The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (427 page)

Veidt studied under Max Reinhardt and played on the Berlin stage before Richard Oswald encouraged him into films:
Das Ratsel von Bangalor
(17, Paul Leni and Alexander Antalffy);
Die Seeschlacht
(17, Oswald);
Dida Ibsens Geschichte
(18, Oswald);
Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen
(18, Oswald);
Es Werde Licht
(18, Oswald);
Prostitution
(19, Oswald);
Satanas
(19, F. W. Murnau); before making
Caligari
. He worked in the full range of German cinema: in
Prinz Kuckuck
(19, Leni);
Unheimliche Geschichten
(19, Oswald); the lead in Murnau’s Jekyll and Hyde movie,
Der Januskopf
(20); in
Das Indische Grabmal
(21, Joe May); in the historic films—
Danton
(22, Dmitri Buchowetzki);
Lady Hamilton
(22),
Carlos und Elizabeth
(22), and
Lukrezia Borgia
(22), all by Richard Oswald; as Ivan the Terrible in
Waxworks
(24, Leni); in two Paul Czinner films,
Nju
(24) and
Der Geiger von Florenz
(26); in
Die Bruder Schellenberg
(26, Karl Grune); and an enormous success in
Der Student von Prag
(26, Henrik Galeen). In addition, he directed one film himself,
Lord Byron
(22).

He worked briefly in Italy—
Enrico I
(27); in Sweden
—Jerusalem
(27, Ernst Mattson); and in France
—Les Maudits
(27); before he took up an offer to play Louis XI to John Barrymore’s François Villon in
The Beloved Rogue
(27, Alan Crosland). Veidt stayed in Hollywood for
The Man Who Laughs
(27, Leni),
A Man’s Past
(27, George Melford), and
The Last Performance
(27, Paul Fejos). Back in Germany, he made an English-language version of
The Last Company
(30, Kurt Bernhardt),
Der Mann der den Mord Beging
(31, Bernhardt), and the German version of
Cape Forlorn
(30, E. A. Dupont). After
Rasputin
(30, Adolf Trotz), he played Metternich in
Der Kongress Tanzt
(31, Erich Charell) and then moved to England for
Rome Express
(32, Walter Forde) and
I Was a Spy
(33, Victor Saville). Back in Germany he was in
F.P.1 Antwortet Nicht
(32, Karl Hartl),
Der Schwarze Huzar
(32, Gerhard Lamprecht),
Ich und die Kaiserin
(33, Frederich Hollander), and
Wilhelm Tell
(34, Heinz Paul).

In England he made
The Wandering Jew
(33, Maurice Elvey) and
Bella Donna
(34, Robert Milton) and while visiting Germany he was briefly detained—he had a Jewish wife and was about to make
Jew Süss
(34, Lothar Mendes). Thereafter he stayed in Britain for
The Passing of the Third Floor Back
(35, Berthold Viertel);
King of the Damned
(35, Forde);
Under the Red Robe
(37, Victor Sjöström);
Dark Journey
(37, Saville); went to Paris for
Tempête sur l’Asie
(38, Oswald) and
Jouer d’Echecs
(38); and returned to Britain for two films with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger,
The Spy in Black
(39) and
Contraband
(40). When war came, the Kordas shipped Veidt to the United States to play the vizier in
The Thief of Bagdad
(40, Powell, Tim Whelan, and Ludwig Berger), and he spent his last years playing Germans in Hollywood films:
Escape
(40, Mervyn Le Roy);
A Woman’s Face
(41, George Cukor);
The Men in Her Life
(41, Gregory Ratoff);
Whistling in the Dark
(41, S. Sylvan Simon);
All Through the Night
(41, Vincent Sherman);
Nazi Agent
(42, Jules Dassin); shot down on the phone in
Casablanca
(43, Michael Curtiz); and
Above Suspicion
(43, Richard Thorpe).

Lino Ventura
(Angelino Borrini), (1919–87), b. Parma, Italy
In
Army of Shadows
(69, Jean-Pierre Melville), there comes a scene where Philippe Gerbier (Ventura) and several others are assigned to run a gauntlet of Nazi fire. We see Ventura’s sad, impassive, unyielding face as he debates with himself over whether or not to play the cruel German game. There is no acting, just the dilemma—and then he runs. Of course, that Ventura face is as suited to honorable men like Gerbier as it is to the police inspector in
Illustrious Corpses
(76, Francesco Rosi) or the crook in
Le Deuxième Souffle
(66, Melville). Just like his idol and his patron, Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura gave nothing away and trusted that we could sort the good from the bad. Without education or training, he was a master, a building block for tough authenticity—and a man who, once or twice in his life, showed us his surprising smile.

