William Boyd - The New Confessions

Even Doon thought this, although the phase she anticipated following this one sounded hopelessly unrealistic. I pointed out to her that the association was a splinter group of a faction (the Artists’ League) that had broken away from the KPD. It was hardly a firm base upon which to build a new society. She admitted that.

“But our principles are universal,” she would say.

“What do you mean?”

“Which side is your heart on?”

“The left.”

It was a neat debating trick, but I often used to recall it later when I became a victim of political ideologies myself.

But Adolf Hitler as chancellor was too much for her to take. She began to plan to leave almost at once. And, it had to be said, her own career was not holding up that well. Doon spoke German, but not to a standard necessary for German talkies. The film she had made with Mavrocordato ( The Blond Nightmare , need I say more?) had, not surprisingly, flopped. Offers of work were now forthcoming only from British or American co-productions (hence the trip to Paris) and the parts were only cameos — the token American vamp or minx, tourist or heiress. Mavrocordato was already in Paris working with Pommer and Pabst. He had been trying to persuade Doon to move there for months. In the end Adolf Hitler provided the final push.

Why did I let her go? I was no longer worried about Mavrocordato, oddly enough. I guessed that if she felt like it Doon might sleep with him again, but no prohibition on my part would make any difference. In fact, I thought we could both do with a break from each other. Since Sonia had gone, my life with Doon had not been the unalloyed bliss I had expected. We were like those gimmicky weather forecasters, where a man or a woman pops out of a little house to prophesy rain or shine. As luck would have it, our fortunes and spirits rarely coincided during the early thirties. While I was flattened by the Confessions disaster, Doon was busy. When I picked up as I began to work on the sound version, Doon could get no decent roles and the political situation made her miserable. I let her go, then, sadly but fairly confidently. I planned to be filming at Neuchâtel in the near future: we would not be far apart, Doon could join me at weekends. After The Confessions I would happily move with her anywhere. In any event, I did not see my tenure in Germany lasting much longer. Eddie had recently been summoned to the Propaganda Ministry by Goebbels himself and was asked to explain why he was making a film about the notorious French socialist J. J. Rousseau. Eddie ducked the issue by saying the Rousseau he planned to film was in fact Swiss. But the dead hand of the official censor seemed poised. Paris might even be an admirable base from which to complete the film. Gently, I tried to persuade Eddie to transfer Realismus to another country. He said he would think about it.

The Confessions now existed in three versions. There was the worthless and appalling Jean Jacques! , there was my six-hour definitive Part I and now we had about fifty minutes of dubbed sound episodes — fragments waiting to be linked by new sequences that we planned to film at the end of the year and into 1934.

Karl-Heinz would be free of his UFA contract in November, and then we would film the Neuchâtel episodes. We would link this new narrative to the flashbacks and then move on to film the years of triumph and fame in Paris. This Part II would encapsulate Part I and it would all be more or less in sound. At least, this was how Eddie and I worked it out. But Eddie was not all that sanguine. Realismus, while no longer in severe financial difficulties (so he assured me), was no longer the power it had been. A. E. Groth had returned to Sweden, where he had had a stroke. Gast and Hitzig, the company’s two most successful directors after me, had joined the ever increasing stream of exiles: Gast to Paris, Hitzig to London. Leo Druce was required as my producer and in any event his two films had not been particularly successful. Even the most charitable friend (i.e., me) would have to describe Leo’s directing as “workmanlike.” Also, he was preoccupied with personal affairs. Lola had divorced him, gone to Hollywood and returned, and was now suing him for some reason or other. Eddie could not afford to hire more-established directors. The choice facing him as head of a small studio down on its luck was either make risky trash or else stick with his star. Eddie knew I could get work at UFA, Terra or Tobis at any time I wished. But I was loyal. He somehow managed to scrape up enough money and the filming of The Confessions: Part II was announced in small advertisements in the trade press.

From my diary:

February 17, 1934. Hôtel du Lac et Bellevue, Neuchâtel. Successful day. Anny reacted marvelously when the stones came through the window. Real terror. Unfortunately she was slightly cut on one arm, so I decided to save the English scenes till later. A scream is a scream in any language. No word yet from Doon. All my cables to Paris are unanswered. Good atmosphere among the crew. There is no doubt that sound has a limited role to play in the cinema. The noise of glass breaking and Anny’s screams are genuinely frightening .

We had been late starting Part II , true to form. We came down to Neuchâtel in early January. The departure from Stettin Station was in strong contrast to that of 1928. Now our little troupe occupied only one carriage and a baggage wagon. Still, it was stimulating to be at work again. Despite the interruption I felt a strong sense of continuity as we settled into the hotel. Here we were again in another medium-class, medium-sized hotel on the banks of a lake surrounded by mountains. Annecy, Geneva and now Neuchâtel. The pilgrimage of The Confessions continued the tracing of Jean Jacques’s steps. And here we all were: myself, Leo, Karl-Heinz, Horst Immelman, each one dedicated to the task in hand. Only Doon was missing, but she was not far away.

The first disaster struck before a foot of film had turned. Helene Rednitz, who was playing Thérèse le Vasseur, came down with bronchitis and after a week in bed went back to Berlin. Leo, Karl-Heinz and I went to Geneva and spent two days patrolling bars, theaters and variety shows looking for a replacement. We found our Thérèse in the Théâtre de la Comédie, a young girl playing a chambermaid in some tired farce. Her name was Anne-Louise Corsalettes. I decided to call her Anny La Lance (after a small village on the Lake of Neuchâtel) and, I would like to say, a star was born. I certainly enjoyed the opportunity it afforded me of saying, “I want you to be in my movie,” but Anny was no actress, she just looked perfect. Rousseau described Thérèse as “a girl of feeling, lacking in coquetry, with lustrous gentle eyes.” Anny had large dark eyes and a blunt, quite pretty face. She was a big girl with strong shoulders and hips and it had been her clumping exits and entrances in the farce that had attracted our attention and had taken us backstage. Naturally, she was overwhelmed at our offer.

Anyway, that was Anny La Lance and she performed well under my direction. She did everything I told her and bore me no ill will when I set her up in order to get the right response (as in the diary passage quoted above, when Jean Jacques’s house at Môtiers was stoned by hostile suspicious villagers). Filming was going well and I was shooting German and English versions concurrently — such are the problems of sound. Karl-Heinz’s English accent was strongly Germanic and Anny spoke only French, but I could overdub later.

My one vague worry was the long silence from Doon. We had spent a rather awkward Christmas in Paris, neither of us accustomed to reunions. We were not at our best. Neither of us was a good letter writer, either, and a month elapsed before I sent a cable to her Paris address, but there was no reply. I was surprised, but assumed she had gone off somewhere to make a film.