contains potentialities for the combination of all the arts such as Wagner never dreamed of, and I would therefore urge those distinguished musicians who have entered the world of the cinema to realize their responsibility in helping to take the film out of the realm of hack work and make it a subject of a real composer.” Music constitutes an essential part of the film experience, yet we often fail to acknowledge its importance to the way we perceive film. This is not to say that music is comprehensible only to those who have formal training; to the contrary the ability to appreciate music is a capacity we all share. The often overlooked genius of composing for film in general, and of Bernard Herrmann specifically, is an ability to work within the parameters of music theory while exploiting the viewer's instinctive knowledge of musical conventions, creating a lush musical landscape perfectly suited to the emotional content of the image captured on film.

Composer and conductor Bernard Herrmann was born on June 29, 1911 at New York City’s Lying In Hospital, the eldest of three children born to Abraham and Ida Herrmann. Benny, as he was known to his family, suffered a major health crisis at an early age in the form of St. Vitus’s Dance, which he barely survived. He spent much of his time as a boy and a young man reading biographies of artists and composers, learning musical works through his father’s collection of 78rpm recordings and attending live performances of the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. His literary discoveries through the New York Public Library included the Treatise on Orchestration by Hector Beriloz (he was familiar with the composer’s Symphonie Fantastique and later claimed the book convinced him to become a composer). Herrmann wrote many small-scale works as a teenager, most of which remain unpublished. He studied music at the Juilliard Graduate School, and at the age of twenty he formed the New Chamber Orchestra of New York.

He joined the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1934 where David Ross, CBS’s top announcer, asked Herrmann to compose music for his poetry reading series. Herrmann’s setting for La Belle Dame Sans Merci (a favorite poem at the time) so impressed CBS executives that he was given a job conducting and six years later became Chief Conductor of the CBS Symphony Orchestra. Through his many and diverse projects for CBS, in 1938 Herrmann was selected composer-conductor for The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which brought him to the attention of Orson Welles. The young director left no room for negotiation in his meetings with RKO executives concerning his choice to score his film, and he insisted Herrmann should receive a competitive salary despite his inexperience, “If he’s good enough to do my score, he’s good enough to get the best price.”

Herrmann was no snob about cinema, he was familiar not only with American films and composers but also with their European counterparts, but he was well aware of the obstacles in composing for film. A film composer often completed scores in as little as two or three weeks, rarely had time to do his own orchestration, and once the music was written and conducted had little to say about the sound levels or dynamics of the score in the finished film. Herrmann was confident, however, that working with Welles would be different and it was with no small excitement that he announced his leave of absence to go to Hollywood. His career as a composer for film was demanding and rewarding, in addition to his outstanding scores for Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), he earned his reputation for glorious music on films such as Jane Eyre (1943), Hangover Square (1945) and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), all of which were about to bring him to the attention of another Hollywood genius, Alfred Hitchcock.

The sometimes variable nature of film composition often left the composer without work and Herrmann wrote the score, the first of two "television operas," for a 1954 television adaption of Dickens's classic holiday story. His original compositions for television also included The Twilight Zone from 1959 through 1964, for which he composed the original theme as well as scores for seven episodes (at least three of which were included as part of the Syfy Channel's New Year's Day marathon). His work for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour from 1963 through 1965 included original compositions for seventeen episodes.

Bernard Herrmann's "Concerto Macabre," Hangover Square

Much has been written regarding the turbulent end to the collaboration between Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock, both from the composer’s and the director’s perspective. Herrmann and Hitchcock were, for most of their eleven years of collaboration, friends as well as associates and Steven C. Smith, author of A Heart At Fire’s Center, observes, “The rapport between the two was strong from the start.” The Hitchcocks often played host to the Herrmanns; Benny and Lucy were invited to spend the weekend at Hitchcock’s secluded Bel Air home, where days were spent in leisurely conversation and evenings spent enjoying Alma’s superb cooking.

