Anyway, here's the other blind I promised, for people who get bored with tea and cleavage and answered my blind about the two actress sisters.
This foreign-born director was definitely A+ in his country at the peak of his career. He never got higher than B in the US because he was too stubborn to get along with the studio system. But in his home country, he was for a while the golden boy of a major studio, with some huge productions that are still famous and influential today.
He was also married to one of his collaborators. Before that, they were both married to different people. They were working together and started an affair. Her first husband took it rather well. After their divorce, he actually worked with them. It wasn’t that easy for the director’s first wife. She caught her husband and the mistress at their home and made accusations at the both of them. She claimed that she would never divorce. At this moment, he shot her in the chest with his gun and killed her. Then, he didn’t call the police to confess the murder. He called the studio boss, who handled the whole thing to protect his best moneymaker. The head honcho bribed a few cops and he made sure that the press wouldn’t even mention the incident, which was classified as an accident in the police report despite a ton of evidence. He made such a good job that years later people were surprised to discover that the director had been previously married. No trace of the dead wife, but her name, actually survived the cleanup job.
But the truth always comes out. In the director’s films, there are a lot of suicides, murders, and murders disguised to look like suicides, but the killer always leaves a trace, a mark. He was obsessed with guilt. He may have never left a written confession and he even had all his personal documents destroyed after his death, but the message still made its way on screen.
I liked the Verhoeven guess, but fwiw, he married in 1967 and it appears they're still married. So, not him. How about Ken Russell? Three marriages but per wikipedia, all divorces.
It is Fritz Lang. And you can verify almost everything that's in the blind.
First wife Lisa. She was killed by the gun he had kept after serving for WW1, in their bathtub. It may be suicide, it may be an accident, or he may have shot her. The studio guy was the head of UFA, but not the guy who was part of the first Hitler government.
After that, Lang married his screenwriter Thea von Harbou, and they worked together until the Nazis reached power, as Harbou sided with them while Lang escaped Germany and started to work in the US. The actor was Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who was in six of his films, including Dr. Mabuse (which was a huge inspiration to the style of the first James Bond films, especially the SPECTRE organization) and Metropolis (it created the look of the first proper screen robot, which has been copied by almost everybody else).
Lang was quite mean and pesky, and embellished the truth in many other occasions, which is why there are serious suspicions about the accident, which he only mentioned briefly in his autobiography. Films that are about guilt or arranged crimes include M, The Secret Beyond the Door, Fury, or Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
@ Angela- thanks for both blinds- they were very interesting. This 2nd one is so intriguing and sounds so Hitchcockian that it would make a great movie,
Lang was for sure an interesting guy. Goebbels loved him, even if he was half-Jewish. People say that the Nuremberg rallies were staged to look like Wagner operas. Actually, they were more influenced by Lang's 5 hr epic about The Niebelungen. And themes at the center of Metropolis ("The mediator between head and hands must be the heart") plus the futurist sensibility appealed a lot to National-Socialist concepts. It was one of Hitler's favorite movies. Goebbels went apparently as far as offering to Lang the seat of head of all of German cinema (the UFA studio) in 1933. Lang claims that within 48 hours of this offer, he left Germany for good, never to return there until the end of the war. That's where the embellishment lies. His biographers showed that he stayed there for months, and even when he had decided to move to Paris, he still made a few trips to Berlin (he had his divorce to handle). They don't exclude that he was tempted by the offer at some point, because of the esthetic similarities. He actually left Germany for good after three months.
That said, Lang realized the stakes after these months, became extremely supportive of the war effort, and was one of the most vocal opponents to Hitler at Hollywood. He made Man Hunt, Hangmen Also Die and Ministry of Fear, which are so much better than classic war time propaganda.
But it was mostly due to his tendency to exaggerate and embellish the facts that there are doubts over the death of his first wife. Regardless of what actually happened (suicide, accidental firing of the gun during a fight, murder...), it definitely marked him and played a part over his depiction of violent impulses among regular people.
I might have another blind in store, which is about an actress that would make a riveting subject for a biopic, but wasn't, due to her feud with some of the then most influential people in the film industry, and a few foreign country leaders.
Tarantino?
ReplyDeleteBen Affleck?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBrett Ratner?
ReplyDeleteOh this is like a sober coach and not a studio hired escort right?
ReplyDeleteCould be a sober coach or a MeToo watchguard type
DeleteRatner can't be A+/A.
ReplyDeleteRatner hasn't directed anything since 2015. He has no project lined up.
ReplyDeleteAffleck isn't directing anything these days.
Didn't Affleck direct that Netflix show he's in with Charlie Hunnam and Pedro Pascal?
DeletePeter Farrelly is possible (rating post GreenBook)
ReplyDeleteCoach could be for both issues....
Or “chaperone “ better word
DeleteAnyway, here's the other blind I promised, for people who get bored with tea and cleavage and answered my blind about the two actress sisters.
