|
Casablanca: More People Connections
Out of Austria: Peter Lorre
| |
 |
| Peter Lorre as Ugarte in Casablanca. |
|
|
 |
|
Peter Lorre, as Ugarte (photo), appeared on screen for less than four minutes, but anyone who has seen Casablanca usually thinks it was much longer. Lorre's amazing screen presence and acting talent made his role seem more than it actually was. So it comes as something of a shock to learn that Lorre received a mere $2,333 for his work in the film! True, Lorre's character is “eliminated” early on, and $2,333 was a lot more money in 1942 than it is today, but it was less than one-third of screen newcomer Sidney Greenstreet's salary. The fez-wearing owner of the Blue Parrot café had only a few minutes more screen time than Lorre but earned $7,500 for his efforts. Although he had vast experience as a stage actor, Greenstreet's movie debut had been in The Maltese Falcon (teamed with Lorre's Joel Cairo), the only other picture the rotund actor had appeared in prior to Casablanca. Lorre had much more experience as a film actor, having made his film debut back in 1928 in Germany (Pionier in Inoplastadt), three years before his striking performance as a child-murdering pervert in Fritz Lang's M.
Apparently, the fact that Lorre and Bogart were close friends also amounted to very little as far as Warner Bros. was concerned. Perhaps the nearly 300-pound Greenstreet was paid by weight—which would put the much thinner Lorre at a disadvantage.
Peter Lorre, born Laszlo Loewenstein in Austria-Hungary (ironic that fellow Austrian Paul Henreid played a character in Casablanca named Victor Laszlo), quickly earned a reputation as a practical joker for the short time he was on the Casablanca set. He enjoyed pulling various stunts at the expense of fellow stars, but he was well-liked.
Casablanca Posters and Photos
It is regretable that Warners and other studios never allowed Lorre to reach his full potential as an actor. He was never able to return to the heights of M or some of his other earlier films. Sadly, the heavier Lorre became with the passing years, the lighter were the film roles he was offered.
A final note to most film writers and film historians: Lorre was NOT Hungarian. Yes, he was born in Austria-Hungary, in what is today Hungary, but his family was German-speaking with a Germanic surname (Loewenstein = “lion stone”). Lorre's early life and career were spent in Vienna and German-speaking Europe. Curtiz, on the other hand, was a Hungarian, from a Hungarian-speaking family in Budapest with a Hungarian name (Kertész), and his German was as bad as his English. But labeling Lorre as Hungarian is incorrect. Ask any Austrian.
For more about Lorre and his other films see our main Peter Lorre page.
Curt Bois: “Vultures, vultures everywhere.”
 |
|
Curt Bois (left) in his last film appearance (as Homer) in Wings of Desire (1987). In the background: the Berlin Wall. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most viewers of Casablanca have never heard of him, and he played a very small part in the film, but Curt Bois (1901-1991) had the longest acting career of any actor—ever. (Yes, he IS in the Guinness Book of World Records.) Bois made his first film in 1907 (Bauernhaus und Grafenschloß), his last in 1987 (Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire).
Born in Berlin, Bois worked as a “wide-eyed” character and stage actor for many years in Germany until he was forced to leave for the usual reason in the 1930s. After a vain attempt to avoid Nazi persecution in Vienna (where he played in “Charley's Aunt”), the Jewish actor and his wife sought refuge in America in 1935. He learned English by listening to burlesque routines in New York City. Bois acted in Broadway productions before moving to Hollywood in 1937. Bois made some 45 films in the US in over a decade, then returned to Germany to work another 40 years. His total film career spanned 80 years!
Although he was never a leading man or a film star, Bois earned the respect of those in his craft with his excellent performances. In Casablanca he played to perfection the role of the “Dark European” pickpocket seen in an early scene—“This place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere.”
Other US films with Bois: Tovarich (1937), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), Cover Girl (1944), Arch of Triumph (1948), The Great Sinner (1949), Caught (1949), The Lovable Cheat (1949), Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950).
Helmut Dantine - Another Real Refugee
Born Helmut Guttman (1917-1982), Helmut Dantine played a minor (and uncredited) role in Casablanca as Jan Brandel, the young Bulgarian husband who tries to win at Rick's roulette table and rescue the virtue of his wife Annina (Joy Page). Dantine, yet another genuine fugitive actor in Casablanca, had fled his native Austria after the Anschluss in 1938. Because of his anti-Nazi activities in Vienna, he had even spent time in a concentration camp until family influence, a good doctor, and good fortune got him free. (His father was the head of the Austrian railway.) The 19-year-old was then able to get to safety in America. Dantine later claimed to have based one of his Nazi film characters on a real officer from his concentration camp experience.
