That’s the great thing about Stroheim: for fifteen years he bankrupts the studio; for fifteen years they throw millions at him, again and again; saying nothing when he tinkers with a film for years, which he then abruptly drops when he finds it tedious; watching patiently as he spends six weeks working on a single love scene, the length of which, just between us, is twelve yards; paying a ton of money to the stars, extras, and studio workers, everyone runs around for a whole month without doing anything, just because “Von” isn’t in the right mood yet.
Even so, they hold onto Stroheim—the way they would hold onto cactuses or decadent wind chimes. Out of respect for his unique skills, people even buy into his moods. They don’t let him go. Perhaps they’re ashamed of being surrounded by so much levelheadedness. But now we have Chaplin and “Von,” two geniuses full of caprices and quirks—marvelous, isn’t it? Just like in Europe.
* * *
Stroheim came to America even before the war. He doesn’t say why. He was previously an active-duty Austrian officer. Once he was in New York, he had to adapt somewhat: Stroheim debuted in America as a flypaper salesman in Newark. A few months later he was balancing goulash at the Little Hungarian Restaurant on the infamous Houston Street. Then he laid railroad ties and struggled along as a worker while heading west, where he eventually became a ferryman on Lake Tahoe in northern California. In the south, just a few dozen miles away, so to speak, Hollywood was springing up, and cash was flowing.
His ascent can be summed up in a few words. A film company comes to Lake Tahoe. Stroheim gets involved, earns money in the easiest possible way, the camera thing appeals to him, he joins up with this group and goes to Hollywood. David Wark Griffith is in the middle of shooting a film called Old Heidelberg. Stroheim’s face is a wonderful fit: he plays an extra as a student in a dueling fraternity. One day, there’s an argument in the studio: Griffith is not happy with the medals. Stroheim comes forward, expertly sketches genuine Heidelberg medals, and is promoted on the spot to the position of technical adviser at three times the pay. Then Griffith uses him as an actor in Hearts of the World, with Stroheim playing a German officer. For the first time he creates a merciless character, which makes a stronger statement against war and militarism than a thousand words. In America a catchphrase is attached to Stroheim’s officer: the man you love to hate. In Germany he is branded a turncoat, a traitor, a warmonger.
* * *
Stroheim is in front of Carl Laemmle, the almighty man at Universal: Let me make a movie, I need five thousand dollars. An American would have laughed in his face: megalomaniacal extra! Laemmle is a German. Having an Austrian stand before him and come up with plans, brimming with enthusiasm at his own prowess—Laemmle feels sparks fly. He offers the money, the five thousand dollars. And throws in another thirty thousand on top of that. That was the cost of Stroheim’s first film, Blind Husbands. Stroheim edits the film. Shows it to Laemmle. The editing screen screams out new and original material. All conventions turned upside down. Everything gone about differently. Laemmle shakes his head: Dear Stroheim, you’re five years ahead of us!
But he gives him money once again. Stroheim makes The Devil’s Pass Key, then Foolish Wives. Script, direction, lead actor: Stroheim. Always as an officer, an Austrian, a Russian. Always the man you love to hate. Foolish Wives cost one million dollars. Mangled versions are released in Berlin. Audiences laugh. Stroheim continues to be called a warmonger, and a fool to boot. Stroheim begins work on Merry-Go-Round over in the States, reconstructing the whole Prater from Vienna. Longing for his homeland is eating away at him. So as a consolation, he can at least re-create its setting.… He doesn’t finish shooting the film. Leaves Laemmle for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Makes Greed.
Greed runs for exactly one day at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo. Never has there been this kind of film scandal in Berlin. People are aghast that he is five years ahead of us. Independent of the Russians, he uses the Russian style before they do. He foresees something along the lines of visual editing and montage. Shoots in associations. And exposes for the first time: this is how a wedding is in reality, this is a funeral. Sternheim? No, those are George Grosz characters, their brutal trains of thought written all over their faces. Those fascinate Stroheim!
