By 1929, new technologies made “talkies” possible, but dubbing films into another language proved to be a still insurmountable technological challenge. To make films available to a wider audience, the only feasible option was to reshoot different language versions. From 1930 through 1932, all major Hollywood studios shot films in German. Famous German actors such as Heinrich George, Paul Morgan, and Camilla Horn came to shoot on location in Hollywood, and many German-speaking actors already in Hollywood were often chosen, such as Greta Garbo, Edward G. Robinson, and Marion Lessing. A number of famous American actors, such as Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Buster Keaton were required to learn German phonetics. Parallel to this development, many German actors were filmed speaking English, as evidenced by this year’s Berlin & Beyond’s classic feature THE BLUE ANGEL.
Stefan Droessler describes the situation in the different studios and shows excerpts of a dozen movies which have been neglected by film studies.

Followed by Q & A with Film Historian Russell Merritt

Stefan Droessler
was born in 1961. Since 1977 he has been the director of several student film clubs, film festivals and film seminars. From 1986 to 1998 he founded and directed the Bonner Kinemathek and since 1999 he has been the director of the Filmmuseum Munich. He has published several books and articles about film history, and film techniques. The museum focuses on German silent films, the “New German Cinema,” and Munich film productions (including films of the 1910s and 1920s by production companies as Münchner Lichtspielkunst AG and Emelka, Bayerische Filmkunst productions of 1930s, and films made by Bavaria Film AG in the post-war years). The archive also holds a collection of Russian films and the estate of Orson Welles.

Russell Merritt
teaches courses in national cinemas, animation, film styles and genre, specializing in topics that cross disciplinary lines at the University of California, Berkeley. His current research interests include silent film, Japanese film [particularly Ozu Yasajiro], D.W. Griffith, animation, film and children’s lore, French Film, German Film, and Disney’s 1930s work.

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