Jack Sullivan, author of Hitchcock’s Music, suggests the director’s relationships with his composers were often passionate, and as often troubled, in part because the director was "intoxicated by and knowledgeable about music.” Hitchcock's music and sound notes for Vertigo were more specific than on past projects, but what finally emerged as Herrmann’s film score is very different from what Hitchcock had planned. The film’s original title, From Among The Dead, was a reference to the French novel on which the story is based, and Herrmann’s composition was to be supplemented by passages from a lost score that had haunted the director for decades.

Hitchcock had seen Mary Rose, a dramatic tale of lost love regained written by J. M. Barrie, during the play’s London run in 1920 and became enthralled by the music of Norman O'Neill.

The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Volume 62 dated March 1, 1921, described the composer and his work for Mary Rose as follows: “A dreamer of dreams and a mystic, Norman O’Neill has the power of expressing in his music the ethereal world in which he dwells. His flights of fancy, intangible though they are, touch a responsive chord in the hearts of the imaginative. . . .The ‘Mary Rose’ call continued to haunt the ear with gentle insistence long after it had reached echo-land.” Hitchcock was especially struck by 'the Call' connected with the heroine's disappearance, he later remembered the sensation as "celestial voices, like Debussy's Sirenes nocturne." Hitchcock twice failed to uncover the music, which he had also intended to use as part of the Rebecca film score, and as usual he deferred to Herrmann with memos and notes reflecting his confidence in the composer, "Mr. Herrmann may have something to say here" and "All of this will naturally depend upon what music Mr. Herrmann puts over this sequence."

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Debussy's "Sirenes nocturne"

If there is truth in the notion that music is the language of the inexpressible; Bernard Herrmann’s film score for Vertigo has given a voice to an ordinary man who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Herrmann’s main title sequence intentionally avoids an identifiable melody, exploits unpredictable rhythmic changes and flirts with tonal ambiguity. Kathryn Kalinak, author of Settling The Score observed, "The combination of violins and tubas played in alternately ascending and descending arpeggiated chords (played in succession rather than simultaneously)" and moving in contrary motion creates an asymmetry (if you will) of sound keeping the viewer continually off guard musically. Herrmann's main title music is heard first, but the musical effect in combination with Saul Bass's visual imagery in the opening credits reinforces the feeling of vertigo. The visual acts as counterpoint to the music; the spiraling images create a visual vortex in the same manner the music creates a spatial vortex and the viewer enters the world of the film suspended between two possibilities. Film criticism often invites the amateur “to see into” the life of a film, which results in as many interpretations of dramatic themes and visual cues as there are viewers. Film music makes a distinction between the life experienced by the characters and the life viewed by the audience.

The classical film score can often combine nondiegetic music, music heard by the audience but not experienced by the characters, and diegetic music, music heard as part of the world in which the characters move and live. The two instances in which diegetic or “live” music occur in Vertigo are scenes of emotional significance for Midge and Scottie. The first occurs after a bit of magical thinking on the part of Hitchcock, when Scottie is inexplicably delivered from hanging precariously between life and death. The scene opens on a cozy domestic setting, the man and woman could be husband and wife, could be brother and sister. We learn about both through their comfortable exchanges and through the use of music. John-O, as she calls him, and Midge share a past but appear uncomfortable in their present relationship. Her choice of music, an Overture by J. C. Bach, and her taste in contemporary furniture slyly hint that she is comfortable making brief visits to the past while living very much in the present. He is uncomfortable sitting in her Eames style chair and tells her the music is the cause of his vertigo (all important cues in the events that will soon engulf Scottie). The second, and perhaps more significant, occurs in the use of Mozart’s 34th Symphony as “a rope from heaven” to draw Scottie from his abyss of acute melancholia with guilt complex.

