Billy Wilder on assignment Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and interwar Vienna
Book - 2021
"Before Billy Wilder (1906-2002) left Europe for the United States in 1934 and became a filmmaker, he worked as a newspaper reporter, first in Vienna and then in Weimar Berlin. This book, edited and introduced by Noah Isenberg and translated by Shelley Frisch, collects about 65 articles Wilder published in Austrian and German newspapers in the 1920s. The collection includes reported pieces on urban life, from a first-person account of Wilder's stint as a taxi dancer to an article about street sweepers; profiles of writers, movie stars and poker players; and dispatches from the international film scene, from reviews to interviews with such figures as Charlie Chaplin and Erich von Stroheim. Isenberg provides an introduction that giv...es biographical details and places the writings in context, emphasizing their historical moment and their connections to Wilder's later career"--
- Subjects
- Genres
- Biographies
- Published
-
Princeton, New Jersey :
Princeton University Press
[2021]
- Language
- English
German - Main Author
- Other Authors
- Item Description
- Translated from the German.
- Physical Description
- viii, 212 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 23 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes index.
- ISBN
- 9780691194943
- Editor's Introduction: A Roving Reporter, a Tale of Two Cities, and the Making of Billy Wilder
- I. Extra! Extra! Reportage, Opinion Pieces, and Features from Real Life
- "Waiter, A Dancer, Please!"
- Promenaden-Café
- That's Some Cold Weather-in Venice!
- This Is Where Christopher Columbus Came into the Old World
- The Art of Little Ruses
- Naphthalene
- Anything but Objectivity!
- When It's Eighty-four Degrees
- Day of Destiny
- Wanted: Perfect Opcimist
- Renovation: An Ode to the Coffeehouse
- Why Don't Matches Smell That Way Anymore?
- The Rose of Jericho
- Little Economics Lesson
- Film Terror: On the Threat of Being Photographed
- Berlin Rendezvous
- Night Ride over Berlin
- The Business of Thirst: What People Axe Drinking Nowadays
- Here We Are at Film Studio 1929
- How We Shot Our Studio Film
- Getting Books to Readers
- How I Pumped Zaharoff for Money
- II. Portraits of Extraordinary and Ordinary People
- Asta Nielsen's Theatrical Mission
- My "Prince of Wales"
- Lubitsch Discovers: A Casting by America's Great Director
- The Tiller Girls Are Here!
- The Tiller Girls' Boarding School at the Prater
- Girardi's Son Plays Jazz at the Mary Bar
- Paul Whiteman, His Mustache, the Cobenzl, and the Taverns
- Whiteman Triumphs in Berlin
- I Interview Mr. Vanderbilt
- The Prince of Wales Goes on Holiday
- Chaplin II and the Others at the Scala
- The Lookalike Man: Tale of a Chameleon Named Erwin
- A Minister on Foot
- Interview with a Witch: Women's Newest Profession
- Grock, the Man Who Makes the World Laugh
- Ten Minutes with Chaliapin
- Claude Anet in Berlin
- At the Home of the Oldest Woman in Berlin
- Felix Holländer
- The Elder Statesman of Berlin Theater Critics
- The B. Z. Lady and the German Crown Prince
- Stroheim, the Man We Love to Hate
- A Poker Artist: The Magic of Fritz Herrmann
- "Hello, Mr. Menjou?"
- Klabund Died a Year Ago
- III. Film and Theater Reviews
- Broken Barriers (1924)
- Marital Conflicts (1927)
- Eichberg Shoots a Film
- The Beggar from Cologne Cathedral (1927)
- Ole and Axel at the North Sea Shore (1927)
- Radio Magic (1927)
- Frost in the Studio: A Bath at Twenty Degrees Fahrenheit
- Ole and Axel at Beba Palace
- His Wife's Lover (1928)
- From the Studios
- Greed (1924)
- A Blonde for a Night (1928)
- The Valley of the Giants (1927)
- The Last Night (1928)
- In the Name of the Law (1922)
- Sounds Are Recorded: The Studio Shots
- The Threepenny Opera, for the Fiftieth Time
- Springtime in Palestine (1928)
- First Silhouette Sound Film
- What a Woman Dreams in Spring (1929)
- "Youth Stage"?
- Stroll through the Studios-They're Shooting Silent Films
- The Missing Will (1929)
- The Winged Horseman (1929)
- Men without Work (1929)
- The Merry Musicians (1930)
- Susie Cleans Up (1930)
- Translator's Note
- Index