ReplyDeleteThis foreign-born director was definitely A+ in his country at the peak of his career. He never got higher than B in the US because he was too stubborn to get along with the studio system. But in his home country, he was for a while the golden boy of a major studio, with some huge productions that are still famous and influential today.
He was also married to one of his collaborators. Before that, they were both married to different people. They were working together and started an affair. Her first husband took it rather well. After their divorce, he actually worked with them.
It wasn’t that easy for the director’s first wife. She caught her husband and the mistress at their home and made accusations at the both of them. She claimed that she would never divorce. At this moment, he shot her in the chest with his gun and killed her. Then, he didn’t call the police to confess the murder. He called the studio boss, who handled the whole thing to protect his best moneymaker.
The head honcho bribed a few cops and he made sure that the press wouldn’t even mention the incident, which was classified as an accident in the police report despite a ton of evidence. He made such a good job that years later people were surprised to discover that the director had been previously married. No trace of the dead wife, but her name, actually survived the cleanup job.
But the truth always comes out. In the director’s films, there are a lot of suicides, murders, and murders disguised to look like suicides, but the killer always leaves a trace, a mark. He was obsessed with guilt. He may have never left a written confession and he even had all his personal documents destroyed after his death, but the message still made its way on screen.
Paul Verhoeven?
ReplyDeleteI liked the Verhoeven guess, but fwiw, he married in 1967 and it appears they're still married. So, not him. How about Ken Russell? Three marriages but per wikipedia, all divorces.
ReplyDeleteI think this is pre Verhoeven. Probably someone German. Fritz Lang? That’s my only guess.
DeleteAnyone jumpoff who married the dude who killed his first wife, is a fucking fool.
ReplyDeleteIt is Fritz Lang. And you can verify almost everything that's in the blind.
ReplyDeleteFirst wife Lisa. She was killed by the gun he had kept after serving for WW1, in their bathtub. It may be suicide, it may be an accident, or he may have shot her. The studio guy was the head of UFA, but not the guy who was part of the first Hitler government.
After that, Lang married his screenwriter Thea von Harbou, and they worked together until the Nazis reached power, as Harbou sided with them while Lang escaped Germany and started to work in the US. The actor was Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who was in six of his films, including Dr. Mabuse (which was a huge inspiration to the style of the first James Bond films, especially the SPECTRE organization) and Metropolis (it created the look of the first proper screen robot, which has been copied by almost everybody else).
Lang was quite mean and pesky, and embellished the truth in many other occasions, which is why there are serious suspicions about the accident, which he only mentioned briefly in his autobiography. Films that are about guilt or arranged crimes include M, The Secret Beyond the Door, Fury, or Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
@ Angela- thanks for both blinds- they were very interesting. This 2nd one is so intriguing and sounds so Hitchcockian that it would make a great movie,
ReplyDeleteThank you Angela!!!
ReplyDeleteKeep 'em coming, Angela!
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, Angela! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Angela! Love love love those classic Hollywood blinds.
ReplyDeleteOld school blinds are so interesting! Thanks Angela
ReplyDelete@HeatherBee
ReplyDeleteThere's actually a German movie that covered this. And it was very poorly received.
https://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/fritz-lang-review-1201896017/
Lang was for sure an interesting guy. Goebbels loved him, even if he was half-Jewish. People say that the Nuremberg rallies were staged to look like Wagner operas. Actually, they were more influenced by Lang's 5 hr epic about The Niebelungen. And themes at the center of Metropolis ("The mediator between head and hands must be the heart") plus the futurist sensibility appealed a lot to National-Socialist concepts. It was one of Hitler's favorite movies.
Goebbels went apparently as far as offering to Lang the seat of head of all of German cinema (the UFA studio) in 1933. Lang claims that within 48 hours of this offer, he left Germany for good, never to return there until the end of the war. That's where the embellishment lies. His biographers showed that he stayed there for months, and even when he had decided to move to Paris, he still made a few trips to Berlin (he had his divorce to handle). They don't exclude that he was tempted by the offer at some point, because of the esthetic similarities. He actually left Germany for good after three months.
That said, Lang realized the stakes after these months, became extremely supportive of the war effort, and was one of the most vocal opponents to Hitler at Hollywood. He made Man Hunt, Hangmen Also Die and Ministry of Fear, which are so much better than classic war time propaganda.
But it was mostly due to his tendency to exaggerate and embellish the facts that there are doubts over the death of his first wife. Regardless of what actually happened (suicide, accidental firing of the gun during a fight, murder...), it definitely marked him and played a part over his depiction of violent impulses among regular people.
I might have another blind in store, which is about an actress that would make a riveting subject for a biopic, but wasn't, due to her feud with some of the then most influential people in the film industry, and a few foreign country leaders.
Thanks! Looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteThanks @Angela!
ReplyDeleteI'm posting it on the "Ryan Seacrest wannabe" thread here:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2019/03/blind-item-8_9.html
Wow thanks angela! Love classic hollywood blinds
ReplyDelete