Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

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Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

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Here's where we will begin the discussion with our guest author Noah Isenberg about his newly published biography, Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins (Univ. of California Press) on Thursday, Jan. 30th & Friday, Jan. 31st.


To Our Members: Please bear in mind that our guest author will be teaching today, but plans to visit with us and answer your queries later in the day. Thank you for your patience and understanding.


Below is a copy of the announcement with relevant links related to this event:
Image

Mr. Isenberg, whose book is the TCM selection for the month of January's book corner, will discuss his newly published study of the creative man behind many films including the slice-of-life documentary style movie, People on Sunday (1929) (made with Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak, et al in Berlin), the stylish horror classic The Black Cat (1934), an interesting twist on the artist as madman with Bluebeard (1944), the peerless film noir Detour (1945), and a very Freudian retelling of Hamlet--Strange Illusion (1945)--as well as a trio of affecting stories of Jewish life, especially The Light Ahead (1939).

While his Berlin contemporaries went on to legendary success in Hollywood, the peripatetic odyssey of Edgar Ulmer (1904-1972) took him from the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian empire to the post-modern age, making films in America and abroad throughout his career. Coping with smaller budgets and sometimes paltry material, Ulmer's artistic and technical skills were often sharpened as an independent filmmaker, encompassing everything from writing to art direction to producing as well as directing. While often overlooked in the past, Edgar Ulmer's work has only truly begun to be more fully explored in recent decades as the best of them are rediscovered. Ulmer's reputation is fortunate to have Noah Isenberg as his newest biographer. Noah's engaging writing style, worldwide research, numerous interviews, and the examination of previously neglected private correspondence have enabled him to capture a more nuanced, human portrait of the filmmaker--acknowledging Ulmer's frustrations, insights, sometimes funny and occasionally poignant experiences and contradictions.

Our upcoming guest author is the Director of Screen Studies and Professor of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College-The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City has recently participated in an event at NYC's Lincoln Center celebrating Ulmer's work and attended by our SSO member CineMaven (Theresa) and discussed in some detail here.

Previous books published by our upcoming guest include Detour (British Film Institute, 2008) and he edited a collection of essays, Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era (Columbia, 2009). In addition to these accomplishments, Noah currently serves the book review editor of Film Quarterly magazine, and is writing a new book, Everybody Comes to Rick’s: How ‘Casablanca’ Taught the World to Love Movies, to be published by W.W. Norton in the US and by Faber & Faber in the UK. (Here’s hoping we can touch on this latter topic during his visit too).

Please join us in learning more about this filmmaker next week for two days on 1/30 & 1/31. This visit promises to be an especially enlightening exchange.

The following are resources related to our guest Noah Isenberg and the topic of Edgar Ulmer:

Sources for Edgar Ulmer: A Filmmaker on the Margins

Noah Isenberg's website: http://noahisenberg.com/

Follow Noah on Twitter: @NoahIsenberg

Online Press Links for Edgar Ulmer: Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins

A Playlist of Edgar Ulmer Films on Youtube

Edgar Ulmer films on The Internet Archive
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

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Thank you for joining us at SSO to discuss one of my favorite directors. Please excuse the number of my questions, but there is such a dearth of researched information on Ulmer that I want to ask as much as I can while I can.

1. Early Career: Ulmer claimed to have worked on a great number of incredible movies, especially with Murnau and Lang, for which he received no screen credit (and Lang denied any involvement with his films by Ulmer). Did you find any evidence to lend credence to Ulmer’s claims?

2. MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG: I have read that, although Ulmer is credited as a co-director, in today’s parlance his role would be labeled set or production designer and that, perhaps, Robert Siodmak would receive sole credit as director. I have also read that Siodmak minimized Ulmer’s involvement. What was Ulmer’s role and involvement with this film? What was the critical and public reception to the film when it was released?

3. MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG Aftermath in the U.S.: Other than Eugen Schufftan who worked on at least four of Ulmer’s films, did Ulmer maintain any relationship – professional or social – with the others who were involved with the movie? With other fellow German emigres? Douglas Sirk had complimentary things to say about Ulmer as a director, but what did some of the other emigres and other Hollywood directors think about Ulmer and his films?

4. The Laemmle/Alexander Blackball: The story of the affair between Ulmer and the then-wife of Laemmle’s nephew seems to be cited generally as the sole reason for Ulmer working on Poverty Row (or similar) for most of his post-THE BLACK CAT career. With that movie being released in 1934 and the Laemmles losing control of Universal in 1936, are there other explanations or were there other forces at work? Did he become too associated with Poverty Row? Did Ulmer find a freedom outside of the major studios, despite the time and budgetary constraints, that he preferred?

5. The End of PRC: With Eagle-Lion taking over PRC in 1947, Eagle-Lion’s strength (in retrospect) in film noir in the late-40s, and Ulmer having directed BLUEBEARD, STRANGE ILLUSION, DETOUR and CLUB HAVANA in 1944-46, one would think that the fit would be perfect. Yet, I believe RUTHLESS was the only Ulmer film released by Eagle-Lion (and I assume it was actually made under the auspices of PRC). Was this just a coincidence or function of timing, or is there some other reason we were denied the Dream Team of Edgar G. Ulmer and John Alton?

6. Cinematography, Set Design and the Look: Was Ulmer generally responsible for the look of his movies? Did he tell his cinematographers and set designers what to do (and how to do it) or was it more collaborative? Did it depend on who the cinematographer or set designer was, perhaps giving Schufftan, for example, more input than some others?

7. THE NAKED DAWN: Given that Ulmer said this, along with DETOUR, was his favorite movie, why didn’t he make more Westerns?

8. THE NAKED VENUS: Why? Needed the money? Just wanted to work? Did his alias mean something?
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by moira finnie »

Good Morning, and thank you for agreeing to visit our site today and tomorrow, Noah Isenberg our guide through "Edgar Ulmer: Filmmaker on the Margins".

To Our Members: Please bear in mind that our guest author will be teaching today, but plans to visit with us and answer your queries later in the day. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Here's a couple of questions to begin unraveling the enigma of Edgar Ulmer:

1.) What drew you to Edgar G. Ulmer as a subject? Was it a particular movie that captivated you?

2.) As ChiO asked above, I was also struck by how the filmmaker seems to have claimed to be involved in a remarkable number of early films when he was only in his teens. Claiming to have worked on everything from The Golem (1915) to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) at various times (he once told Peter Bogdanovich that he designed the sets for the latter), he may or may not have worked with directors Murnau and Lang on some of their early classics, for which he received no screen credit. Some denied his involvement, but others seemed to have been bemused by his more imaginative statement.

You appear to have perceived this somewhat self-aggrandizing tendency of the highly talented Ulmer to be part of his coping as an émigré and an artist as he evolved an original creative persona to present to the world.

Was this a tendency he shared with others of his contemporary filmmakers from a similar background such as Erich von Stroheim, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger and others? How do you think his fellow émigrés to Hollywood regarded Ulmer?

Could you please describe how growing up during the last years of the Austro-Hungarian empire in that time and place shaped his Viennese identity and the impact that this had on several of his movies? How did you eventually reconcile what you described as Ulmer's "fabulist" tendencies from fact?
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by CineMaven »

Welcome to the Oasis Noah!

There are devotees here of film noir, whether of the revered kind or the obscure. Speaking for myself, I started off very young with Ulmer watching two of his classics - “The Black Cat” & “Detour” - and not knowing anything about him except these were two movies I really enjoyed. ( I saw “The Black Cat” at TCM’s Film Festival and this unnerving film STILL holds up eighty years later! :shock: ) I have two questions for you.

