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After Sam Jaffe resigned as Lang's agent, it was only a matter of time before Henry Rogers, the director's longtime publicist, quit too. Lang would hire a succession of press agents in the 1950s, each in turn charged with the doomed search for a publicity moniker as strong as Hitchock's "Master of Suspense." One strategy Lang liked, and kept returning to, was presenting himself as an expert on hard-to-handle actresses—not to mention women in general. Some of the director's press statements were angled ill-advisedly. One, in 1947, called attention to his opinion that foreign actresses, especiallyBritish and European ones, were better qualified for challenging roles than Hollywood stars. "Take Lana Turner, Gene Tierney, and Ann Sheridan," Lang was quoted. "Any one of the three could do just as well as any of the other two in any role any of the girls has played. What I mean is, their acting is completely stylized. It isn't acting. They just go through picture after picture playing the same kind of glamour girl." The director continued to act the fuss-budget about his "canned" publicity. The Bernie Williams-Kay Mulvey agency copied down Lang's words extolling Rhonda Fleming in While the City Sleeps: "Her figure arouses the male instinct and she displays it to great advantage in the picture." Afterward, reading the transcript, Lang brought out his pencil and scribbled little changes: "She arouses all the male instinct and she displays her physical assets to great advantage in the picture." This article, like others, was published under Fritz Lang's byline in a movie magazine. In previous publicity incarnations, the director had been presented as a homemaker and gourmet chef. He had also expounded on the qualities of a perfect wife. From there, it wasn't too much of a stretch for the director to pose as an authority on women's fashions, cosmetics, and above all, perfume. Perfume had figured into several of Lang's recent films, although it may not have been the world's greatest recommendation that a man was aroused to homicide by a fragrance in one (House by the River), or was prompted by an unfamiliar scent to discover his wife's infidelity in another (Clash by Night). Lang liked perfume, and women who wore expensive fragrances (Lily Latte always wore the same brand, Taboo). Who better to discourse on the subject? C H A P T E R 1 9 1953 1956 402 FRITZ LANG Although it was more common for actors than directors to fill in for vacationing columnists, Lang was happy to parade his opinions in such a venue. In Lydia Lane's June 20, 1954 column in the Los Angeles Times the director offered advice about how to enhance one's sex appeal with the right perfume. "With me, the obvious repels," Lang wrote. "I dislike a girl who deliberately raises her voice to be conspicuous, who wears her dress low to attract attention." The director claimed he could pinpoint the proper fragrance for any woman. Lydia Lane appended a note to her column, widely syndicated by the Mirror Enterprises Syndicate. "If you are interested in knowing what perfume Fritz Lang finds most appealing, get in touch with me," she advised. After 1947, the focus of Lang's more philosophical articles also shifted, reflecting Hollywood verities Lang had culled from his rocky studio experiences . One of Lang's emerging beliefs was in the wisdom of audiences—that if a movie proved unpopular at the box office, the reaction revealed nothing but the director's own bad judgment. "I don't want to sound smug or stuffy," Lang told the Hollywood Citizen-News, "but the screen has passed through its experimental stage and today there is usually a relation between a picture's commercial success and its artistic worth." Another was his surprising position that camera effects were no longer fundamental to filmmaking. Nowadays, Lang's publicity explained, the director tried to minimize camera virtuosity, whereas once he had been known as its greatest exponent. "The more the audience is absorbed in the story and the more they forget the camera angles, the little sly tricks of direction, and the director's 'touch,' the better the picture is," Lang was quoted as saying. In Hollywood's new era of conservativism, the director's publicity also stressed how fast and economical he was as a director. Tight budgets? Limited preproduction time? No problem. "I have to...

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