Stroheim had his first major critical success with The Merry Widow. A box office success as well, his only one. His next-to-last film, The Wedding March, cost millions. Disaster lies ahead: they get “Von,” write up a contract, he swears by all that is holy to spend no more than five hundred thousand dollars and not to shoot any longer than three months. And the moment he has the megaphone back in his hand and sits in the director’s chair again, he forgets all that. Can’t get past the details. Erich Pommer tells us that he shoots one kiss for six weeks.… The lime-tree blossoms that have to fall onto the kissing couple fail to fall just so. The producers grumble but keep coughing up money. Often “Von” pays for the retakes out of his own pocket, like a rich dilettante! Thousands of yards are used up, with whole streets built up, then torn down again. Chaplin—the eternally seeking, experimenting, critical Chaplin—is purposefulness personified in comparison with Stroheim. “Von” turns the studio upside down. Then another director is brought in, who finishes up filming the thing in a mad rush. Just get it done.
Even so, working with him works out. The last film, Queen Kelly, with Gloria Swanson, took only ten weeks! They cleverly had the contract read: Stroheim gets one hundred thousand dollars for the manuscript and direction. But the film has to be finished within ten weeks, or else the additional shooting comes at Stroheim’s expense. And finished it was, one day before the deadline. Swanson played a madam at a brothel; the film is said to be magnificent. (Incidentally, there was a falling-out later on: Stroheim refused to reshoot a sound film insert, because he took a dim view of Movietone. Trial with Swanson. Edmund Goulding, from Anna Karenina, makes the sound film scene.)
* * *
Stroheim is a poor man. DeMille, Griffith, Lubitsch don’t know what to do with their money. Murnau bought himself a yacht and wants to spend a year cruising between Japan and California. Stroheim and his family live in a simple little house, and he drives a four-cylinder car. The pure fool of Hollywood.
People who come from Hollywood report that Stroheim wants to go home, but he lacks the courage: how will he be received in Germany?
Der Querschnitt, issue 4, April 1929
A Poker Artist
THE MAGIC OF FRITZ HERRMANN
There ought to be a corporation designed to give this odd man the opportunity to play poker one single time in Palm Beach with Ford, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt: after this evening the corporation would wind up owning the Detroit Automobile Company and the largest fortune in the world. In response to your objection that this corporation would be financing a card shark, I must state that the man—the poker genius—would have no objections to twenty detectives observing the game in slow motion. Nothing would be pinned on him, even if he had four of a kind or flushes each and every time. The eyes of the wary observers would not keep up with the tempo at which he wields his sleight-of-hand techniques. And he is quicker and better at wielding them than anyone in the whole world. Even though at the age of seventy—a milestone he reached back in March—a person’s fingers do tremble a bit.
His name is Fritz Herrmann, Herrmann with two r’s and two n’s, and he is the owner of a delicatessen on the north side of Berlin. Skinny children from the Wedding neighborhood press their freckled noses against the display window, where raspberry sweets are lined up, glistening like a mirage, far out of reach. There is also laundry detergent for sale, along with vinegar and gherkins pickled with mustard seeds; in the corner there is a dusty pyramid of bouillon cubes, all neat and tidy. The shop is managed by Frau Herrmann; it doesn’t interest him at all. But he is lovingly devoted to the wine cellar under the shop, a superb collection of the rarest labels, which Herrmann, like someone collecting stamps, has acquired using the proceeds from his sorcery. The most esteemed househo
lds in Berlin buy their supplies here, Uncle Herrmann carries the fanciest labels, and he is especially proud of the Austrian wines: Vöslauer, Gumpoldskirchner, vintages now available only in bottles.