He moved to Paris as a child and became a professional wrestler. That’s where Gabin noticed him and put him in
Touchez Pas au Grisbi
(54, Jacques Becker). After that, he was in
Razzia sur la Chnouf
(54, Henri Decoin);
Crime et Châtiment
(56, Georges Lampin);
Action Immédiate
(57, Maurice Labro);
L’Étrange Monsieur Steve
(57, Raymond Bailly);
Ces Dames Préfèrent le Mambo
(57, Bernard Borderie);
Maigret Tend un Piège
(58, Jean Delannoy); as the police chief in
Elevator to the Gallows
(58, Louis Malle);
Montparnasse 19
(58, Becker);
Le Gorille Vous Salue Bien
(58, Borderie);
La Fauve Est Lâché
(59, Labro);
Marie-Octobre
(59, Julien Duvivier).

He was by instinct a supporting actor:
Un Témoin dans la Ville
(59, Edouard Molinaro);
Le Chemin des Écoliers
(59, Michel Boisrond);
Classe Tous Risques
(59, Claude Sautet);
Die Herrin der Welt
(60, William Dieterle);
Taxi for Tobruk
(60, Denys de la Patellière);
La Ragazza in Vetrina
(60, Luciano Emmer);
Le Bateau d’Émile
(62, Patellière);
Die Dreigroschenoper
(63, Wolfgang Staudte);
Les Petits Matins
(63, Jacqueline Audry);
Le Diable et les Dix Commandements
(63, Duvivier);
Les Barbouzes
(65, Georges Lautner);
L’Arme à Gauche
(65, Sautet);
Les Grandes Gueules
(65, Robert Enrico);
Avec la Peau des Autres
(66, Jacques Deray);
Les Aventuriers
(67, Enrico);
Les Clan de Siciliens
(69, Henri Verneuil);
Boulevard du Rhum
(71, Enrico).

He played Vito Genovese in
The Valachi Papers
(72, Terence Young) and began to take lead parts: as a Russian scientist in
Le Silencieux
(73, Claude Pinoteau); with Françoise Fabian in
La Bonne Année
(73, Claude Lelouch);
L’Emmerdeur
(73, Molinaro);
Tough Guys
(74, Duccio Tessari);
La Gifle
(74, Pinoteau);
La Cage
(75, Pierre Granier-Deferre);
Adieu, Poulet
(75, Granier-Deferre);
The Medusa Touch
(78, Jack Gold);
Un Papillon sur l’Épaule
(78, Deray); with Angie Dickinson in
L’Homme en Colère
(79, Pinoteau);
Sunday Lovers
(80, Molinaro);
Garde à Vue
(81, Claude Miller);
Espion, Lève-Toi
(82, Yves Boisset); as Jean Valjean in
Les Misérables
(82, Robert Hossein);
Le Ruffian
(83, Jose Giovanni);
Cento Giorni a Palermo
(84, Giuseppe Ferraro);
La 7ème Cible
(84, Pinoteau);
Sword of Gideon
(86, Michael Anderson).

Paul Verhoeven
, b. Amsterdam, Holland, 1938
1971:
Business Is Business
(TV). 1973:
Turks Fruit/Turkish Delight
. 1975:
Keetje Tippel
. 1977:
Soldier of Orange
. 1980:
Spetters
. 1984:
The Fourth Man
. 1985:
Flesh + Blood
. 1987:
Robocop
. 1990:
Total Recall
. 1992:
Basic Instinct
. 1995:
Showgirls
. 1997:
Starship Troopers
. 2000:
Hollow Man
. 2006:
Black Book
.

Verhoeven was well into his forties before he came to work in America. But he has redefined himself, and in the space of a few years he has placed himself in the company of James Cameron and Tim Burton (nearly twenty years younger) as masters of modern sensation. Indeed, a case can be made that no immigrant has as fully embraced the New World since the days of Lang and Hitchcock.

