Von Sternberg by John Baxter

Author:John Baxter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Come Early, Stay Late

They called Hop’s girl the Blonde Venus. Hop did not mind because she was not his real girl.

—Ernest Hemingway, Big Two Hearted River I

WITH SHANGHAI EXPRESS COMPLETED and Riza’s lawsuits no longer news, von Sternberg proposed filming Émile Zola’s novel Nana, about a failed actress turned courtesan in Second Empire France, but Samuel Goldwyn had beaten him to it with a version starring the latest answer to Garbo—Russian actress Anna Sten. Paramount wasn’t disappointed. Some executives felt that Dietrich had already played too many prostitutes, and a change of tone was advised. Also, notwithstanding a 1926 film by Jean Renoir, Nana resisted movie treatment, as it contained nudity, lesbianism, an illegitimate child, and Nana’s death from “smallpox”—a euphemism for syphilis.

All the same, Paramount would not have protested any film the couple chose to make, since Shanghai Express grossed $3.7 million at a time when the studio’s annual income had sagged from $25 million in 1930 to a mere $8.7 million in 1931. Because of Zukor’s greed in snapping up 500 cinemas at Depression prices in 1929–1930, Paramount Publix was in receivership and would shortly be declared bankrupt. Schulberg, chosen as scapegoat, was invited to “retire” by midyear. Von Sternberg and Dietrich negotiated the deal on their next film during the transfer of power to incoming studio boss Emmanuel “Manny” Cohen, formerly head of its newsreel division.

Josef von Sternberg at the height of his powers in the mid-1930s. He told Clive Brook, “The only way to succeed is to make people hate you. That way they remember you.”

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