I may be the only film programmer on this continent to have done a retrospective on director William Dieterle– and I know I’m the only one to administer a Facebook group on him. Admittedly, the majority of moviegoers, even the diehard buffs, would not recognize his name. So a few words about Dieterle…
William Dieterle had no recognizable cinematic style like other filmmakers. John Ford had the knockabout Irish humor and sentiment, Frank Capra had the “Everyman” theme, Alfred Hitchcock, the mystery and suspense, James Whale (my favorite director), the bizarre and eccentric. And so on… These are inherent qualities you come to appreciate while watching the films. Perhaps only Howard Hawks had the totally recognizable speak and editing patterns that a blind man could figure in the first five minutes, like a radio play– over-lapping dialogue and all. And whether these individuals worked as a contract employee for any one studio or as an independent for most of their career, they had definition as film-makers. You can pick it out and follow the similar themes throughout their filmographies. The one exception is every contract director at Warner Brothers!
William Dieterle
To me, Michael Curtiz was one of the five greatest directors ever, but while you see the Ford Touch or a Lubitsch Touch, when the name Curtiz (or Lloyd Bacon or Archie Mayo– or Dieterle) comes up, we refer to that particular film as having the Warner Bros. style! Just as Curtiz practically invented the Warner approach, he and most all of that lot’s directors were absolutely absorbed by that accelerated pacing, sharp editing, deep black & white photography and high angular camera work. If I wasn’t already aware of Dieterle’s credits, I couldn’t distinguish his studio work from anyone else on the lot. That’s not to say he wasn’t a fine craftsman and it’s not to say he didn’t make excellent pictures. But I do say he, along with a dozen others, upheld that Warner tradition. Those films and that studio are as individual as a whole (if that’s not too convoluted a statement). Just as I can identify a studio product eight out of ten times just by hearing the gunshots!
Robert Wise is another of my favorite directors and he certainly had absolutely no discernible style to identify his pictures beyond the official credit on screen. But I can’t think of another director (picture/percentage-wise) who made such consistently entertaining movies, jumping from one genre to another. There’s hardly a lemon in his whole filmography. Right down to the B’s (although I am not a huge fan of his most (critic) notable hits, The Sound of Music and West Side Story. (And yes, I’ve played both of those at my little prairie lantern show on Prospect Ave.)
This also touches on my opinion why Ford was as good as he was– a lot of credit goes to Fox Studio and Darryl Zanuck (whether or not Ford disciples want to hear this) for the kind of production they could forge and for Zanuck in particular “holding in” Ford’s tendency towards over-ripe scenes and that knockabout humor.
Outside of Warner Bros., William Dieterle’s two great masterpieces were The Devil and Daniel Webster (AKA All That Money Can Buy) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And I give a lot of votes to Portrait of Jennie as well, despite Selznick’s overbearance. But I can’t see anything of a consistent “style”– just excellent showmanship from film to film.
The legacy for poor ol’ Curtiz is mainly designating him a “journeyman director” or a venerable studio hack,” as one scribe labelled him. But that’s the unique position Warner Bros. holds over its employees behind the lens.
~MCH