How did Ulmer stay encouraged to continue filmmaking as he saw his budgets and the stars he could attract dwindle? He worked his way up in Europe, New York and Hollywood; finally being on the INSIDE...until he found himself on the outs at the studios and in Hollywood. It’s tough for us struggling indie filmmakers to stay encouraged in this day and digital age. How did he do it after already tasting success?

When Ulmer got a chance to work with stars who had talent and recognized name value and celebrity ( Ricardo Cortez, Margaret Lindsay, John Carradine, Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Nancy Coleman, Regis Toomey, Zachary Scott, Arthur Kennedy, Selena Royle, Warren William ) some of these actors being bonafide vets, he seemed to rise to the occasion and they seemed to elevate the proceedings with their talent. My second question is, for these actors, was it a step down to work with Ulmer? Hollywood’s a small town and everybody knew everybody’s successes and failures. If they were working in a picture with him, was it considered a bad thing...a come down, an ending to their career? Did it taint them in any way...or was it just another acting gig for them? Arthur Kennedy practically compelled me into believing he was Mexican.

Alright...okay...I confess. I have a total of four questions:

Did Ulmer have a favorite film? ( Was it the amazing “The Black Cat”? ) Was there one that he was really proud of and considered his best work?

Do YOU have a favorite Ulmer film, and why? I recently saw “Her Sister’s Secret” ( your recommendation ) and really enjoyed the angst, tenderness and even-handedness of the story. I also liked the humanity given to the family maid in that film in her two brief scenes. She is played by Frances Williams ( who’ll also appear in fellow emigre Fritz Lang’s film “The Reckless Moment.” ) Ulmer firmly had a grasp on where to put his camera. It can not be an accident that in her scene, he pretty much keeps Williams in the shot with the two lead actors even when she isn’t speaking. It was a great shorthand to show that she is part of the family unit.

Image
Nancy Coleman, Henry Stephenson and Frances Williams

Well...I’d better dash before I get Cine-Booted off the board here. Thank you so much for visiting the Silver Screen Oasis and making the time to answer our questions. It’s so nice to “see” you here, after meeting you up at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, and the MacNally-Jackson Bookstore.

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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by JackFavell »

Hi, Mr. Isenberg! Thank you so much for visiting the Oasis! It's terribly exciting to have you here, since we are all Ulmer fans to one degree or another here.

I just bought your book a week ago, but haven't been able to read even a page yet, I just haven't had any time as yet. Can you tell me if Ulmer's continued blacklisting was solely because of his trouble with the Laemmles? Or was there something in his nature that was so uncomfortable - abrasive, or foolhardy, or grandiose, or deluded, or whatever that Hollywood continued to ignore him, keeping him working at the smaller studios? Or was it eventually perhaps his own choice? His talent is so obvious, one would think someone would have relented after a while, as is the case with so many other Hollywood blacklisting stories.

Also, I was wondering if he was ever in despair about the blacklisting? Was he philosophical? Arrogant even? I really have no idea of his personality, but something got him through those years, still working, even with constraints. Was he in the end happy with his work, his life?

Perhaps he was a bit fanciful about what films he worked on, or perhaps it's that some other artists didn't want to acknowledge his contributions. Were the more fanciful stories perhaps a result of that blacklisting, or was it part of his nature in the first place to tout his 'achievements' like this?

My first Ulmer film was THE BLACK CAT. which I remembered seeing once when I was a kid, and it stuck with me like glue for years and years, until I finally saw it again this last year. Did he use any of his personal experiences of war as a jumping off place for this movie? Was his writing for the movies inclusive of dialogue or did he simply outline stories and let others do the scripting? How much of a relationship did he have with writers on his films?

I too am curious how you sifted out fact from fiction in Ulmer's life.

One more question - did he and his wife have a good relationship after the scandal? I imagine that life must have been difficult for them. I also wonder if his life was a series of falls from grace - first losing a country, then a careeer. Did this affect him painfully?

