Von Sternberg

resumption of Come Early, Stay Late

Come Early, Stay Late 153 transfer of power to incoming studio boss Emmanuel “Manny” Cohen, formerly head of its newsreel division. The duo’s next film, Blonde Venus, began as an outline variously called “East River,” “Song of Manhattan,” and “Velvet.” The last title seemed the most promising and survived the longest, but von Sternberg ’s reading of Nana may have reminded him that, in her brief stage career, Zola’s heroine played a “blonde Venus.” A character of the same name also appeared in Offenbach’s operetta La Belle Helene, and Hemingway used it in a 1925 story. In later years, von Sternberg shrugged off Blonde Venus. “There is little to be said about this film,” he wrote, “except that I tried to leave the company before making it. But Miss Dietrich also left, refusing to work with anyone else, and I was forced to return, as we were both under contract.” One wouldn’t imagine from this offhand reference that this was his most personal film, with obvious autobiographical resonance. The Dietrich character, a German singer, leaves the stage to marry an American scientist. They move to New York and have a son. During his experiments the husband is poisoned and, in a well-worn cliché, finds that the only doctor who can cure him is in Germany. To raise money for his treatment, the singer goes back to work and, hiding the fact that she’s married with a child, becomes the mistress of a wealthy but crooked politician. The husband is cured, returns unexpectedly, discovers her infidelity, and throws her out. Taking their child, she goes on the run. The husband hires detectives to find her and hits the bottle while he waits for news. Eventually, she’s forced to surrender the boy and returns to show business, where she is again a sensation. The husband deteriorates, however, until she gives up her career to care for him, and the family is reunited. Von Sternberg and Dietrich wrote the treatment jointly, offering it to Paramount for $25,000. When Schulberg pleaded hard times, they accepted $12,000. Looking for a pliable new writer who would obey orders, von Sternberg offered the task of scripting Blonde Venus to S. K. “Sam” Lauren, who had just joined Paramount after two flops as a Broadway dramatist. “I couldn’t stand von Sternberg,” Lauren recalled, “[but] he seemed to take to me.” As the screenplay developed, the Von Sternberg 154 singer’s husband, Ned Faraday, became much less concerned about the liaison between his wife, Helen, and politician Nick Townsend. In fact, the two characters are quite friendly, as were von Sternberg and Rudy Sieber. Ned acquires his own girlfriend, as did Sieber, and agrees to a divorce, after which Helen and Nick marry and raise her son. “When he gave me the plot,” Lauren said, “I thought ‘This guy’s crazy.’” Nobody could doubt that Helen and Nick equated to Marlene and Jo, while Ned and his mistress stood for Rudy and Tami. As Lauren finished each draft, von Sternberg passed it to Jules Furthman. Lauren didn’t share Capra’s enthusiasm for Furthman, calling him, for reasons not immediately clear, “that racketeer,” while grudgingly admitting that the other did almost all the work. “Finally, I finished the treatment,” Lauren continued. “Von Sternberg called me into his office, about three times the size of Hitler’s, and, with one hand on the script, went into an interminable, impressive silence, which was enough to scare the bejeezus out of me. He brushed the script onto the floor. He said, very slowly, using the royal plural, ‘We choose to overlook the presumption that this screenplay has ever been written.’” Lauren and Furthman continued to collaborate, fleeing at one point to Palm Springs in hopes of avoiding von Sternberg. According to Lauren, when they returned, Furthman handed in a scene set in a brothel. “I was amazed at the literacy of it,” said Lauren. After Furthman read it out loud, Lauren told him, “Jules, that’s a fine piece of writing.” “It ought to be,” interjected von Sternberg, “It was fine when Zola wrote it in Nana.” In March the script was submitted to Ben Schulberg, who, according to Lauren, described it as “the goddamndest piece of shit I’ve ever read in my life.” More troubling than any artistic objections were the problems it presented with regard to Hollywood’s newly formed selfcensorship authority, the Motion Picture Producers and...