In ‘Three Smart Guys’, written in collaboration with Helmut G. Asper (In: Film Criticism, Vol. XI, nr.2, 1999), Horak further develops his comments on genre in exile film, here in relation to musical comedy. The title of the article refers to the first of a string of films by émigré-director Henry Koster, starring Deanna Durbin, Three Smart Girls (Universal Pictures, USA 1936). Like all of the film’s sequels, it was produced by émigré Joe Pasternak. The financial success of Three Smart Girls gave Koster and Pasternak enough clout to get their studio, Universal, to send for their collaborator, the screenwriter Felix Jackson, who was still in need of a visa.
When Horak and Asper wrote their article, Horak was head of the archives at Universal Studios, and thus had unrestricted access to the studio’s archives and records. Horak and Asper convincingly show how ‘three refugees from Adolf Hitler’s Germany [Henry Koster, Joe Pasternak, Felix Jackson] adapted themselves to the working methods of the studio system, while at the same time bringing to bear their European heritage. In doing so, they not only influenced briefly the formation of a major American film genre, the musical comedy, through the discovery and nurturing of a young star [Deanna Durbin], but in the process also literally saved a major Hollywood studio, Universal, from certain bankruptcy’ (Asper & Horak 1999: 135). Asper and Horak draw interesting parallels between the light, musical comedies Koster, Pasternak and Jackson had made in Europe and their subsequent Deanna Durbin musicals at Universal, showing that the latter were a continuation of the former, the only significant difference being that their star had now changed as the primary stars of their European output, Dolly Haas and Francisca Gaal, were now replaced by Deanna Durbin. The article also illustrates compellingly how the blueprint of Koster, Pasternak, and Jackson, since it had proven so profitable, was emulated by studios such as MGM. For all we know, the MGM musicals of the 1940a and 50s would not have been the same without the influence those three émigrés had on Hollywood’s film industry.
As many émigrés were still alive when Horak first embarked on exile research, he was able to rely on first-hand accounts. These oral histories, as we have seen, were Horak’s initial contribution to the field. Also, by shifting the focus away from the émigrés themselves to their creative output, he opened our eyes to the mark they left on the film industries of their host countries. Horak was also the first to clearly define exile film, thus narrowing the area of investigation from a plethora of films to which a number of émigrés contributed in varying degrees, to those films in which the input of the émigrés is distinctly discernible. In addition, he redefined the concept of national cinema, concluding that in the light of the substantial émigré contribution, the boundaries and the definition of German national cinema become blurred and thus are open for debate. Lastly, by looking at the contribution of cinematographers to (exile) film, Horak opened the field of vision beyond directors, screenwriters and actors to below-the-line personnel.
Yet, in spite of Horak’s substantial contributions - or, possibly, because of them - there is still ample room for further exploration. For instance, organisations that evolved as a result of exile have thus far received scant attention, yet their role was pivotal and often crucial to the survival of the émigrés. Therefore, Horak’s contribution to exile research must be seen as an incentive, an inspiration, to follow his lead. One scholar who has done so, and whose work is clearly influenced by Horak, is Helmut G. Asper.
Helmut G. Asper
Surveying the field of exile in the US further, a second figure, Helmut G. Asper, emerges as another important scholar therein. Their approaches complement each other insofar as Horak’s study of the émigrés offers an analytical framework for exile research, while Asper is best described as a painstaking gatherer of empirical data with an unerring focus on the existing gaps in exile research. Asper is a professor at Bielefeld University, specialising in German theatre in the 17th and 18th century as well as film, radio and theatre in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. His preoccupation with theatre is evident in his first edited publication on exile, Walter Wicclair und Marta Mierendorff: Im Rampenlicht der dunklen Jahre (Berlin: Sigma, 1989). The book homes in on the German stage actor Walter Wicclair - who fled Nazi Germany to settle in Hollywood - and his companion, Marta Mierendorff, and contains essays on theatre in exile, the Third Reich and in post-war Germany. In Asper’s subsequent edited publication, Wenn wir von gestern reden sprechen wir über heute und morgen - Festschrift für Marta Mierendorff zum 80. Geburtstag (Berlin: Sigma, 1991), the field of vision is expanded from theatre in exile to exile in general (e.g. exiled writers, screenwriters, painters, etc.), while Asper’s own contribution to the
book revolves around another German stage actor, Fritz Kortner, and his film, Der Ruf (The Last Illusion, Objektiv-Film Gmbh, Germany 1948/49).
Kortner, renowned for his theatre work in Germany until the Nazis forced him into exile, would eventually once again become one of Germany’s most noted post-war theatre directors. Der Ruf constitutes Kortner’s first project following his return to Germany from his exile in the United States. The film revolves around a professor - Mauthner, played by Kortner - who was forced into exile following Hitler’s rise to power. Once he returned to post-war Germany, the hostility and aversion towards Mauthner eventually led to his death. Asper’s concern in this essay is not so much emigration as remigration; thus he considers parallels between Mauthner’s narrative and Kortner’s own experiences, and the reaction the film received when it was first shown to German audiences. Der Ruf - even though directed by Josef von Baky, a non-émigré -was the brainchild of Kortner and written solely by him. Kortner saw the film as an act of reconciliation with Germany and the Germans. That he failed in this attempt, with Der Ruf resulting in a critical as well as a commercial failure, is testimony to post-war Germany’s reluctance to come to terms with its Nazi past.
Among Asper’s chief publications on exile research is, however, his seminal Etwas besseres als den Tod .... (Marburg: Schüren, 2002). Although published in 2002, its afterword indicates that Asper started research on the book seventeen years prior to its publication, interviewing many of the émigrés featured in the book between 1985 and 1987, among them Henry Koster, Walter Reisch, Paul Henreid and Felix Jackson. Some of Asper’s interviewees had never been interviewed before, including Ernest Lenart, Herbert Luft, Annemarie Schünzel-Stewart, Rudi Fehr or Rudi Feld. This fact, not to mention the book’s scope (655 pages, afterword and appendix not included), makes Etwas ... a unique research tool for any exile researcher or film historian.
Although Asper does dedicate several chapters to émigré actors, directors, screenwriters, and producers, the groups who traditionally had been at the centre of exile research, there is no denying that one of the main features of Etwas ... is Asper’s shift of focus to below-the-line personnel - editors, cinematographers, production designers, technicians - film-artists who had hitherto tended to be neglected by researchers. One example is Asper’s chapter on the all-but-forgotten production designer Rudi Feld, who, prior to his emigration collaborated with Kurt Gerron on his famous cabaret films.17 Gerron’s films featured a number of future émigrés,
including Blandine Ebinger or Sig Arno, but also artists who never