Ernst Lubitsch, the German-born American film director, producer, writer, and actor, is best known for his sophisticated, elegant, and witty romantic comedies, often starring Pola Negri, Greta Garbo, and Jeanette MacDonald.
When Lubitsch first landed in New York from Bremen, Germany, with Paul Davidson of the European Film Alliance at the end of 1921, the success of “Lubitsch Comedies” and his films starring Negri were already commodities in the world market.
“The Lubitsch Touch” is an homage in film parlance to the director’s unique visual style imbued with delicate emotions, irony, and pathos.
An expiring contract is a cause for concern
Lubitsch’s contract with Paramount Pictures would expire the first week of March 1932. The director was eyeing future opportunities and options, including producing plays on Broadway for Rogers and Hart.
In his first decade in the U.S., Lubitsch had overseen production and directed films; now the American media reference to the motion picture director “branching out” discounted his previous theatrical experience in Germany with Max Reinhardt.
So when Lubitsch left Hollywood for New York in February the move drew some attention from the press. Was Lubitsch headed to the new field of radio, the internet of the 1930s, offering free entertainment at home?
As the drama played out in newspapers on both coasts, a recently discovered letter sheds some light on private conversations taking place behind the scenes.
Would Lubitsch return to the stage?
The story begins with the arrival in Los Angeles of Dimitri Tiomkin during the week of January 24, 1932. His first order of business is a meeting with Ernst Lubitsch to discuss creating a business venture to produce plays and musicals in New York, modeled after the Theater Guild. (In the early 1930s Tiomkin would maintain residences in both Los Angeles and New York where he was better known as a concert pianist and nascient Broadway composer and producer.)
Previously, Lubitsch was a guest at a Russian-themed party hosted by Tiomkin and his wife, choreographer Albertina Rasch, in the summer of 1930 after a Hollywood Bowl concert showcasing the work of the bicoastal power-couple; they were looking to expand their respective crafts beyond New York in the world of film. At the time, Lubitsch’s film, Monte Carlo, was opening in theaters and being billed as “spicier” than his recent hit The Love Parade, starring Jeanette MacDonald. Rasch was busy choreographing filmed dance numbers for MGM, often with music by Tiomkin. And Tiomkin was about to score his first Hollywood feature film, Resurrection, for release in 1931.
Now it was February 1932, and Lubitsch, Tiomkin, and MacDonald were bound for New York—Lubitsch and MacDonald were to join lead actor Maurice Chevalier to shoot retakes for One Hour With You, a film that would fulfill Lubitsch’s three-picture deal with Paramount—where upon arriving by train on the 16th it was announced that it was Lubitsch’s intention to produce Broadway musical shows, with reports from Hollywood that MacDonald would lead the productions.
In addition to Lubitsch and Tiomkin, the creative partnership would include Albertina Rasch and Walter Wanger. Lubitsch and Wanger, the latter would soon parlay his experience with Paramount in New York as a general manager of production and film scout to become a Hollywood producer, were friends. Wanger recently joined Columbia to work for Harry Cohn as vice president in charge of the home office.
Meanwhile, Tiomkin and Rasch, with Wanger and MacDonald, would introduce Lubitsch to their New York friends and colleagues at a reception at their apartment at 135 Central Park West on February 23. Among the more than thirty guests were Queenie Smith, headliner of the Broadway production of A Little Racketeer, filled with music and dance by Tiomkin and Rasch; Montague Glass (Tiomkin would produce his play, Keeping Expenses Down, on Broadway in the fall); writer Thyra Samter Winslow, who would soon make her way to Hollywood; banker, patron of the arts, and potential financier Otto H. Kahn, professionally associated with Wanger, the two socialized together in New York; actress Mady Christians; and director Lewis Milestone in town on holiday.
Within days of the party, Wanger left New York for Hollywood to fulfill his new role at Columbia. Meanwhile, Lubitsch sat down for a chat with a New York Times reporter and openly discussed the “highly uncertain state” of his future. In contract negotiations he would demand more freedom. “I have no desire to leave Paramount,” he said, “My relations with the company are most friendly. After all, it is eight years now that I make pictures for them.”
While Lubitsch was still working with Tiomkin and Rasch, the results he admitted were “highly problematic.” Finding a suitable property was proving difficult. “Before I die I want to do one more stage production, but I must have the right play.”
February rolled into March and Lubitsch remained in New York where he continued to confirm reports he would direct a play in the fall in association with Rasch and Tiomkin.
Lubitsch’s Paramount contract
Contract negotiations between Paramount and Lubitsch see-sawed, after announcing they were a “day or two” from concluding on March 2, stories began to circulate: Lubitsch would direct a play starring Pola Negri or Fox wanted him to film the Noel Coward play, Bittersweet. He was in talks with both United Artists through Lewis Milestone and Columbia Pictures with Wanger, although apparently, due to a recent producers’ understanding, Paramount reserved the right to match any outside offer.
In the end, Lubitsch would opt to re-sign with Paramount as announced on March 14. (Variety, behind the curve, didn’t post the news until March 25.) Before leaving New York, Lubitsch would attend the premiere of One Hour With You on March 23.
Was decamping to New York a bargaining ploy by Lubitsch to extract better terms from Paramount?
Biographer Scott Eyman writes, “Lubitsch may have been bluffing; he also may have been entirely serious. He genuinely adored the theater, but it is a highly speculative business and Lubitsch, aside from taking money seriously, was far less sure of himself in the theater than he was in the cinema.”
The slight pay cut in Lubitsch’s new contract, according to Eyman, was offset by a provision that allowed the director to make one picture on loan-out, perhaps part of the freedom he was seeking.