Thank you so much for your responses. I hope we haven't given you too much all at once. :D

Wendy
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by Robert Regan »

ChiO, before we get serious here, let me note that I once saw at MOMA a 16mm print that included Ulmer's name in the Art Direction credits. But only that one time.
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by MikeBSG »

Welcome to the Oasis!

I haven't seen a lot of Ulmer's work, but I have a few questions.

1) On "The Black Cat," did he get along okay with Karloff? I read the Ulmer interview with Bogdanovich, and Ulmer seemed to imply that Karloff found "The Black Cat" to be a rather ludicrous project.

2) Also on "The Black Cat," was there a lot of footage cut from the ending? I recently came across something that implied that Karloff's death scene was much, much longer originally.

3) I like "Bluebeard," a great deal. How did Ulmer get along with John Carradine?

4) Also pertaining to "Bluebeard," the movie makes me think of "The Lodger." Did Ulmer know or like John Brahm, who directed "The Lodger" and "Hangover Square."

Thanks,

Mike
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by mongoII »

Well, it appears that I'm a tad too late with the questions I had ready for Noah since most of them have been asked already.
In any event I'll welcome Noah to the Silver Screen Oasis and I'll sit back and relax while I enjoy his responses to the questions which I find interesting.
Thank you
Joe
Oh! Did Hedy Lamarr enjoy working with Mr. Ulmer? Phew.
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by Noah_Isenberg »

I'm running off to my next class, but will do my best to respond to all these very thoughtful posts later on today--probably this evening, after my little guys are asleep--and will have a good chunk available tomorrow to follow up on things. Again, thanks to all of you for your terrific interest, and I look forward to communicating more soon.

Kind regards,

Noah
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by Noah_Isenberg »

ChiO wrote:Thank you for joining us at SSO to discuss one of my favorite directors. Please excuse the number of my questions, but there is such a dearth of researched information on Ulmer that I want to ask as much as I can while I can.

1. Early Career: Ulmer claimed to have worked on a great number of incredible movies, especially with Murnau and Lang, for which he received no screen credit (and Lang denied any involvement with his films by Ulmer). Did you find any evidence to lend credence to Ulmer’s claims?
There is, alas, no evidence to lend credence to Ulmer's claims of having worked with Lang (Ulmer's dear friend and frequent collaborator during the PRC years Eugen Schüfftan, who'd served as cameraman on Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday, 1930), worked with Lang on Metropolis -- but that may be as close as he got to Lang (well, that and when he repurposed the mutant sequence from Lang's Indian Tomb (1959) in Beyond the Time Barrier.
ChiO wrote:2. MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG: I have read that, although Ulmer is credited as a co-director, in today’s parlance his role would be labeled set or production designer and that, perhaps, Robert Siodmak would receive sole credit as director. I have also read that Siodmak minimized Ulmer’s involvement. What was Ulmer’s role and involvement with this film? What was the critical and public reception to the film when it was released?
Here I'll have to refer you to the liner notes I wrote for The Criterion Collection's DVD release of the film:

