Hedy Lamarr. Ruth Barton
regarded as a director of light comedies and admired for his effortless way of manipulating small details to produce films of great charm. He had started his career just before the First World War, working on sex-education and epic films, nearly sinking his reputation on a version of Quo Vadis (1923) with Emiljannings in the role of Nero that was ill-cast and ran massively over budget. With a new war now seemingly unavoidable, and the economic depression in full grip, audiences were happy to hand over their cash in return for an hour or two of screen comedy. Jacoby's tendency to play moments of chaos to the hilt made him one of their favorites, particularly because he crisscrossed between comedic and musical sequences. Although his comedies seemed innocuous, they allowed audiences to enjoy a gentle critique of the way things were without any danger of serious political engagement.
Although the Viennese film industry could not compete with its prolific neighbor in Berlin, it still turned out a respectable twenty or so films per year in the early days of sound. These films, more than anything else, contributed to the enduring myth of Vienna as the city of “waltzes and lieder, of exquisite emotional sacrifice and dashing but heartless young officers, of Franz-Joseph court intrigues, evenings with ‘Heurigen’ at the Prater amusement gardens, not forgetting the epitome of seductive naivety, the ‘Wiener Mädl’ [Viennese young woman].”3 Production centered around the Sascha Film Studio, founded in 1910 by Count Alexander Joseph “Sascha” Kolowrat-Krakowsky and relocated from Bohemia to Vienna in 1912. The Sievering Studio, where Hedy acted in her first film, was located in the 19th District, conveniently close to her home. As a classic wiener mädl, Hedy inherited a reputation that she would effortlessly exploit: that of the famed innocent-but-seductive Viennese beauty.
Gold on the Street is most notable for being Sascha Film's first sound production, an achievement that was facilitated by funding from the German Tobis Film (subsequently Sascha-Tobis Film). Sascha-Tobis would make its name and secure its income with a flurry of light comedies, of which Gold was the first. Gold's story takes place on the day Dodo (Lydia Pollman), the daughter of a banker, is set to marry Max Kesselberg (Hugo Thimig), her solid but dull fiancé. All are ready for the wedding to start, save Dodo, who is elsewhere, pleading with the famous tenor Dallibor (Karl Ziegler) to run away with her. When that plan fails, she takes up with the globetrotter Peter Paul Lutz (Georg Alexander), who conveniently comes into a fortune and is able to prevent the wedding and run off with Dodo. Hedy's role was too minor to warrant a screen credit or a mention in the press.
In her second film, Storm (Die Blumenfrau von Lindenau), Hedy played a small part as “Burdach's secretary.” The making of the film was a big event in Vienna, particularly since its 13 March 1931 opening was planned to coincide with the unveiling of the Sascha-Filmpalast.4
The story was an adaptation of Bruno Frank's well-known comedy Sturm im Wasserglas, with the title changed so that audiences wouldn't mistake it for an art film. It takes place on the day the small town of Lindenau is preparing to elect a new mayor. The front-runner is Town Councilor Thoss (Paul Otto), who has campaigned as a friend of the people. All appears to be favoring Thoss, that is, until the Flower Lady intervenes. She is outraged because her dog, a mongrel named Toni, was impounded after she failed to pay for its license. With the townsfolk on her side, an idealistic journalist, Burdach (Harald Paulsen), highlights the councilor's duplicity. This wins Burdach the heart of Thoss's young wife, who leaves her husband for the journalist and all falls happily into place in the end. The film's modest critique of the pomposity of officialdom and its assumption that the townsfolk would unthinkingly support anyone from their class went down well with certain reviewers. Audiences, too, reportedly laughed and applauded throughout the Berlin premiere, which was attended by the director and Toni. The only drawback was technical—some of the dialogue was lost when viewers laughed for too long; the trade press recommended that filmmakers bear this in mind when making further sound comedies.5
The star of that film was nominally the German beauty Renate Müller, who would later die in mysterious circumstances after becoming embroiled with leading Nazi figures. Much of the critical praise, however, went to the veteran Viennese comedienne Hansi Niese, who played the Flower Lady and whose performance, it was predicted, would win her a new generation of fans in Germany. With her small role, Hedy ought not to have expected a mention, nor did she receive one in most of the reviews. Still, the critic of Lichtbildbühne was sufficiently taken with the secretary at the newspaper, whose eyes were “as pretty as a picture,” to devote a line in his review to the unknown, and still unnamed, performer.6
While reviews of Storm were appearing in the press, Hedy was branching out. Her formal schooling, as far as she was concerned, was over. The March edition of Die Bühne carried a photograph of Hedy taken by the up-and-coming Viennese photographer Trude Fleischmann. The accompanying text describes Hedy as a young “society woman, who has just finished her schooling and is looking for a career in film.”7 Who inserted this notice? One suspects that Hedy sweet-talked someone with influence into promoting her in what was then one of Vienna's most popular theater and society magazines. But more important for her career and her burgeoning reputation as a local beauty with acting ambitions, Hedy met Max Reinhardt.