Musical therapy was first used after World War I in an attempt to reach veterans suffering from profound mental trauma, and Scottie's musical therapist has told Midge that Mozart is the boy for him (Author and physician Oliver Sacks relates in Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain not only is music haunting, irresistible and unforgettable, but "music occupies more areas of our brain than language does and humans are essentially a musical species"). Scottie responds to Midge, following her with his eyes and turning his head in her direction, but we can't help but agree with Midge that Mozart isn't going to help at all.

James Stewart’s Scottie is half enthralled to possibility, but remains half captive to reality. A man no longer content with his passivity in the face of life’s acting on him; he is trapped in a sort of tenacious, immaterial fantasy rendering him incapable of action. In his ability to capture the ineffable quality of this character’s waking nightmare, Herrmann essentially created a film score that can be heard on two levels simultaneously. His use of leitmotifs reminiscent of both Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, share thematic similarities but are by no means derivative. Herrmann is here demonstrating his comprehension that some members of his audience will recognize the reference to these musical passages, while all will understand the emotional content of his music (an equivalent can be found in the screenwriter who includes lines of poetry by John Keats which reference the Romantic era against which the film is set. Those familiar with Keats’s life will understand the specific reference; those unfamiliar with Keats’s life will hear the beauty of the poet’s words).

Bernard Herrmann has been called "Hitchcock's Maestro," and while he might have been uniquely suited to capture the spirit of the dark and troubling tales the director brought to the screen, his work before the famed collaboration would establish his reputation. His affinity for the Romantic era, equally the composers as the poets, his "pastoral poetic gloom" and artful mourning of that which is irrevocably lost can all be heard in the hauntingly similar Portrait of Jennie (1948) for which he composed the theme song but was not credited. An observation regarding Vertigo highlights the intrinsic nature of Herrmann's score in the film's storytelling: close your eyes and listen to any passage and be immediately transported to locations and scenes in the film. The true power of Herrmann's score is in the music's ability to be heard independently from Hitchcock's images (the dream fades, the music lingers). Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, recognized the art of Bernard Herrmann's film music, performing and recording many of Herrmann's compositions. Scene D’Amour is the moving heart of a poignant film portrayal of a man suspended between action and despair, death and life, love and obsession, themes worthy of any Romantic era composer.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong.

~ excerpt from Piano by D. H. Lawrence.

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "Scene D'Amour" from Vertigo

~

Whistlingypsy/aka/Karin of Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows is a technical writer working on a contract/freelance basis who lives in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas. She was inspired by The Lady Eve (the blogger not the movie) to begin a blog and share her fascination for Jazz Age music and Silent Era films. She considers herself an enthusiastic amateur with an interest in films, music and writing.

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Van Nest Polglase ~ Architect Of Cinematic Dreams, Part II

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

The emergence of those stylistic elements in American films later termed noir by critics is often debated and open to interpretation.

Five years before the films that captivated French critics for their “dark” plots and visual style, John Ford directed an equally dark film for RKO Studios. The Informer (1935) was based on the novel by Liam O’Flaherty and tells the story of an increasingly desperate man. Whether John Ford had the stylistic treatment of German expressionism in mind when making the film seems unlikely, but Gypo Nolan’s (Victor McLaglen) flight through Dublin’s fog wreathed streets suggests these atmospheric elements as an archetype of noir essentials. Through the effective use of black velvet drapery and fog, to disguise the minimal budget for art direction, Polglase and assistant art director Charles Kirk created an atmosphere that is alternately brooding and menacing, dark, claustrophobic and bleak. Setting the story over the course of one night gives immediacy to Nolan’s frantic race to outrun his conscience and his pursuers. This small film would proved an artistic triumph, surprising studio executives, and won four Academy Awards, one for John Ford’s direction and Victor McLaglen’s portrayal of the lead character.

Alfred Hitchcock, before he began directing films in 1925, was active as an art director. He entered the industry in 1919 when he was employed by the Islington studio location of Famous Players-Lasky and he worked as an art director on at least six films before moving on to directing. Hitchcock’s lifelong interest in production design has often been understood in light of his experiences at German studios both in Berlin and Munich and his exposure to German expressionism.

