Captivated by Garbo:
Max Ophuls' Roman interlude with the Duchess of Langeais
 

“A pity forever! That would have become a huge success," sighed Max Ophuls late in 1950 to the Frankfurter Rundschau's Dieter Fritko about the demise of producer Walter Wanger's Greta Garbo project, a film based on Balzac's La Duchesse de Langeais.

     A year earlier, while in Paris, still waiting to make the film, he had told Paul Carriere of Le Figaro that "Balzac is the most modern writer there can be: he is colorful, ironic, nervous; he is a better psychoanalyst than Freud. I am certain that in bringing one of his works to the screen, one does not make an old-fashioned film, but a film that is contemporary and will remain that way.

     And in 1958, Ophuls' wife, Hilde, was to write about his attitude toward Garbo in the epilogue to his autobiography: "He was fascinated by her and hence happy about the prospect of being able to work with her."

     All these remarks suggest that Ophuls very much wanted to direct Garbo in her come-back attempt and that consequently the break-up of a particular package of distribution arrangements with American, British, and Italian partners during one early September week in Rome troubled him greatly. I will argue here that, quite to the contrary, Ophuls felt relief over the collapse of the project's Italian arrangements and that his expression of regret referred to a later vision of the film.

     Looking at the episode from his perspective as a filmmaker, I will attempt to show why the proposed production context did not appear to Ophuls to be favoring his working methods and vision of the film.

     On June 11, 1949, after finding the solution to vexing structural problems of the screenplay for The Ballad and the Source (Ballad) , Ophuls had sent a cable to Wanger, then in Rome for negotiations regarding the production of both Ballad a nd the The Duchess of Langeais (Duchess): "Cheer up, camera will start booming excessively at proper date."

     Ten days later, with Wanger now in New York City, he wrote, "I suggest a story conference on ‘The Ballad and the Source' with you as president, Joan [Bennett], [writers Irmgard von] Cube, [Allen] Vincent, set and costume designers for Monday morning June 27, 9 o'clock sharp, at Schwab's Drugstore."

     Ophuls was nearing the end of a period of contentious collaboration with von Cube and the concurrent supervision of The Reckless Moment's postproduction at Columbia Studios as Wanger's surrogate. He felt confident, happily in charge of preparing his next film for production, despite the nearly ceaseless demands on his creative and physical energies that spring.

     But when Wanger returned to Hollywood, he had a new agenda. Having failed in Europe in his quest to make arrangements for financial backing, establish an organizational framework, and procure the talent for production of Ballad and Duchess concurrently or at least with overlapping periods of principal photography, he was persuaded by Garbo's insistence on a September 1st start date and, very likely, also the better prospects for financing Duchess to proceed with his Walter Wanger International company's European production program for now only with the Garbo project.

     The change in priorities immediately encountered a major obstacle, however. Unlike von Cube and Vincent working with Ophuls, Sally Benson, an author of well-regarded short stories for The New Yorker, novelist ( Meet Me in St. Loui ") as well as a successful screen writer (including a collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock on Shadow of a Doubt ), had not been able to complete the "shootable" screenplay she had promised Wanger before he left for Europe and essentially lost contact with her because she could only be reached through her agent.

     Having just observed Ophuls' skill as a "script doctor" for the Ballad screenplay, Wanger realized he might solve his Duchess problems as well.

     Yet he hesitated, accepting Benson's promise to make improvements herself. On his other suddenly pressing task of finding a director for Duchess , though, Wanger acted almost immediately. Because Carol Reed, Vittorio De Sica, Jean Cocteau, and Joshua Logan had been unable or unwilling to direct his film, he now asked Ophuls to switch ass ignments, to direct Duchess during the period he had contracted to do Ballad while remaining on standby for the latter.

     Ophuls agreed. Garbo, whose contract gave her director approval, accepted Ophuls after seeing Letter From an Unknown Woman and meeting with him, Wanger, and, Eugene Frenke, Wanger's partner, at her home on July 6.