The Monte Castello isn’t bad either, a red “border wine,” says Uncle Herrmann, “it doesn’t have the dryness of Bordeaux or the sweetness of Spanish wine.” We’re sitting in a room facing out onto the courtyard, behind the shop, and whenever someone comes into the store and wants to buy something, the bell rings, though it rarely does so. (Any sympathy with the shop owner must be rejected out of hand at this point: Herrmann is a filthy-rich man, who couldn’t care less whether he sells any laundry detergent; he keeps the shop for the sake of amusement.) It is eleven o’clock in the morning. We’re playing poker. What better thing could one do at this hour? I have picked up a new game and shuffle the cards thoroughly. The room smells a bit musty, but the Monte Castello is extraordinary. I give the shuffled cards to my partner, who holds them between two fingers for half a second, then hands them back to me: “You deal!” I deal, one to him, one to me, each gets five cards. He doesn’t even look at his hand, pours himself more red wine, and says in passing, “I lead!” I’ve placed my cards in a pile and slowly and niftily fan them out, another king, so in any case at least three of a kind, not a bad hand. I keep on spreading out my cards: a fourth king!, and the nine of diamonds. So I have an excellent hand, four kings. The only thing that could beat me would be four aces or a royal flush, that is, five of one suit in sequence. “How many do you want?” I ask Herrmann, who keeps on drinking and hasn’t even examined his hand yet. “None!” Heavens, what could he have? Full house? Flush? Straight? That’s all too little. Perhaps he has a royal flush? I can’t imagine he’d have that much luck. I exchange one card for show, examine it with interest, as though I could still come by a fifth king. I’m actually sorry that we’re not playing for money, I would raise him—outbid him—until he folds. But since we’re not even playing for peanuts, I reveal my hand with a laugh. As of this moment, he still hasn’t seen his hand. He looks at my four kings and calmly announces: “Too little!” Slowly he turns over his cards: four aces. While holding the shuffled cards between his fingers for that half-second, he carried out the crucial sleight of hand. The major poker games in Berlin, the ones whose players have yet to meet Herrmann, ought to be warned about him: you can lose your shirt to him. Luckily Herrmann doesn’t play cards; he only plays with them.
In the class of 1874 at Görlitz High School, there was no student less gifted than Fritz Herrmann. He didn’t bring his report card home but instead took it across the border to Austria, to a tiny traveling circus, where he found a job as a poster painter. The boy learned how to do gymnastics on the ground and in the air, although he was really no good at it. At the age of sixteen, he went to Vienna and became an apprentice for Kratky Baschik. Anyone who knows the Prater in Vienna is aware that a booth bearing Kratky Baschik’s name still exists today. Herrmann learned a great deal from his mentor and received thirty kreuzers for his presentation; that is, he was promised that amount but wound up getting five. Baschik had a problem with his lungs and had to stop one day, and Herrmann filled in for him.
He had always been a good speaker, and from observing chubby Baschik’s techniques, he had become a more adept magician than his mentor. Both masters and servants gave him enthusiastic applause, his success grew, a good-sized audience turned up, and one day, so did Herr Rosenbaum, who hired Herrmann for the newly constructed “Venice in Vienna” at fifty guldens an evening.
High society was in attendance evening after evening, and Herrmann made a name for himself. He was even invited to the Sacher Hotel, where some gentlemen wished to have a private performance. Herrmann went there with three sparrows in his left pocket, which he had been carrying for months. He had gathered them up on Hauptallee when they were half-starved and trained them with a precise regimen, so they would fly away and come back when he whistled. The people here seemed quite refined. One of them pointed to a plate with three roasted fieldfares and said, “If you can bring them back to life, I’ll give you my gold watch!” Herrmann put a fieldfare in his hand and deftly switched it for a sparrow, which fluttered up. Life came to the two other birds in the same manner. Herrmann was given the watch, and, because he had entertained the gentlemen so pleasingly, he also got a thousand guldens. As he then learned from the waiter, the man with the watch was King Milan of Serbia, the other gentlemen were Baron Rothschild, Baron Springer, Archduke Ferdinand, and Archduke Este.
Once he was in such fine company, Herrmann was not about to leave it. He spent forty years traveling back and forth throughout the world, always offering top-notch entertainment for the top people. He stayed at the sultan’s court in Constantinople for seven years. He accepted an assignment from the shipowner Ballin to travel to America and back a dozen times to zero in on a card shark who was taking all the money away from the American passengers in poker, and nobody could discover his trick. Herrmann, too, needed twelve trips to figure it out: the man, an Austrian officer, always kept a gold snuffbox in front of him during the games. The snuffbox was matte on one side and glossy on the other. When this officer dealt the cards, he held the deck over the glossy side and thus knew his partners’ cards: if he didn’t see the joker in the deck, he pulled it out of his sleeve, as he had prepared for this express purpose. Herrmann put a stop to the amiable man’s game.