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/ ... le-like-us
ChiO wrote:3. MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG Aftermath in the U.S.: Other than Eugen Schufftan who worked on at least four of Ulmer’s films, did Ulmer maintain any relationship – professional or social – with the others who were involved with the movie? With other fellow German emigres? Douglas Sirk had complimentary things to say about Ulmer as a director, but what did some of the other emigres and other Hollywood directors think about Ulmer and his films?
Billy Wilder maintained cordial ties to the Ulmers, and wrote a very nice dedication in Shirley Ulmer's 1986 book on script supervision,
The Role of Script Supervision in Film and Television. I don' know of any ongoing contact to the Siodmak brothers or to Fred Zinnemann. The only true friend, I'd say, was Schüfftan -- or "Schuffie," as Ulmer liked to call him.
ChiO wrote:4. The Laemmle/Alexander Blackball: The story of the affair between Ulmer and the then-wife of Laemmle’s nephew seems to be cited generally as the sole reason for Ulmer working on Poverty Row (or similar) for most of his post-THE BLACK CAT career. With that movie being released in 1934 and the Laemmles losing control of Universal in 1936, are there other explanations or were there other forces at work? Did he become too associated with Poverty Row? Did Ulmer find a freedom outside of the major studios, despite the time and budgetary constraints, that he preferred?
I think it's a combination of all three--the banishment by Laemmle, the mark of the B-director (a regular on Poverty Row), and the freedom he found outside of the studio system--as well as the relatively serious consideration that Ulmer was never much of a company man. He rarely masked his contempt for producers and moneymen, and had trouble with--or even actively shunned--any kind of professional networking. He couldn't schmooze the way Billy Wilder could.
ChiO wrote:5. The End of PRC: With Eagle-Lion taking over PRC in 1947, Eagle-Lion’s strength (in retrospect) in film noir in the late-40s, and Ulmer having directed BLUEBEARD, STRANGE ILLUSION, DETOUR and CLUB HAVANA in 1944-46, one would think that the fit would be perfect. Yet, I believe RUTHLESS was the only Ulmer film released by Eagle-Lion (and I assume it was actually made under the auspices of PRC). Was this just a coincidence or function of timing, or is there some other reason we were denied the Dream Team of Edgar G. Ulmer and John Alton?
Ulmer made Ruthless for producer Arthur Lyons, for Producing Artists Inc., and it was released by Eagle-Lion. Alas, we never had the fortune of seeing what Ulmer and Alton could do together. But we do have a wonderful collaboration between Ulmer and ace cameraman Franz Planer (who would lens Ophüls's Letter from an Unknown Woman a couple years later) in Her Sister's Secret, his last picture for PRC and one of his most beautiful.
ChiO wrote:6. Cinematography, Set Design and the Look: Was Ulmer generally responsible for the look of his movies? Did he tell his cinematographers and set designers what to do (and how to do it) or was it more collaborative? Did it depend on who the cinematographer or set designer was, perhaps giving Schufftan, for example, more input than some others?
The collaboration with Schüfftan was definitely special (and indeed "collaborative"). In other case, I think he was a bit more forceful in terms of what he expected or what he demanded.
ChiO wrote:7. THE NAKED DAWN: Given that Ulmer said this, along with DETOUR, was his favorite movie, why didn’t he make more Westerns?
Well, he made Thunder Over Texas just after The Black Cat, and he'd started out at Universal, while working in the Art Department there, assisting Willie Wyler on 2-reel Westerns. I think that The Naked Dawn, though certainly a Western (and an iconoclastic one at that), is much more another Ulmer story of a tortured love triangle and, like Ruthless, another very subversive take on the perils of greed.
ChiO wrote:8. THE NAKED VENUS: Why? Needed the money? Just wanted to work? Did his alias mean something?
He wanted the work, and he hoped to do--and was led to believe that he would do--a more respectable, quality picture with producer Gaston Hakim in Europe. Needless to say, like so many other dreams, that one was never realized.
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by Noah_Isenberg »

moirafinnie wrote:Good Morning, and thank you for agreeing to visit our site today and tomorrow, Noah Isenberg our guide through "Edgar Ulmer: Filmmaker on the Margins".