Hitchcock’s first project for RKO Studios had been a comedy and with his next assignment he was given the opportunity to pursue a subject in keeping with his earlier darker films. Suspicion (1941) was notable for first introducing actor Cary Grant and director Hitchcock, and for using art direction as a psychological element in storytelling. The contrast between Lina’s (Joan Fontaine) reassuringly stuffy family home and the coldly menacing home she shares with husband Johnny (Grant) personifies the tension of her state of mind.

The film’s art direction, supervised primarily by Carroll Clark, is also noteworthy for using the human form as an architectural element. The tall and solid form of Cary Grant balanced on the stairs is echoed in the equally tall and solid column at the foot of the stairs. The graceful line of the pinstripe in Grant’s suit is echoed, but altered, in the equally graceful lines of the treads and risers of the stairs. These lines are further mimicked in the lines falling across the wall and surrounding Grant’s head. The elements confirm and confuse by communicating both Grant’s guise of reliability and the shadow of suspicion regarding his motives, all combining to create one of the most emotionally menacing sequences in the film.

Van Nest Polglase is credited with supervising art direction on what is considered the finest film ever made in America. However, the credit for most of the innovative art direction rightly belongs to Perry Ferguson. Many film scholars have written in depth on the making of Citizen Kane (1941), with a focus on cinematography and the use of lighting, but few focus on the contribution of art direction.

Pauline Kael, film critic and author of The Citizen Kane Book, mentions neither Polglase nor Ferguson. Orson Welles, in trade paper ads the day of the film’s Hollywood premiere, gave thanks “to everybody who gets screen credit for Citizen Kane and thanks to those who don’t.” Considering the risk involved in screening the film, this was a generous acknowledgment of the work of many creative individuals. Although Welles appears to have refused to acknowledge Polglase’s contributions, he praised Perry Ferguson’s historical details stopping short of giving Ferguson his due credit on the film.

Ferguson’s use of reversal of scale as Kane’s ambitions move from larger than life to dwarfing the man who created the illusion is one of the film’s benchmarks and an example of RKO’s sophisticated art direction. A comparison of Citizen Kane with a lesser film in production the same year proves the level of RKO’s emerging visual style.

Stranger on the third Floor (1940) was a minor B-film that caused no great stir at the time and could have easily disappeared to the dustbin. Some film historians claim the film contains the first examples of what would later be termed noirish elements (but this is open to debate). Compare the two films for their remarkable similarities: the often dream-like quality, elaborate sets, oversized props and the exaggerated reversal of perspective found in both is significant. The photos to the right show a scene from each film that again reveals a stylistic use of the human form in an architectural environment, and nearly duplicates the body language of the lead character poised at the top of the stairs. Two different art directors created the design of these films, but the designs were produced under the guidance of Van Nest Polglase and RKO art direction.

Polglase left RKO Studios as head art director in 1942 and divided his time between freelance and studio projects before retiring fifteen years later. His film credits during this period include The Fallen Sparrow (1943); A Song To Remember (1945); Gilda (1946); Slightly Scarlet (1956) and B-films directed by Allan Dwan.

In February of 2005, the The Art Directors Guild unveiled its new Hall of Fame and inducted the following legendary production designers at the ninth annual Art Directors Guild Awards: Wilfred Buckland, Richard Day, John DeCuir Sr., Anton Grot, Boris Leven, William Cameron Menzies and Van Nest Polglase.

A trend in film criticism seems to have developed regarding Polglase’s contributions to RKO’s art direction, dismissing them as negligible at best. An unfair appraisal of Polglase may be due to the assumption that he ran his department based on his experiences at and observations of M-G-M and Cedric Gibbons. Richard B. Jewell, film historian and author of The RKO Story states, "The supreme irony of RKO's existence is that the studio earned a position of lasting importance in cinema history largely because of its extraordinarily unstable history. Since it was the weakling of Hollywood's 'majors,' RKO welcomed a diverse group of individualistic creators and provided them...with an extraordinary degree of freedom to express their artistic idiosyncrasies.... [I]t never became predictable and it never became a factory."