     Though still dealing with the last steps of The Reckless Moment's postproduction, Ophuls began work on Duchess well ahead of his July 18 start date with a July 8th screening at Columbia of the 1947 French film adaptation of the novel.

     But he did not begin with script revisions until July 19, after Benson's attempt at improvements had failed and he had been released from a brief hospitalization, an early manifestation of his heart problems. In the subsequent three weeks of working intensively with screen writer Harold Goldman and conferring as well with James and Pamela Mason.

     Some of whose ideas he integrated, Ophuls began to effect changes in characterization, dialogue and visualization in Benson's 147-page screenplay of Balzac's story of an ex-Napoleonic officer's (Armand de Montriveau) passion for and rejection by a coquettish aristocrat (Antoinette de Langeais), whose belated discovery of her love for him dooms them both.

     As early as July 29th, Ophuls commented in a letter to Wanger on his intentions to make Garbo's duchess part less strident, softer, more human.

     The shooting script's closing scene shows that Ophuls had also already introduced elements of his visual style. Its expressive camera moves in a manner akin to the church sequence's in Le Plaisir (1952) and ends in stasis with the duchess' death.

     Still, the 131-page revision, the last of whose pages are dated August 18, just two days before Ophuls' departure, merely ended the writing process. It did not complete it to his satisfaction. Even as he was still collaborating with Goldman, he rushed through a rough French translation of the script, that was to be as much a point of departure for further revisions by Andre-Paul Antoine in Paris as a basis of Frenke's pre-production planning.

     The imperative to devote himself to screenplay revisions kept Ophuls removed almost entirely from the other tasks of the pre-production process, participation in which he would have insisted on under other circumstances.

      Soon after accepting the assignment, though, he had requested Wanger pursue cinematographer Franz Planer and Wanger had seen Planer, who was, however, otherwise committed. It is also likely that he discussed casting with James Mason (himself cast as de Montriveau), who suggested such British players as Jack Hawkins, Frank Allenby, Geoffrey Keen, and Frederick Lester to Wanger.

     But the producer had not acted on those recommendations as late as a week before the originally anticipated September 1st start date. The hastiness of the Duchess preparations is highlighted by comparison with the periods between contract start dates and production start dates of Ophuls' other American films, for which he had the further advantage of being at the studio production site for the whole process.

     For The Exile, that period had been almost six months; for Letter From an Unknown Woman, on which he began work before the contract date, nine weeks; for Caught, three months; and for The Reckless Moment, for which he was location scouting and collaborating with the set designer while still working on the shooting script, two months. The little over six weeks originally allocated for Duchess, considering his being virtually sequestered with a screenwriter for half that time, being off the production site, and spending nearly two weeks traveling, seems grossly inadequate.

     Wanger's being content with hasty preparations suggests that his aim at this point was the exploitation of Garbo's celebrity at the lowest possible budget, much as it had been with Mason in The Reckless Moment . In essence, he was still just trying to recover from the calamitous failure indicated by the U.S. exhibition of his Joan of Arc.

      In his regular correspondence with Wanger during the latter's European travels, Ophuls had made recommendations for several key crew positions for Ballad , recommendations that no doubt held for Duchess as well: set designer Jean D'Eaubonne or Leon Barsacq ( "both are excellent; D'Eaubonne has the great advantage of being able to speak English" ), sound mixer Joseph de Bretagne, ("a Frenchman who works in Rome now. Do everything to get him... I never met a man who could compare with him in his business... Bretagne is proof that the machine means nothing, that man means all" ), and production manager/assistant director Ralph Baum, ("he moved up to becoming chef de production just by his divine crooked talent to get along with people" ) or Simon Schiffrin ("surely the best man on the continent" ), and Italian-speaking editor Michael Luciano ("assistant editor of Caught, he is an excellent cutter and in spite of the fact that he has no credit as a first cutter, he is an accomplished craftsman" ).