To Our Members: Please bear in mind that our guest author will be teaching today, but plans to visit with us and answer your queries later in the day. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Here's a couple of questions to begin unraveling the enigma of Edgar Ulmer:

1.) What drew you to Edgar G. Ulmer as a subject? Was it a particular movie that captivated you?
Having been trained, academically speaking, as a scholar of German and Austrian Studies, I was attracted to the cultural background of Ulmer (someone who came of age in Habsburg Vienna, who lived in Stockholm, shuttled back and forth to the U.S., and later made pictures in Europe once more, after the Second World War). I had a soft spot for The Black Cat (for me, always a film that presents the afterlife of Weimar cinema, made in Hollywood), also for Detour, and began to explore his various ethnic pictures--especially the four feature-length Yiddish films--when I started to work on Ulmer in earnest. The project began when I was still teaching at Wesleyan University, in Connecticut, when I was more concerned with attaining a kind of scholarly respectability (tenure, promotion, the kind of stuff that often corrupts a more noble labor of love). Thankfully, as I became more immersed in the work, after I moved to the New School in NYC, and found myself wanting to tell Ulmer's life story--in addition to following the twists and turns of his career--the project became that labor of love. It also ended up taking a whole LOT longer than I initially envisioned it take (the advance contract was issued way back in 2002!).
moirafinnie wrote:2.) As ChiO asked above, I was also struck by how the filmmaker seems to have claimed to be involved in a remarkable number of early films when he was only in his teens. Claiming to have worked on everything from The Golem (1915) to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) at various times (he once told Peter Bogdanovich that he designed the sets for the latter), he may or may not have worked with directors Murnau and Lang on some of their early classics, for which he received no screen credit. Some denied his involvement, but others seemed to have been bemused by his more imaginative statement.

You appear to have perceived this somewhat self-aggrandizing tendency of the highly talented Ulmer to be part of his coping as an émigré and an artist as he evolved an original creative persona to present to the world.

Was this a tendency he shared with others of his contemporary filmmakers from a similar background such as Erich von Stroheim, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger and others? How do you think his fellow émigrés to Hollywood regarded Ulmer?
Oh, the other émigré directors you mention (Stroheim, Lang, Preminger and Co.) were also keen on reinventing themselves in America, cooking up some kind of idealized past. Ulmer may have embroidered his memories a bit more than others, but that was merely a matter of degree. Foster Hirsch's terrific biography of Otto Preminger, for example, show a number of similar tendencies (e.g., declaring Vienna as his true birthplace, when he, like Ulmer, was born in the provinces).
moirafinnie wrote:Could you please describe how growing up during the last years of the Austro-Hungarian empire in that time and place shaped his Viennese identity and the impact that this had on several of his movies? How did you eventually reconcile what you described as Ulmer's "fabulist" tendencies from fact?
The decline and fall of the Habsburg Empire is something that figures, with varying degrees of prominence, in his films from The Black Cat onward (even in a film like Beyond the Time Barrier with its veiled references to turn-of-the-century satirist"Karl Kraus" ). As for the problem of squaring the "fabulist" strands with the historical record, it was always a harmonious balance, and in some cases I admittedly was more concerned with chronicling the stories--regardless of whether they're truthful or not--even if it meant verging on what Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin might call "docu-fantasia."
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by Noah_Isenberg »

CineMaven wrote:Welcome to the Oasis Noah!

There are devotees here of film noir, whether of the revered kind or the obscure. Speaking for myself, I started off very young with Ulmer watching two of his classics - “The Black Cat” & “Detour” - and not knowing anything about him except these were two movies I really enjoyed. ( I saw “The Black Cat” at TCM’s Film Festival and this unnerving film STILL holds up eighty years later! :shock: ) I have two questions for you.