Jewell’s assessment that RKO was a studio of artistic freedom did not preclude conflict over creative control. David O. Selznick, the man responsible for Polglase being made head of art direction, left the studio after a brief fifteen months. Polglase remained with the studio for ten years as an administrator and art director, successfully filling both roles with films that satisfied audience demand for inventive entertainment and studio executives’ demand for new revenue. A change of perspective from Polglase taking credit for work he did not do would result in his making possible the outstanding work of art directors Carroll Clark and Perry Ferguson.

There are many elements that form a link between architecture and art direction. The difference between the two disciplines is where architecture “encompasses” space from without art direction “evokes” space from within, and the architecture of film works within cuts and edits, frames and openings. The architect designs a space with an eye to permanence while the art director designs a space with an eye to the ephemeral. This leaves the art director a greater sense of flexibility when creating his projects unfortunately; the architect and the art director both depend on the efforts of preservation to maintain a permanent record of the artist’s original vision.

Scroll down to read Part I of Van Nest Polglase ~ Architect of Cinematic Dreams

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Van Nest Polglase ~ Architect Of Cinematic Dreams, Part I

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

The artistry of classic films reveals a cinematic alchemy in melding talent both before and behind the camera. The actor/actress and director are the two most visibly recognizable artists who created the image on screen. A careful viewer can also learn to recognize the names of the creative individuals who labored behind the scenes. Van Nest Polglase was one of these individuals who created the world in which our favorite characters move and have their lives.

Despite his elegant and intriguing name, his nearly decade-long tenure as RKO Studios’ art director and over 300 films to his credit, Polglase remains something of an enigma. In the absence of a definitive biography on the man’s life and career, much of what has been written is often contradictory and filled with errors (he was not married to actress Dolores Del Rio as one source claims).

Van Nest Polglase was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 25, 1898, and his unique name is a result of his family’s Cornish heritage. His education included the study of both architecture and interior design, but this is where the two paths of his life story diverge.

Some sources claim that Polglase finished school and was employed by Berg and Orchard, a New York architectural firm. He is also credited with work on the Presidential Palace under construction in Havana, Cuba. The likelihood that he was involved in the Cuban project is remote, the architects of record were Cuban born Carlos Maruri and Belgian born Paul Belau, and some sources claim that Polglase actually dropped out of school before receiving a degree in architecture.

However, in 1919, at the age of 21, Polglase was working for Famous Players-Lasky (today known as Paramount Studios) at their New York studio facilities. He made the move to the studio’s Hollywood location when financial constraints forced the closing of the locations in New York and Europe. He remained with Paramount Studios for a decade before moving to M-G-M where he worked under Cedric Gibbon’s leadership.

During his first decade alone, advances in architectural design and filmmaking technology forced Polglase frequently to reevaluate his style and expand his visual vocabulary of art direction. He came to filmmaking at a time when the first sets were built to resemble a theater stage to give audiences a reference point, and the category of “settings” covered everything from art direction to set design. The practice of grouping the different disciplines into one category, as well as crediting an individual for a department’s work, makes it difficult to track Polglase’s work during his early career. However, the AFI Catalog of Motion Pictures lists Stage Struck (1925, Paramount) and Untamed (1929, M-G-M) among his early titles.

Stage Struck proved a challenge for Polglase to create a design suitable for Gloria Swanson, who had distinguished herself as a design and style icon through her previous films in partnership with Cecil B. De Mille. Untamed was set in three distinctly different locations requiring equally distinct design sensibilities and featured Joan Crawford in her first sound picture, which came with the added challenge of incorporating the new technology into the set design.