     Of all of these favore d collaborators, only Ralph Baum had been hired before Ophuls' departure. He would be waiting for him when he arrived at Le Havre on September 2nd.

     The two week journey from Los Angeles to Le Havre gave Ophuls his first break since he had begun work on The Reckless Moment in January, although it is quite likely that he occupied himself with additional script work. He also stayed in touch by cable with Mason and Wanger, his cables to the latter concerned primarily with the contract of the former.

     Ophuls ignored Wanger's request, as relayed by Frenke, to fly immediately on to Rome and proceeded instead by train with Baum to Paris, where he spent two days at the Hotel Prince de Galles, before flying on to Rome on September 4. Given the extensive contact with his production manager and large number of local phone calls, it is fair to assume that Ophuls was not only enjoying a sentimental homecoming, but also contacted possible collaborators for the French portion of the Duchess production, if not also the Roman one, whose start date had now been moved up by two weeks to September 15.

      On arriving in Rome, Ophuls rejected Frenke's arrangements again, choosing to stay at the Hotel de la Ville instead of the Hotel Boston, also a first class hotel not far from the Spanish steps and Wanger's production headquarters at Le Grand Hotel near the Piazza Della Republicca. The choice may have been simply a sentimental one.

      In 1934, while making La Signora di Tutti , Ophuls had spent six months in a roof apartment of the de La Ville, a period he remembered with nostalgia when discussing places he had inhabited in his autobiography, Spiel im Dasein , written just four years earlier: "When I went home from the studio, I ascended the Spanish steps coming from the Piazza d'Espagna and felt as if I were going to sleep inside a picture postcard....Despite this Baedeker existence, the work in Rome gave me much pleasure. That's mostly the Italians' fault."

     But it is likely there was also a practical reason for his preferring the de la Ville. He knew that Garbo and Angelo Rizzoli, the wealthy Milanese publisher, who as "the money half" of the Rizzoli-Amato partnership (the "Amato Group") was key to the financing of Duchess and who 15 years earlier had backed Ophuls' only Italian film as his first film venture, were both staying next door at the deluxe Hassler Hotel.

     Ophuls appears to have had mixed feelings about Rizzoli. In Spiel im Dasein , he recalls Rizzoli fondly as a " colorful ball of joie de vivre," always ready to say "Facciamo una festa!" and describes at some length how Rizzoli had loved every phase of the making and exhibition of La Signora di Tutti.

     But in the "Guide Rose," a compendium of advice he wrote for Wanger's European business trip, Ophuls characterized him more tersely and bluntly as an "Italian Hearst, specializing in magazines. Lives in Milan. Backed my Italian picture La Signora di Tutti. Is like all good fascists, back in power.

     It is quite possible, though, that it was Ophuls' association with Duchess that had swung Rizzoli around to favor backing Duchess. Frenke had courted him in the summer of 1948, then Wanger in the spring of 1949. But it was only after Ophuls' signing that a tentative deal with the Amato Group had been arranged.

     Unfortunately, by the time Ophuls checked in, Garbo and her companion, George Schlee, had flown the coop, escaping the paparazzi and mobs of Spanish steps tourists to the only slightly less crowded environs of Le Grand Hotel, where Wanger was staying with his wife, Joan Bennett, and their daughters. Rizzoli, though, may still have been at the Hassler, ready, perhaps eager, to meet with Ophuls.

     He is the most likely source of a story Ophuls passed on to James Mason: "Rizzoli and the other Italian guy--there were two of them involved--they wanted to meet her and she kept putting off the meeting. And finally they were allowed to meet her at the hotel. But she received them in an almost darkened room, you know, with the blinds down; they got a very poor view of her. This was another irritant. And so, Max suggested, that they had a very good reason already to be annoyed with her, not really to go with her for that reason alone. But, also, at the same time, they were complaining about the script. Max also told me t hat. And so, things sort of turned to a stand still, so I heard."