Once back under contract to Paramount, Lubitsch announced he would return to Los Angeles, which he did on March 28, while his collaborators Tiomkin and Rasch would remain in New York to select a play and cast. (An earlier report noted that Lubitsch had abandoned the project “for the time being.”)
A potential property: The Czarina
The property under consideration by Rasch and Tiomkin was The Czarina, a 1913 play by two Hungarian dramatists, Melchior Lengyel and Lajos Bíró. It was adapted by Edward Sheldon for the New York stage in 1922 and served as the basis for Lubitsch’s 1924 film Forbidden Paradise with Pola Negri. Just days after Lubitsch’s Paramount contract lapsed, at least one newspaper reported that the director might abandon Hollywood to produce an operetta based on The Czarina. Further, there were reports that Arthur Freed was in New York to work on the lyrics and book and Tiomkin would write the music. For Czarina, Freed would be “carrying over” some of his material from a Viennese operetta he had been preparing with Vicki Baum and Oscar Strauss, both of whom recently left the U.S.) Maria Jeritza was being sought for the title role.
This is where the story gets interesting. A letter Albertina Rasch wrote to Hans Bartsch on April 2 elicited a rapid and robust response two days later. The play agent and producer did not mince words. “There has already been so much misconstrued talk on various sides in connection with this matter that I suppose it does not make much difference if now you add some more to it.” The letter is reproduced below.
Letter to Albertina Rasch from Hans Bartsch, April 4, 1932, page 1.
Letter to Albertina Rasch from Hans Bartsch, April 4, 1932, page 2.
Bartsch, who specialized in bringing Central European plays to Broadway, had only recently returned to New York from Europe after a prolonged absence and was also working on developing a musical play based on The Czarina. Bartusch cites an post-dinner conversation with Tiomkin—after “the matter seemed to be at a deadlock”—wherein the two mutually agreed that since after signing with Paramount Lubitsch would not be available for a stage production until the fall of 1933, Bartusch would move forward on a musical adaptation of Czarina with his own money. “Your husband thought this solution a splendid idea.”
After receiving the above letter there is no indication that Tiomkin or Rasch would pursue the project.
Future collaborations
Back in Los Angeles, Lubitsch would attend the opening of One Hour With You and resume making films for Paramount. The director failed to return to New York to direct a play in the fall of 1932 or 1933 and that appears to be the end of that matter; however, that did not curtail future collaborations. Albertina Rasch would serve as the dance director for Lubitsch on the 1934 MGM operetta, The Merry Widow, and Dimitri Tiomkin was music director for the 1945 war documentary directed by Lubitsch, Here Is Germany.
Dimitri Tiomkin and Albertina Rasch, circa 1927.
Sources
“Ernst Lubitsch Arrives,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 1, 1922.
“Society of Cinemaland,” by Myra Nye, Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1930.
“Mr. Bartsch Brings Home Some Bacon,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 27, 1931.
“Comedy Week at Loew’s State,” by Llewellyn Miller (Cinematters editor), Los Angeles Evening Post-Record, January 27, 1932.
“Plenty Offers For Walter Wanger,” Hollywood Reporter, February 3, 1932.
“Wanger Goes to Col. [Columbia Pictures],” Hollywood Reporter, February 4, 1932.
“Lubitsch and Jeanette to N.Y. For Retakes, Hollywood Reporter, February 11, 1932.
“Lubitsch,” Hollywood Reporter, February 13, 1932. “…headed for Radio?”
“Lubitsch Will Enter Gotham Musical Field,” Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, February 16, 1932.
“Lubitsch, Film Director, to Produce Musical Shows,” New York Times, February 16, 1932.
“Lubitsch Branches Out,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 18, 1932.
“Plays and Players,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 23, 1932. Reception for Lubitsch.
“Wanger Leaves Friday,” Hollywood Reporter, February 24, 1932.
“‘Rain’ for Tallulah Bankhead,” by Irene Thirer, Daily News, February 25, 1932. Reception for Lubitsch.
“A Tea in Honor of Ernst Lubitsch,” Times Union, February 25, 1932. Other guests include Leonard Liebling, Sigmund Spaeth, and Radie Harris.
“A Chat With Mr. Lubitsch,” New York Times, February 28, 1932.
“Lubitsch and Paramount Getting Together,” Hollywood Reporter, March 2, 1932.
“Pola Negri May Do Play with Lubitsch,” Hollywood Reporter, March 4, 1932.
“Freed’s Libretto and Tiomkin’s Music for Lubitsch’s ‘Czarina,’” Variety, March 8, 1932.
“Have You Heard?,” Washington Daily News, March 9, 1932. Mentions The Czarina.
“Fox After Lubitsch To Do ‘Bittersweet,’” Hollywood Reporter, March 11, 1932.
“Lubitsch Signs Again With Paramount for a Year,” Hollywood Reporter, March 14, 1932.
“Lubitsch Undecided,” Variety, March 15, 1932.
“Lubitsch Drops Plans for Show,” New York Times, March 21, 1932.
“Lubitsch Rejoins Paramount,” Variety, March 22, 1932.
“Will Morrissey May Move Into Carroll,” New York Daily News, March 24, 1932.
“‘One Hour with You,’ Gem Lubitsch Talkie,” by Irene Thirer, New York Daily News, March 24, 1932.
“Plays and Players,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 25, 1932. Subheading, “Lubitsch’s New Line.”
“Wanger Eastbound,” Variety, March 29, 1932.
Letter from Hans Bartsch to Albertina Rasch, April 4, 1932, courtesy of Olivia Tiomkin.
Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise by Scott Eyman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Walter Wanger: Hollywood Independent by Matthew Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).