How did Ulmer stay encouraged to continue filmmaking as he saw his budgets and the stars he could attract dwindle? He worked his way up in Europe, New York and Hollywood; finally being on the INSIDE...until he found himself on the outs at the studios and in Hollywood. It’s tough for us struggling indie filmmakers to stay encouraged in this day and digital age. How did he do it after already tasting success?
Ulmer was certainly driven by ambition, by conviction, and by a kind of monomaniacal zeal that made him take even his lowliest productions seriously. He certainly despaired after repeated let-downs (failures?), as his personal correspondence--especially to his wife Shirley and to his agent Ilse Lahn--makes clear. But he never let go of the hope that his big break would come (or come again, if you think of The Black Cat as his first break, if one that took an unfortunate turn, professionally speaking).
CineMaven wrote:When Ulmer got a chance to work with stars who had talent and recognized name value and celebrity ( Ricardo Cortez, Margaret Lindsay, John Carradine, Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Nancy Coleman, Regis Toomey, Zachary Scott, Arthur Kennedy, Selena Royle, Warren William ) some of these actors being bonafide vets, he seemed to rise to the occasion and they seemed to elevate the proceedings with their talent. My second question is, for these actors, was it a step down to work with Ulmer? Hollywood’s a small town and everybody knew everybody’s successes and failures. If they were working in a picture with him, was it considered a bad thing...a come down, an ending to their career? Did it taint them in any way...or was it just another acting gig for them? Arthur Kennedy practically compelled me into believing he was Mexican.
Hedy Lamarr selected Ulmer to direct The Strange Woman. It wasn't a step down for her as much as it was an assertion of independence (her company produced the film). For Zachary Scott or Arthur Kennedy (who is, I agree, very compelling as a Mexican bandit in The Naked Dawn), it may have been a step down (from Warners, in the case of Scott, and from working with A-list directors like Lang, in the case of Kennedy). On a film like Muchachas de Bagdad (Babes in Bagdad, 1952), his trashy costume drama made in Spain, Ulmer was able to get Paulette Goddard and Gypsy Rose Lee only because they were both on the other side of the hump in their respective careers.
CineMaven wrote:Alright...okay...I confess. I have a total of four questions:

Did Ulmer have a favorite film? ( Was it the amazing “The Black Cat”? ) Was there one that he was really proud of and considered his best work?
Among his favorites, as he told Peter Bogdanovich in 1970, were The Black Cat, Detour, Ruthless, and The Naked Dawn. And yet he talks about many other of his films as if they were his children and he loved them equally. For instance, he really enjoyed the films he made together with Eugen Schüfftan at PRC (they tended to have a bit more style to them, especially as concerned the cinematography).
CineMaven wrote:Do YOU have a favorite Ulmer film, and why? I recently saw “Her Sister’s Secret” ( your recommendation ) and really enjoyed the angst, tenderness and even-handedness of the story. I also liked the humanity given to the family maid in that film in her two brief scenes. She is played by Frances Williams ( who’ll also appear in fellow emigre Fritz Lang’s film “The Reckless Moment.” ) Ulmer firmly had a grasp on where to put his camera. It can not be an accident that in her scene, he pretty much keeps Williams in the shot with the two lead actors even when she isn’t speaking. It was a great shorthand to show that she is part of the family unit.


I do love Her Sister's Secret, and I agree with you about the tenderness of the film and his treatment of the ancillary characters including the maid (the accented émigré actors in the film receive similarly tender, sympathetic treatment). I can't wait to see the UCLA preservation of it, due to premiere (so I'm told) at a TCM festival in LA sometime in April 2014.
CineMaven wrote:Image
Nancy Coleman, Henry Stephenson and Frances Williams

Well...I’d better dash before I get Cine-Booted off the board here. Thank you so much for visiting the Silver Screen Oasis and making the time to answer our questions. It’s so nice to “see” you here, after meeting you up at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, and the MacNally-Jackson Bookstore.

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Theresa Brown
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by Noah_Isenberg »

I hope it's okay that I'm going through the posts, "quoting" them, and responding to each of the individual questions. I'll need to get to the remaining posts tomorrow, as I'm rather spent now. Thanks again for allowing me to serve as a guest visitor to Silver Screen Oasis. And thanks, too, for the superb questions. I will return to the remaining posts with new energy tomorrow!
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moira finnie
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Re: Q & A For Noah Isenberg, the Biographer of Edgar G. Ulmer

Post by moira finnie »

We are looking forward to your return, Noah. Thanks for tackling some of our queries after your hectic day.
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