     On Monday morning, September 5, as Ophuls visited Wanger and Garbo at Le Grand Hotel, then likely also looked over Scalera Studios, and perhaps even met with Henry Henigson, his old friend and confidante from Vendetta days and now the production chief for MGM's Quo Vadis at Ginecitta, the full extent of the production's difficulties were revealed to him.

     Wanger spoke of his worries about the Amato Group's pulling out on the basis of the uncertainty of the American part of the present financing and distribution arrangements for Duchess. All the same, he still seemed full of optimism about the chances of salvaging the Roman production plans, pointing to some alternative strategies for covering the Italian production costs.

     Once Ophuls had gotten past the various barriers the hotel had put in place to secure Garbo's quarters, he found her to be far less sanguine about the prospects of working in Rome. After having been chased by paparazzi and reporters on her excursion with Schlee to museums and the beach at Ostia and besieged by autograph hunters everywhere she went on Saturday, she now felt unable to leave the hotel. She dreaded having to live this way for another two months.

     At Scalera, with general manager Roberto Dandi showing him around, few preparations for shooting were evident. Frenke and production manager Gordon Griffith, who had been in Rome since August 22 and 23, respectively, attempting to set up production, had been able to do very little, stymied by the Amato's Group's lack of commitment to the project and a consequent lack of funds. The tentative agreement with them had called for Amato to " supply everything required in Italy for the production of the picture. Therefore, he will supply stages, technical equipment, architect, costumes, wigs, decor, living expenses for all actors, directors, producers, personnel, etc., local and foreign, transportation within Italy etc."

     Wanger had told Frenke in telegrams to " be sure to do everything through him as we have no right to make commitments otherwise" and "they will make all deals and hire personnel." Hence Frenke and Griffith had been limited to dealing with those few budget items to be paid by Wanger in U.S. funds, a f ew American crew members --"gaffer, script girl, sound mixer"-- film and some equipment --"Mitchell camera, baby spots, and tape recorder."

     They had busied themselves with purchasing Dupont raw stock and looking for the Mitchells, planning to take over the equipment of a departing American company. The more significant matter of the sound mixer had hinged more on Wanger's desire to take advantage of the savings the new tape recording technology offered than on the ability of the mixer. Henigson had suggested Wanger contact the Columbia Sound Department for the name and whereabouts of a Columbia mixer who "was over here for a long time in Rome and who had a hand in developing the tape recorder." Ophuls' urgent request for de Bretagne hence had fallen by the wayside. To his credit, Wanger had raised the matter of having a camera boom available, but nothing beyond the studio's two dollies--one standard, the other large--was on site.

As for the key personnel to be hired by Amato, principally the design functions--se t, costume, decoration, it is possible that Ophuls' request for D'Eaubonne might have been fulfilled. He had, after all, worked at Scalera Studios on the French La Chartreuse de Parme (Christian-Jaque, 1948) in 1947 and more recently on Eddie Small's runaway super production, Black Magic (Gregory Ratoff, 1948).

     What mitigated against this possibility were the absurdly low budget allocations to set construction. Notwithstanding Henigson's having commented to Wanger after a careful reading of the script, that he was "inclined to feel that you would have to do an awful lot of building here," the tentative budget allocated only $22,000 (in lire) to set construction, as compared to $84,190 for the much smaller The Reckless Moment.

     Similarly, the wardrobe design budget to be paid in pounds and hence to be used in England was only $5,000, apparently to be spent primarily on Garbo's costumes, while the rental and purchase budget for Italy alone was $18,750. It appears, then, that the Duchess production was to have re lied largely on existing sets and wardrobe. For a director whose style relied on intensive and careful collaboration with designers, effecting with set designers the coordination of set "layout" and camera blocking crucial to his trademark fluidity, doing without such planning was a dismal prospect and virtually unprecedented in his career.