Unlike most of his fellow Hollywood emigrés, Dantine had no prior experience in motion pictures. After studies at UCLA and a stint with the Pasadena Playhouse, Dantine got a minor part in the Warner Bros. film International Squadron (1941). After a highly praised performance as a German soldier in the award-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942), Dantine's next film was Casablanca. He went on to play leading or significant roles in many later movies and also appeared on Broadway in “The Eagle Has Two Heads” with Tallulah Bankhead in 1947.
Dantine married Nicola (Niki) Schenck, the daughter of former Loew's Inc./MGM president Nicholas M. Schenck, in 1958, but they were later divorced. He was also married to actress Gwen Anderson and oil heiress Charlene Wrightsman. According to his former wives, Dantine was hard to live with because of his frustration over all he had lost and his limited film career. Nicola felt that he should have been a diplomat instead of an actor.
Dantine's one attempt at directing—Thundering Jets (1958)—was neither a critical nor a box-office success. He continued to act in films and in numerous television productions on into the 1970s. He also served as producer for several films in the '70s. His last film role was in Behind the Iron Mask in 1977. Just before he was to produce The Osterman Weekend with Sam Peckinpah, Dantine suffered a heart attack and died in Beverly Hills in 1982.
Other Films with Dantine:: To Be or Not to Be (1942), Edge of Darkness (1943), Mission to Moscow (1943), Passage to Marseilles (1944), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Hotel Berlin (1945), War and Peace (1956), Operation Crossbow (1965), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, also exec. producer), The Wilby Conspiracy (1975, exec. producer only), The Killer Elite (1975, also exec. producer).
S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall
S.Z. Sakall (Eugene Gero Szakall, 1884-1955), the Hungarian character actor known as “Cuddles,“ played Carl the headwaiter in Casablanca. Although Sakall was born in Budapest, most of his early career was spent making German-language talkies and musicals in Austria and Germany. Forced out of Germany by the Nazi takeover, he came to Hollywood in 1940, later to become one of the many real-life refugees who would play a refugee in Casablanca.
Producer Hal Wallis signed Sakall for his waiter role three weeks after filming on Casablanca had begun, and the "bubbly" actor was on the set just two days later. His trademark jowls, broken English, and nervous excitability were perfect for the role of Carl the waiter.
Other Films with Sakall: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Christmas in Connecticut (1945), Never Say Goodbye (1946), April Showers (1948), In the Good Old Summertine (1949), Montana (1950), Lullaby of Broadway (1951), The Student Prince (1954).
Ludwig Stossel, The Little Old Winemaker
Austrian-born Ludwig Stossel's (Stössel, 1883-1973) US career could be summarized as “from Casablanca to 'Little Old Winemaker.'” The actor who played Mr. Leuchtag in Casablanca was born Ludwig Stössel in Lockenhaus in the province of Burgenland, Austria on Feb. 10, 1883. He began performing on the stage in Austria and Germany when he was only 17. Yet another refugee from the Nazis, Stossel was forced to leave Vienna and his thriving stage and film career after Hitler's Third Reich took over Austria in 1938. Stossel went to London with his wife Lore Birn and worked in several British film productions there before heading to Hollywood as 1939 drew to a close.
During the Hollywood phase of his career Stossel played character roles and bit parts in some 70 movies and television productions. Not many viewers recognized him from Casablanca when he began his role as the jolly, lederhosen clad “Little Old Winemaker” in a long series of commercials for the Gallo Winery in the 1960s. That role made Stossel famous and familiar to millions of Americans, even if few knew him by name. The commercials were popular for a full decade. Stossel's last feature film was G.I. Blues (set in West Germany with Elvis Presley and Juliet Prowse) in 1960. Stossel was still active when he died in Beverly Hills after a fall at the age of 90.
Casablanca on TV (1955): Stossel also appeared in the TV version of Casablanca in the 1950s. For more see Vincent's CASABLANCA Page - TV Series.
Other Films with Ludwig Stossel: Four Sons (1940), All Through the Night (1942), The Pride of the Yankees (1942, as Lou Gehrig's father), Pittsburgh (1942), Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Dillinger (1945), The Beginning or the End (1947, as Albert Einstein), A Song Is Born (1948), Me and the Colonel (1958), G.I. Blues (1960).
Other Austrian and German Bit Players
You won't see their names in the credits for Casablanca, but most of the 75 bit roles—often with one spoken line or nothing at all—were filled by non-American actors and actresses. Germans Lotte Palfi and Wolfgang Zilzer were two such refugee actors. Palfi played the woman who says, “But can't you make it just a little more, please?” to a jewelry buyer who replies that diamonds are a drug on the market. It was quite a come-down for an actress who had played leading roles on the stage in Darmstadt. Palfi and other women refugees found it very difficult to continue their careers in America at all, much less at a level that approached what they had achieved in Europe.
