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The extraordinary achievements of Der miide Tod and Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler would have been enough to ensure Fritz Lang's lasting position among the greatest German directors, even if he had never worked again. One who equaled Lang in stature, Ernst Lubitsch—a proven master of both Jewish comedy and grandiose epics—had left Berlin for Hollywood in December of 1922, armed with a contract from America's sweetheart, actress Mary Pickford. Another filmmaker raised in Vienna, G. W. Pabst, who arguably matched Lang in his uneven career, was just emerging in 1923. Only F. W. Murnau rivaled Lang's pre-eminence. In the United States, by contrast, Lang was virtually unknown. German theaters were heavily dependent on Hollywood features for the home market, and in fact, by 1923, the number of U.S. releases had reached a rough parity with German films. But despite Herculean business and legal maneuvers, the U.S. market refused to reciprocate. Especially after 1924, the marriage was one-sided. "Hollywood bit deeply into the domestic market, fairly or otherwise limited German markets abroad, and deprived the native industry of its best personnel," wrote Thomas J. Saunders in Hollywood in Berlin. The history of German efforts to penetrate the American market would be tangled and bitter. The German-language intelligentsia in the United States had heard of Fritz Lang, surely, but average American filmgoers had not been exposed to his work. So far films had been relegated to small houses and brief runs in German enclaves of the big cities. And when one of his titles did receive distribution, it was usually slashed by several reels by Americans dismayed by the slow pacing. Der miide Tod was reportedly licensed for exhibition by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., through his United Artists partnership with his wife, Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, and director D. W. Griffith. After expropriating camera tricks from the Baghdad episode for his 1924 version of The Thief of Baghdad— among them the flying-carpet sequence—Fairbanks ultimately declined to release Lang's first masterpiece in U.S. theaters. Lang, in interviews, always expressed magnanimity about the disappointment. "Naturally, because he had more money and greater technical facilities at his disposal, he [Fairbanks] improved on the tricks," said the director. Which was true enough. C H A P T E R 5 1923 1924 90 F R I T Z LANG A smaller distribution company picked up Der miide Tod and booked it into New York City theaters, drastically shortened and re-edited, as Between Worlds, for summer filler in July of 1924. It was virtually unrecognizable, and incoherent . Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler, was whittled down to ninety minutes for U.S. theaters, but that 1922 film, Lang's second great achievement, wasn't shown in America until August of 1928. Not only was Fritz Lang one of the most critically acclaimed directors of Germany's film world, but he and Thea von Harbou were one of its most glamorous couples. They worked hard at achieving public recognition. Lang cultivated relationships with the best and brightest of Germany's press corps, and would include in his circle of close acquaintances a number of top-ranked critics. These included Kurt Pinthus, who wrote mainly for the left-wing, political-cultural weekly Das Tagebuch, and was esteemed as much for his association with literary Expressionism as for his opinions about the screen; and two journalists destined to write influential books about German film history—Siegfried Kracauer and Lotte Eisner. Kracauer worked on the Frankfurter Zeitung, a newspaper of national stature, and Lotte Eisner, beginning in 1927, toiled on Berlin's Film-Kurier, the leading screen paper for the public and film specialists . Press exposure was important to Lang, both as an adjunct to marketing and also because the attention gratified him. He and his wife were trailed avidly by reporters and society columnists as they moved about in public. Arm in arm, the couple attended opening nights at Max Reinhardt's theaters . They were staples of the annual motion picture ball, where Berlin's screen elite mingled to promote their upcoming projects, held at one of the expensive hotels near the Ufa-Palast am Zoo. They were seen at the best restaurants, such as the elegant Horcher's, well-known for its tender venison and baked potatoes with caviar; the Forster, a restaurant with Russian specialties ; and the bar and grill at the Hotel Adlon on Unter den Linden, the preferred accommodation of diplomats, politicians, and visiting...

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