Now seventy years old, he is indisputably the greatest card magician in the world. He turns down any offers to work in variety shows. He does perform, but only at private gatherings, whose hosts can offer him a thousand marks for two or three hours of work. At the moment, for example, he’s packing his bags and traveling to Monte Carlo, where he has two sold-out evenings in the casino. The Monte Carlo shysters’ eyeballs will be popping out of their heads, unable to catch on to even a single trick, let alone do the tricks themselves. Then Herrmann will be a guest at the German Club in Paris, and the following day the featured attraction at the home of a banking tycoon, whose guests he’ll baffle so thoroughly that they won’t be able to sleep for two weeks. The French ambassador won’t win a single one of the hundred games of écarté, the American consul will lose the poker game with four of a kind. For the ladies of the house the ever-so-suave Herrmann will produce the ace of clubs for the jack of hearts, and he will guess which card they thought of without even touching the deck. All this comes off with an elegance not seen among card sharks, for Herrmann is more than that. He is a phenomenon on a par with Rafael Schermann.
Der Querschnitt, issue 6, June 1929
“Hello, Mr. Menjou?”
HE SPEAKS A CHARMING GERMAN—HIS MOTHER IS FROM LEIPZIG
W. R. Wilkerson drinks Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola, which tastes like burned tires. But it is said to be very refreshing. W. R. Wilkerson is in love with Coca-Cola. He is now on his fourth glass. When someone is in love with Coca-Cola, you can bet your last pair of pants, with wonderful odds, that this fan is an American. And if he pours four glasses into himself at once, he is surely a tired American.
W. R. Wilkerson is an American and he’s tired. His card reads Hollywood—New York. He came with the S.S. Bremen; he didn’t sleep in his quest to set new records.
W. R. Wilkerson wants to set up business in Berlin. In Hollywood he publishes a film newspaper dedicated to the actor Adolphe Menjou. He follows him to Europe, hoping to make films with him here, now that Menjou has fallen out with Paramount. One hundred thousand dollars for a film; that’ll be the day. Adolphe had no intention of continuing to put up with this ridiculous price. No, he’d rather go fishing. He demands 150,000 dollars. Paramount doesn’t go for that. The contract falls through. All of a sudden Menjou is overwhelmed by a mighty desire for Europe, no, for work in Europe. He packs his world-famous clothes into eighteen steamer trunks and is now in Paris. Meanwhile, Wilkerson is sounding out the situation in Berlin.
They want to start as soon as possible.
W. R. Wilkerson drin
ks another Coca-Cola. Awful, how can you have so many burned tires—. He looks at the clock. “Time to pay. Unfortunately I have to get to the office. A long-distance call with the Majestic Hotel, Paris, is coming. Would you like to make Menjou’s acquaintance by telephone? Fine by me. I’ll tell you everything as we go.”
* * *
As we go he does indeed tell me everything.
One summer’s day in 1919, a man in a light-gray suit crosses Hollywood Boulevard, a briefcase under his arm. On this day many men cross Hollywood Boulevard, many in light-gray suits and with briefcases under their arms, but none of them carry their briefcases the way our man does; no one walks in as focused a manner and yet as upright. That was striking, to us and to others. A car stops in front of the man.
“Pardon me. My name is Fairbanks. Douglas Fairbanks …” The man with the briefcase doffs his hat with magnificent elegance.
“Pleased to meet you. Adolphe Menjou.”
Fifteen minutes later they’re sitting across from each other at the studio.
“I’d like you to work for me!”
Menjou twirls the left end of his mustache. “I’m terribly sorry. I’m quite satisfied with my job as an agent for the C. C. Burr Enterprises film company. I earn 125 dollars a week, as well as percentages, plus a good Christmas bonus … for I am the best salesman in the place. And who can guarantee, Mr. Fairbanks, that I would distribute your films as well as I do our trash?”
Billy Wilder on Assignment Page 14
