Fritz Lang

I recently finished reading Patrick McGilligan's massive biography, 'Fritz Lang:  The Nature of the Beast.'  It was so big and overly detailed, I almost didn't make my way through it.  I can only think even St. Martin's Press is cutting down on editors.

But there were some interesting bits.  The set for Lang's film 'The Spider Woman' was constructed in the Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg (the first modern zoo, where its founder Carl Hagenbeck revolutionized animal training).  His 'Lady in the Moon' (a sci-fi classic from 1931, which he co-wrote with his then wife, Thea von Harbou) invented the countdown (yes, that 5-4-3-2-1 countdown).    Having decided that Peter Lorre would whistle the 'Hall of the Mountain King' from Grieg's 'Peer Gynt,' he didn't like the way Lorre whistled, so the whistle in the movie is Lang himself.

When he was working in Hollywood, Brecht had to keep the same twilight curfew that other enemy aliens did.

And finally, von Harbou became an enthusiastic Nazi (she stayed when Lang fled to Paris).  After the war, she served time in prison, and labored as a Truemmerfrau, separating usable bricks from bad in Berlin's rubble.


Photo credit:  Wikipedia

Brecht in America

I have spent the last few days skimming Bertolt Brecht's FBI file.  Some parts have been redacted, but there is still plenty to read.  It's about 300 pages long, and covers 1941 to 1947.  The FBI was quite exhaustive in their surveillance, both visually and electronically.  

The link to part one is here:  http://vault.fbi.gov/Bertolt%20Brecht%20/Bertolt%20Brecht%20Part%201%20of%204/view

There are plenty of people that you've heard of mentioned in the file:  Brecht; his wife; his mistress; his musical collaborator Hans Eisler; his children, Barbara and Stefan; Peter Lorre; Heinrich Mann; Charles Laughton; Elsa Lancaster; Elisabeth Bergner; etc.  I think the only one of them still alive is Eric Bentley. 

I'm not sure why the FBI chose Brecht's file to highlight.  Most of the informants' names are blacked out-  the only one that I recognized was Mrs. Robert Siodmak (we'd watched "The Killers" a few nights before).