     If Ophuls did visit Henigson at Cinecitta, he had an opportunity to look in on Rene Clair, shooting La Beaute du diable and witness the extensive preparations for the production of Quo Vadis, which in their careful organization and large scale were the opposite of those for Duchess at Scalera. But Henigson spoke of the drawbacks of working in Italy: how the influx of so many American productions over the past eighteen months had driven up crew wages; how quickly the industry's excitement over visiting American stars and directors had been replaced by jaded indifference; how many Italians perceived the American scandal over Ingrid Bergman's affair with Roberto Rossellini as anti-Italian and responded with anti-American attitudes.

     He had no reason, ultimately, to reverse the advice he had given to Wanger in July: "I am somewhat at a loss to understand why you wish to make this picture in Italy. By all means, it should be made in its entirety in France, and I am inclined to feel that your costs in France sh ould not be any higher than your costs here in Italy--they should be less."

     The Amato Group canceled their deal later that day, soon after cinematographer James Wong Howe's arrival. As Ophuls was coming down with a cold or flu that kept him hotel-room-bound for all of Tuesday, Wanger and Frenke were frantically trying to either restore that deal or find a substitute for it. One offer came quickly, as it had essentially been in abeyance, an updating of a deal Wanger had rejected in favor of the Amato Group's. In early August, Wanger had engaged Arrigo Colombo, an English-speaking Italian production executive who had been assistant director on Black Magic , to find Italian backers and become his "Italian advisor," if he succeeded.

     By mid-August, Colombo had mediated a deal with Michele Scalera, president of Scalera Studios and a wealthy contractor, which, however, offered a lower budget than the Amato Group deal. "In order for Scalera to obtain the Government subsidies,"

     Colombo had written, "he would have to organize the production, which will go also to your advantage because in this way you can rest assured he will try to spend what is right and no more." On the other hand, Colombo had felt " that Scalera is very much sold on the project and would go all the way to give you the best.

     It is a very well known fact that, once the pictures start in the Scalera studios, the old man falls in love with the work and is very generous. You have nothing to worry if additional money is needed ." Colombo had noted, furthermore, that."

     Max Ophuls is a long time personal friend of Mr. Dandi, General Manager of Scalera film. It is certain that Mr. Dandi will really go out of his way to make the work of Mr. Ophuls pleasant and easy ."Dandi was, in fact, the only Italian production executive Ophuls had described favorably in his "Guide Rose" as ‘ a comparatively honest and capable producer'.

     In the virtual certainty of having to use La Chartreuse de Parme's costumes and sets as well as Italian ‘palaces where we could shoot the main part of your picture,' the Scalera deal paralleled the Amato Group's.

     But Scalera's strong urging to replace James Mason with an Italian star, Rossano Brazzi, represented another drawback for Ophuls.

     The new deal Scalera Studios offered to the now desperate Wanger replaced Michele Scalera with another chief financier identified only as "Mr. Olean" (hence the "Olean deal") in a crudely worded September 6 deal memo. Significantly, it also added another production supervisory level to the original offer's studio hierarchy: an American production executive associated with Olean, Mike Frankovich, who--very likely with Colombo-had initiated the deal.

     Until recently a unit producer at Republic Studios, Frankovich had, since January 1949, temporarily settled in Italy with his wife, actress Binnie Barnes, in order to produce with his Venus Productions (an Italian company) what were essentially Italian films (for Republic distribution in the U.S.), with only the key creative positions (screenwriter, director) and a few starring roles to be filled by Americans. They corresponded to upper level Republic B productions, made with lower-cost Italian labor. Venus' first project, The Dark Road, written by Philip Yordan, directed by Sidney Salkow, and starring Binnie Barnes and Janis Paige was then on Scalera's stages.