He took a degree in math and physics at the University of Leiden and began to make short films for the Dutch Navy, and then for television.
Turkish Delight
got an Oscar nomination for best foreign film: it has Verhoeven’s chief actor in Holland, Rutger Hauer, as a sculptor in a variety of erotic situations. Even then, there were some who saw a pornographer in Verhoeven.
Soldier of Orange
was a story about the Dutch resistance, with Hauer as a handsome hero. But in
Spetters
—a teenage story—sex was once more at the center, and Renee Soutendijk was the available beauty. She was the lead in
The Fourth Man
, a picture about a hairdresser who may be murdering her men—a film that Catharine Trammell might have researched.

Flesh + Blood
was set in the sixteenth century; it was the director’s first work in the English language; and it paired Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It promised very little. Since then, Verhoeven has made three authentic smash hits, all three violent, nasty, and flirting with the inhuman. Just as the two male protagonists in
Robocop
and
Total Recall
are more and less than men, so Sharon Stone’s Catharine in
Basic Instinct
is most interesting as a blonde machine testing how far the absence of pity, morality, or consequence can take her. Verhoeven may not be all to blame for the incoherence of the picture, but does he notice such a problem when he has ice picks, orgasms, and what looks like a nearly bald pussy to stare at? The basic instinct toward which he may be working is that of lustrous impersonality.

That was 1994, and not bad as a prediction of
Showgirls
and
Starship Troopers
, which are twin versions of human nature being reappraised as plastic toys.

Dziga Vertov
(Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman) (1896–1954), b. Bialystock, Poland
All films are documentary: 1918–19:
Kino Nedelya/Cine Weekly
(forty-three editions). 1919:
Godovshchina Revolyutsii/Anniversary of the Revolution
(twelve episodes);
Boi pod Tsaritsynom
. 1920:
Vskrytie Moshchei Sergiya Radonezhskovo; Vserossiiskii Starosta Kalinin; Protsess Mironova
. 1921:
Agitpoezhd Vtsika/Train of the Central Executive
. 1922:
Istoriya Grazhdanskoi Voiny; Univermag;
Protsess Eserov
. 1922–25:
Kino Pravda/ Cinema Truth
(twenty-three editions). 1923:
Pyat let Borby i Pobedy
. 1923–25:
Goskino Kalendar
(fifty-five editions). 1924:
Kino Glaz/Camera Eye
(six episodes);
Dayesh Vozdukh; Segodnya; Sovetskie Igrushki; Grimaci Parizhi; Zhumoreski
. 1926:
Shagai, Soviet!/Stride, Soviet!; Shestaya Chast Mira/A Sixth of the World
(six episodes). 1928:
Odinnadtstyi/The Eleventh
(five episodes). 1929:
Chelovek s Kinoapparatom/Man with a Movie Camera
. 1930:
Entuziazm/Symphony of the Don Basin
. 1934:
Tri Pesni o Leninye/Three Songs of Lenin
. 1937:
Kolybelnaya/Lullaby; Pamyati Sergo Ordzhonikidzye
. 1938:
Slava Sovetskim Geroinyam; Tri Geroini
. 1941:
V Raionye Vysoty A; Krov za Krov, Smert za Smert; Na Linii Ognya-Operatory Kino-Khroniki/In the Line of Fire
. 1943:
Tebye Front
. 1944:
Klyatva Molodykh
. 1947–54:
Novosti Dnya/Daily News
(fifty-five editions).

There are Russian films that we will never see, and nobody made (or supervised) as many of them as Dziga Vertov. For that reason alone, we should be cautious about defining him. Nevertheless, he seems not only the director most engaged with the Constructivist enthusiasm to make a new art for a newly conscious people, but also the most appealing.
The Man with a Movie Camera
is more touching, more historically informative and comic than any Russian film of the period. Who can say what its influence has been? Godard fastened the Dziga Vertov flag to his mast, but in the spirit that the
Potemkin
ran up the red flag—as an emotional gesture of honorable intentions. Chris Marker tried to recreate the mobile film units that Vertov and Alexander Medvedkin organized. But Marker had always been a traveler. It is more likely that Godard had seen in Dziga Vertov the first apprehension of the documentary dilemma. For, like Godard, Dziga Vertov had an instinctive love of cinema and a relentless need to intellectualize and politicize that enthusiasm:

We rise against the collusion between the “director-enchanter” and the public which is submitted to the enchantment …

We need conscious people, not an unconscious mass, ready to yield to any suggestion.