The great Vienneseborn director had always had an ambivalent relationship with his native city, moving back and forth between it and Berlin. In 1923, he began running the Theater in der Josefstadt and (thanks to the generous pockets of his patron, the war and inflation profiteer Camillo Castiglioni) restored it with “real gold and red brocade and velvet, with Venetian chandeliers and ceiling frescos by old masters and an asbestos curtain displaying the oversized reproduction of a Canaletto view of Vienna.”8
Reinhardt arrived in Vienna in April 1931 to hold auditions for his forthcoming production of Edouard Bourdet's comedy The Weaker Sex. Meanwhile, he was pitching a last-ditch battle to prevent his acting school, the Reinhardt Seminar, from folding. A man for whom there was never enough time, Reinhardt shuttled between the two sets of demands, arranging private financing for the acting school and auditioning a queue of aspiring actors whose hearts’ desire was to work for Herr Professor. Playing for Reinhardt, as everyone knew, could make an actor's name, and unfilled parts were few as many of the leading roles had been taken by cast members from the Berlin production. To no one's surprise, Reinhardt regular Paula Wessely was soon named, but in early May he unexpectedly announced that the role of the First American would go to the hitherto unknown Hedy Kiesler. The part was small but “nett” (nice).9Overjoyed as Hedy must have been, there was more good news to come.
Another minor cast member was the future Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist George Weller. According to Weller, it was during the rehearsal of a café scene with Hedy that Herr Professor turned to a group of reporters who were hanging around the set and said, “Hedy Kiesler is the most beautiful girl in the world.” Word soon swept through the acting community. By October 1931, the trade paper Lichtbildbühne was quoting Reinhardt on the extraordinary beauty of Hedy Kiesler, a description soon to be echoed by Louis B. Mayer. Praise such as this was not awarded lightly; all Hedy Kiesler had to do now was learn how to act.
Reinhardt apparently instructed Weller to teach Hedy some appropriate American songs. Hedy's idol, Weller soon discovered, was the American tennis player Helen Wills; otherwise, her familiarity with American culture was limited to renditions of “Yes Sir, That's My Baby” (she sang the title only for all lines regardless of length), “Yes! We Have No Bananas” (she hummed the melody), and “Sonny Boy” (she sang all the words and knew the melody). These and other exercises in Americanization took place in a small room backstage.10
The Weaker Sex ran at the Theater in der Josefstadt from 8 May to 8 June 1931 and received enthusiastic reviews, with critics opining that this was now as much or even more a Max Reinhardt play than the original by Edouard Bourdet. Hedy attracted no critical notices but it was a thrilling start, particularly in a city that valued its theaters infinitely more than its film productions and valued Max Reinhardt most of all.
Playing in the Theater in der Josefstadt also offered Hedy the opportunity to spend time with its sometime-manager, Otto Preminger, and his friend Sam Spiegel. According to Franz Antel (Hedy's childhood neighbor), Antel made the introductions. In his memoir, Antel recalls