Wolfgang Zilzer (later known as Paul Andor) had the brief but dramatic role of the man who is shot near the beginning of Casablanca after being asked to produce papers that turn out to have expired. (“These papers expired three weeks ago. You'll have to come along...”) In Germany Zilzer had been a successful actor and cabaret star. He had been born in the US to German parents. Raised in Germany, Zilzer only found out that he was an American citizen when he was forced to leave what he thought was his country of birth. His first US film appearance was in Ernst Lubitsch's Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938). Later he was only able to get minor Nazi parts in Hollywood films such as Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and Hotel Berlin (1945, also with Peter Lorre and Helmut Dantine), but soon even such limited roles disappeared. Zilzer and Palfi married in 1943 and soon moved to New York. Both continued to act, mostly in television. Zilzer died in Berlin in 1991, and his former wife (they divorced amicably when Zilzer was seriously ill and wanted to go to Germany), who refused to return to Germany, died just a few months later in New York.
Trudy Berliner had also been a famous cabaret performer in Berlin before she appeared as the woman who asks Carl the waiter if Rick will have a drink with her—to which Carl (S.Z. Sakall) responds, “Madame, he never drinks with customers. Never. I have never seen it.” Ilka Gruning, who played Ludwig Stossel's wife, Mrs. Leuchtag, in the “What watch? - Ten watch” scene. Gruning spoke several lines as a German refugee on her way to America—once again art imitating life. She tried to return to Berlin in 1950 but found she couldn't “go home again.” Things were just too different. (Even Curt Bois, who returned for good, said shortly before his death, “Germany is not what I thought it would be“) Berliner lived quietly in California until 1964 when she died at the age of 87. For many of the emigrés playing in Casablanca the choices were difficult. They were often damned if they stayed in America and damned if they went back to Europe.
Among the many ironies in the story of the making of Casablanca there is the case of Hans Twardowski. Twardowski was the German officer who picks up Rick's pretty former mistress, Yvonne. In real life Twardowski had left Germany because he was a homosexual, another group targeted for persecution by the Nazis. - A similar irony: “Our image of the Nazi was formed by the Jewish refugees.” (Pauline Kael, quoted in Harmetz's Round Up the Usual Suspects)
Casablanca: Max Steiner's Music
The long list of music score film credits for the Austrian composer Max Steiner (Maximilian Raoul Steiner, 1888-1971) includes Casablanca. The film's most stirring moments, especially the famous "La Marseillaise" vs. "Die Wacht am Rhein" patriotic songfest, owe much to Steiner's musical score and orchestrations. Even songs that Steiner did not compose (including “As Time Goes By,” written by Herman Hupfield in 1931) were skillfully blended into the score. Some critics have even credited Steiner's “all-engulfing” score with lifting some of Casablanca's more trite moments above the realm of the ordinary.
Steiner's musical mastery is more apparent upon a careful viewing of the film—rather a listening—with the music consciously in mind. His musical leitmotifs and vignettes surreptitiously enhance various segments and themes in Casablanca—be they romantic, comic, or dramatic. We may not be aware of it, but Steiner's music does for Casablanca what it also did for King Kong, Gone with the Wind, The Caine Mutiny and the many other Steiner-scored films. (See more about the new CD soundtrack albums below!)
For more about the “father of film music,” see our Film Music page.
New Steiner Soundtrack CDs
Amazing as it sounds, there has never been a Casablanca soundtrack album—until now. According to Rhino Records, the music sources utilized for Turner/Rhino's recent CD release were thought to be lost until missing optical nitrate recordings were discovered in the Warners vaults and combined with acetate material from the Film Music Archives at Brigham Young University, 55 years after the film's release. The Rhino CD contains 20 tracks, including Max Steiner's score and classic dialogue with the “usual suspects.” - More about the new Casablanca soundtrack album, including liner notes, photos, and more: Rhino Records - "Casablanca" Soundtrack CD - and you can even order online.
BYU Produces Soundtrack CD from Film "The Searchers" was the title of a news release (April 22, 1997) from Brigham Young University, home of the Steiner film music collection. BYU produced a CD soundtrack recording available from Screen Archives Entertainment, PO Box 5636, Washington, DC 20016-1236; (202) 364-4333. Unlike the Casablanca soundtrack album, the BYU Film Music Archives were the only existing source of Steiner's recordings for The Searchers (1956). Accompanying the CD is a detailed 36-page booklet about Steiner with a track-by-track analysis of his music. Proceeds from the recording will support the Film Music Archives Film Music Preservation Fund.
Also see Gone With the Wind: Essential Max Steiner Film Music Collection on CD from Amazon.com.
Web Links for Casablanca
2 > Film Books
Copyright © 1997-2005 Hyde Flippo
|
