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RONNY LOEWY "Verkehrte Welt"— "An Inverted World": From Erich Kästnern Play to Max Ophüls' Short Film, "Fd Rather Have Cod Liver Oil" SCREENPLAY In the summer of 193 1, Max Ophüls, a theater and radio director, receives his first contract, from Universum Film AG (Ufa), to direct a short film. For the film's story, he relates, Ophüls was allowed to select material from the Ufa repository: "in Krausestrasse in front of bookshelves almost as high as a house, crammed with manuscripts. I was free to choose a story of my own choice. 'There is one best director for each one of these stacks of paper,' I thought. 'Where is my stack?'" (Ophüls 140). Ophüls' selection of Erich Kästner's two-page exposé for a film with the title "Dann schon lieber Lebertran" ("I'd Rather Have Cod Liver Oil") was not necessarily spontaneous or fortuitous. He also remembers having met screenwriter Billy Wilder and talking with him about choosing a script (Ophüls 140). At that time, Wilder already was in contact with Pressburger about developing a screenplay for a film version of Kästner's best-selling children's book ,"Emil und die Detektive" ("Emil and the Detectives") which Ophüls had directed on stage in Breslau with Paul Barney in December 1930:1 "I met Kästner in a café. He brought another man who was meant to write the screenplay. His Arizona Quarterly Volume 60, Number 5, Special Issue 2004 Copyright © 2004 by Arizona Board of Regents ISSN 0004-1 610 1 98 Ronny hoewy name was Emmerich Pressburger, today a leading producer with Rank in London. After eight 'Caféhaus'-nights, the script was ready" (Ophüls 140). The screenplay of "Dann schon lieber Lebertran" is signed by Erich Kästner and Emmerich Pressburger,2 so too the censorship card of the film (Censorship Card) mentions both as authors of the film. Ophüls is not mentioned as director; his collaboration on the script is documented only in his memoirs (Ophüls i4off). There is no proof whatsoever of Billy Wilder's collaboration on the screenplay of "Dann schon lieber Lebertran." It is possible that the two different Kästner films have been confused by historians. There are no existing prints of "Dann schon lieber Lebertran." Film historians are still obliged to rely on secondary sources. Stories about this film are bequeathed, told, remembered, documented indirectly: I am telling you about a film that I have never seen myself, but have been researching from existing files. One writes about a lost film hoping that the time will soon come when a print of that film will be located. We also write in the hope that compiling existing information will increase the chances of finding a print of the film. Historical sources on this film consist mainly of the censorship card which documents various things about the film, including the wording of dialogues and other spoken elements, additional statements about image and sound, the cast and credits, some technical information about the film, and finally the censor's decision (Censorship Card). Other historical sources are the relatively many reviews for a short movie, as well as some stills from the film, Ophüls' memories in his book Spiel im Dasein: Eine Rückblende, some remarks in Kästner's letters to his mother (Kästner, Meine liebes), as well as the brief notes of some of the actors who played in the film (Klapdor 51; Haake, In Berlin 4off). For many years this was all the material available on "Dann schon lieber Lebertran." In 1993 another important historical document on the film was recovered : the complete screenplay by Erich Kästner and Emmerich Pressburger, which Gosfilmpond Moscow had deposited in the Berlin Filmmuseum (Deutsche Kinemathek). It is the second version of the screenplay, comprising eighty-one pages and stamped "Büro Klitsch" (Ludwig Klitsch was the general manager of Ufa). Stapled to the screenplay is a "cost estimate," dated July 13, 193 1, signed by the man- "Verkehrte Welt"—"An Inverted World" 199 aging producer Bruno Duday and approved, with signature, by the production manager of Ufa, Ernst Hugo...

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