     In essence, the Olean deal offered to turn Duchess into such a project. The deal memo demanded even more control over the production process and provided even less potential profit for Walter Wanger International than the Scalera deal, though now Mason was to be contractually a part of the package. In return for financing the "totality of Mr. Walter Wanger's obligations...up to a maximum $300,000 dollars" as well as the Italian portion, formerly offered by Rizzoli "up to maximum of $250,000,000 Italian Lire (i.e., about $416,700), thus a total amount of $716,700, about $100,000 less than the Amato Group's budget, Olean would' recuperate monies from the first worldwide returns up to the total amount of both above mentioned advancements.”

     Then, after paying deferments of up to $145,000, all other returns would be split 55 to 45 percent between Wanger and Olean, respectively. The memo also outlined tight control over the production, with all expenditures to be co-signed by either Mr. Mike Frankovich or Mr. Robe rto Dandi, to whom Olean "delegated all technical and administrative control," on the Scalera side and Wanger or Frenke on the Walter Wanger International side: "every order, every authorization for expenditure, every paycheck will bear the signature of both representatives of the two parties."

     It is not surprising that Wanger resisted those terms and constraints, but negotiations with Dandi and Frankovich to mitigate them continued through the week and a partnership with Olean-Frankovich remained a possibility until at least October, when Frenke urged Wanger to "get in touch with them, since they are still most definitely interested in this project."

     Wanger aired some of his rancor vis-a-vis Scalera in comments to Variety on his return to the U.S. in December, declaring that "Italian costs had gone up 'beyond reason"' and that the "inability of his Italian partners to provide the lire they had promised for production caused the blowup of the 'Duchess' deal." Frankovich replied indirectly in the same venue some time later, noting that some American producers criticize Europeans "particularly because they were unable to make a deal in either production or distribution."

     Rudy Solmsen, another American producer operating along Frankovich's lines, contradicted Wanger directly and immediately, insisting that "contrary to Wanger's assertion, picture making in Rome is both thrifty and efficient. The only people who find it otherwise...are Americans who come in on a one-shot deal."

     On September 6, presumably after getting the Olean offer, Wanger left for London, probably to find alternative British funding for the Italian costs and to pursue those production elements that were to be financed by frozen pounds. The growing uncertainty of his arrangements also prompted him now to postpone the start date by another three weeks to October 10.

     On September 7, with a Scalera Studios connection now tentative, any pre-production activities requiring studio facilities were on hold. Hence James Wong Howe, who had requested shooting tests of the Dupont raw stock, was idled. After a visit by the hotel doctor, who presumably declared Ophuls fit to leave his room, he may, in absence of any studio preparations have begun his meetings with Garbo on that day.

     As Hilde Ophuls recalled in her epilogue to Spiel im Dasein , "Max had had in Rome his first conversations with Garbo about her role and was again captivated by her." Those conversations were apparently lengthy and friendly enough to make them allies in their preference for making the film in Paris and their insistence on James Mason for the co-starring role.

     Largely for different reasons, Ophuls' concern being primarily with the Scalera Studio hierarchy and the lack of time and funds for suitable pre-production design coordination and Garbo's with feeling hounded by the Italian press and public, Ophuls, Garbo, and, by association with her, Schlee were aligned on the issue of moving the production to France.

     Ophuls disapproved of Garbo's evasive tactics, telling Mason that "Garbo behaved in a rather exasperating manner," drawing attention to herself by her very attempts to avoid it, such as having an expensive car come to the rear of the hotel or wearing "umbrella-type" hats, but he also understood that the Italians were not treating her well.

     Commentators in the Italian film press admitted as much. In Cinema, Francesco Callari wrote that "with disappointment and a bit of shame, we must acknowledge that we behaved badly, very badly towards another famous guest: Greta Garbo [who] had to flee Italy because they made her life impossible."

      On September 7 or 8, another Italian journalist filed a story, remarking on Ophuls' desire to leave: "Ophuls is reliably quoted as saying that, even if it was technically feasible to produce the film in Rome, he'd far prefer to shoot the 'Duchess' in Paris in the novel's original setting."