RKO Studios was formed when the KAO (Keith-Albee-Orpheum) theater chain and FBO (Film Booking Offices Of America) were brought together under the control of RCA (Radio Corporation of America). David O. Selznick was hired in 1931 and in his new role as production chief, he recruited producer/director Merian C. Cooper, director George Cukor, actress Katharine Hepburn and art director Van Nest Polglase. One of Polglase’s first projects as art director was to redesign the studio logo to incorporate the blinking radio tower at the heart of RKO’s business ties with the RCA Corporation.

The image most frequently associated with RKO’s art direction is the series of films that paired Fred Astaire and Gingers Rogers. The films were charming fantasy confections, but the art direction was equally rooted in the concepts of architecture. The art direction is ideally suited to the dancers with both personifying the streamlined and elegant, witty, athletic and sexy ideals of art deco architecture.

The fantasy version of Venice in Top Hat (1934), which combines streamlined modernism and neo-classical references, displays an architectural style both immediately recognizable and equally unfamiliar to movie audiences. The result is tied neither to the past nor the present, but freely evokes the glamorous lifestyle of theatergoers’ dreams, transporting weary Depression era audiences out of their all too grim present and allowing them to hope for a better future. The popularity of the Astaire and Rogers films allowed the studio to pursue projects set in a wide variety of eras with equally varied plotlines.

A glimpse at Katharine Hepburn’s filmography during the period reveals the careful attention to detail in the Civil War era design of Little Women (1933); the modified art deco chic of Adolphe Menjou’s apartment in Morning Glory (1934); the use of a Victorian era Arts and Crafts design blend in the boarding house of Stage Door (1937) to communicate homey comfort; the all for fun eccentric design of Bringing Up Baby (1938) from the jail cell to the museum display.

In 1939, RKO undertook the ambitious remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a film that had been an enormous success for Universal Pictures during the silent era. The challenge was to create a new version that would exceed the expectations of those who could remember the original and make new fans of younger moviegoers. The film proved a showcase for Polglase’s attention to detail, and his perfectionism gave the historical sets an element of accuracy not found in the creations of the larger studios.

The Paris of the RKO version features extravagant sets, immense staircases and oversized doors; the attention to detail is evident in the massive bells (Gabrielle, Big Marie and the rest) and a whole cow roasting on a spit (a prop that seems to have traveled to Citizen Kane for a picnic), the garden party lit by paper lanterns and the grand spaces within Notre Dame, from Clophin’s (Thomas Mitchell) court of miracles to Quasimodo’s (Charles Laughton) sanctuary in the clouds.

A fundamental point to keep in mind is the emergence during this period of an RKO-specific visual style, and while the stylistic elements of art direction are the product of a talented art director, other factors contribute to this development. The influence of German expressionism in film noir is widely acknowledged and can be observed in films made by German expatriates in Hollywood during the silent era. The creative individuals of RKO’s art direction were working between the influence of expressionism and the emergence of film noir, and the challenges of the studio system; reduced budgets and relatively modest sets provided the genesis of a new genre.

During Polglase’s tenure at RKO, the studio faced continued economic challenges and numerous changes at the executive level. One such change in management philosophy led the studio to distribute films for independent producers, with Walt Disney’s earliest feature length titles among these films. The artistic vision of any RKO film bore Van Nest Polglase’s name, but he was not solely responsible for realizing this vision. Polglase relied heavily on his department and especially on the talents of Carroll Clark, Perry Ferguson and Charles Kirk. The question regarding artistic vision is additionally problematic when such independent directors as Ford, Hitchcock and Welles are behind the camera. Did these directors have cooperative relationships with Polglase, working to bring their visions to the screen, or was an art director entirely secondary to their vision?

Part II will follow soon...

Thank you Lady Eve for your gracious invitation to contribute to your blog site, and thank you filmguy24 for your invaluable insights into the world of architecture as it relates to art direction.

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