     But when Wanger returned from London empty-handed, he persisted in his efforts to continue in Rome, attempting to negotiate for better terms with Dandi and Frankovich. When one key element of the Olean deal, Mason, withdrew as of midnight Thursday, September 8, California time (9 AM, September 9, in Rome), Wanger called him at 3:30 AM, California time, in a last ditch effort to persuade him otherwise.

      Mason described the conversation this way: "it was one of those terrible long distance calls in which half of the words don't register, you know a series of sort of --uh--machine gun conversations which consist of half the words, very difficult to understand. But what he was trying to say was, "why aren't you here?" And I was saying, what I was trying to say, was that my agent had said I mustn't go until the money was in escrow. But that had nothing to do with the picture, of course, with making or not making the picture."

     Wanger may not have known this then, but Ophuls certainly did and he shared that knowledg e with Garbo. Once the conditions for production had been corrected, Mason was certain to rejoin the project.

     The Olean Group was willing to compromise on casting, with Errol Flynn or Louis Jourdan being mentioned in that afternoon's negotiations. But Garbo refused to do so and kept pushing as well for shifting the production to Paris.

     Unable to get direct access to Garbo, for which he blamed Schlee in a draft for a telegram to Garbo's MCA agent, Roy Meyers--Schlee "has formed a barrier for direct contact," Wanger learned about her refusal from Frenke. But because of Ophuls' presence in Garbo's quarters for discussions of the script and her role, Wanger associated Ophuls with Schlee and Garbo and even Frenke: Schlee is "using Frenke and Opuls to obtain his ends," he charged in his telegram draft.

     Yet Ophuls agreed on little with Frenke, who wanted to go ahead with production in Rome, even under the Olean deal. Though, or perhaps because, he was, in Mason's words, "Garbo's West Coast Russian" (Schlee being her East Coast Russian) and had originally brought Garbo and the project to Wanger, who consequently expected hi m to "handle" her, Frenke opposed her choice of Ophuls and would soon start a persistent campaign against him, urging Wanger to replace him with William Dieterle or Charles Vidor. In that effort, Garbo's reaction to replacing Ophuls was his only caveat: "We should protect ourselves and be able to use him if we need him as far as Garbo is concerned. (I hope we don't need him.)," he wrote. That, as a frequent witness of the Ophuls-Garbo relationship, Frenke so feared Garbo's resistance to Ophuls' dismissal suggests he perceived them as solid allies. Perhaps Frenke's rancor toward Ophuls even derived from feeling displaced by him in Garbo's esteem.

     With Mason out for all present purposes and Garbo refusing to consider anyone else, Wanger had no further room to maneuver in his negotiations with the Clean Group. He threw in the towel Friday evening, acceding to Garbo and Ophuls' wish to shift production to Paris. He even briefly considered giving up his independent operation, offering to let RKO take over the production in Paris with him as a unit producer.

     On Saturday, September 10, the Wangers flew to Paris; Garbo and Schlee followed by car the same day. One can only wonder why the Ophulses chose to linger in Rome that day and Sunday. But there is little doubt that the feared event eliciting gallows humor Ophuls was alluding to when he scribbled "Rome at the time of Galgenhumor [gallows humor]" on his hotel bill before leaving by train on Monday morning was not so much the ultimate collapse of Wanger's European enterprise as having to get ready for production at Scalera with Frenke and Frankovich, the threat of which had persisted until late on Friday.

      During Wanger's stay in Paris that fall, Joan of Arc's excellent performance in European Catholic countries appeared to be changing his fortunes. With that, his ambitions for Duchess rose. He now saw it as a prestige vehicle, destined to further raise his European reputation when it was to be released during the 1950 centenary of Balzac's death.

     Consequently, he supported Ophuls' always more ambitious conception of the project. It was that unmade film Ophuls mourned.

Lutz Bacher