Fräulein Else (1929)

Fräulein Else/Miss Else (1929) was Elisabeth Bergner's last silent film. It was based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella of the same name.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm, no. 6656. Photo: Poetic-Film. Elisabeth Bergner in Fräulein Else/Miss Else (Paul Czinner, 1929).


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm, no. 6568. Photo: Atelier W.v. Debschitz-Kunowski, Berlin. Elisabeth Bergner in Fräulein Else/Miss Else (Paul Czinner, 1929).

Clad only in a white fur coat

In Fräulein Else/Miss Else, Elisabeth Bergner plays the carefree daughter of a Viennese lawyer. She is spending a happy winter holiday in St. Moritz, with her cousin Paul (Jack Trevor) and his mother (Adele Sandrock).

Then she receives the news that her father (Albert Bassermann) is in financial distress: he has gambled away his clients' money on the stock exchange. Only the wealthy art dealer Von Dorsday (Albert Steinrück), who is also in St. Moritz and has his eye on Else, could save him.

Else asks him for the money, but he sets one condition. He wants to see Else naked. She struggles with her decision. Finally, she takes poison and goes to him, clad only in a white fur coat. In the hotel bar, in front of everyone, she lets the coat slip down before his eyes and dies.

Fräulein Else was scripted by Paul Czinner and Béla Balázs, and cinematographed by Karl Freund, Adolf Schlasy and Robert Baberske. Exteriors were shot in Vienna and St. Moritz. The German premiere took place on 7 March 1929 at the Berlin cinema Capitol.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5689. Photo: Poetic Film/Lux-Film Verleih. Elisabeth Bergner in Fräulein Else (Paul Czinner, 1929).

The great creator of soulful nuances

While the Geman press was extremely laudatory about Bergner and Czinner's previous films such as Liebe (1927) and Dona Juana (1928), it was more critical of this film. Unjustly perhaps, for when we saw the film in 2004 at the Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, it was a heartbreaking film, that well expresses all of the mise-en-scene and cinematographic mastery of late 1920s German cinema.

Rudolf Kurtz in Lichtbild-Bühne, 8 March 1929: "The renunciation of all noisy, theatrical effects leads Czinner to seek his effects with quiet, dramatic means. He masters the register of retardation: it is excellently done how Bergner does not dare to address the brutal fellow, how she runs after him, turns away, approaches again, disappears behind a pillar, again a few steps forward - until the final meeting seems almost like a dramatic redemption.

Czinner uses the same means to stage the end, when the Bergner goes into the art dealer's room, does not find him, and pursues him - while the poison is already destroying her vital forces. Czinner has written the manuscript with a haunting rigidity for Elisabeth Bergner, as he conceives her. For him, she is the great creator of soulful nuances, of delicately passing spiritual subtlety, a person who expresses her inner self completely with rare art.

This is undoubtedly Bergner's strength, but this art alone does not provide the prerequisites for an effective film. Film effect is a dramatic effect with optical means: and what Bergner needs above all is the strong, firmly established dramatic framework into which she can fit, which provides the possibilities for her skill, and at the same time engages the spectator in the structure of a plot that goes to the heart.

It must be said again and again: Bergner is a great possession of German cinema. There is hardly an actress in the whole world whose face, whose body is such a pure expression of her inner life. With an inconceivable clarity, the sorrow and joy of her soul speak from her expression; here is a precious material that can only be classified in cinematic occasions with a strong hand. Only an artist of high rank is able to create an inner tension with pictorial monologues, without a partner, relying only on herself, which has a genuinely dramatic effect."


German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin-Wilm, no. 6657. Photo: Poetic-Film. Albert Steinrück and Elisabeth Bergner in Fräulein Else/Miss Else (Paul Czinner, 1929).


Vintage postcard, no. 3950. Photo: Atelier Geiringer & Horovitz (Trude Geiringer & Dora Horovitz), Wien. Bergner wears the fur coat from the final scene in Fräulein Else.

Sources: Filmportal (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Doña Juana (1928)

Weimar cinema was influenced by the profoundly sensitive acting of Austrian actress Elisabeth Bergner (1897-1986). She specialised in the bisexual type that she portrayed in both stage and film roles. An example is Doña Juana (1928), directed again by her life partner Paul Czinner.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm. no. 6464. Photo: Poetic-Film. Elisabeth Bergner in Doña Juana/Donna Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 6465. Photo: Poetic-Film. Elisabeth Bergner in Doña Juana/Donna Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).

Raised as a boy

Doña Juana (1928) was based on a traditional Spanish seventeenth-century play by Tirso de Molina. An impoverished nobleman (Max Schreck) raises his daughter Juana (Elisabeth Bergner) as a boy because he believes he cannot marry her off in a manner befitting her station. When she falls in love with a nobleman (Walter Rilla), her father wants to send her to a convent.

The young man is also to be married off to a rich girl at his father's request. Feeling betrayed, Juana travels ahead of her lover and introduces herself to the beauty intended for him under his name. After a few complications, the two of them can finally count on the consent of their unruly fathers.

Doña Juana was scripted by Béla Balázs and Paul Czinner. Balázs later tried to have his name removed from the credits because he disliked the finished version of the film. The cinematography was by Karl Freund, assisted by Robert Baberske and Adolf Schlasy, while sets were by Erich Kettelhut and costumes by Edith Glück and Leo Pasetti.

The film was produced by Poetic-Film on behalf of Ufa. The film was shot on location around Seville and Granada in southern Spain, in July-October 1927.

The film had its world premiere during a special screening on 27 December 1927 at the Vienna Elite-Kino, while the first public screening was in Vienna on 12 January 1928. The German premiere took place on 24 January 1928 in Berlin, at the cinema Gloria-Palast.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3228/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Mario von Bucovich (Atelier Karl Schenker). Elisabeth Bergner in Doña Juana/Donna Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3228/3, 1928-1929. Photo: Mario von Bucovich (Atelier Karl Schenker). Elisabeth Bergner in her outfit for Doña Juana/Donna Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).

From mischievousness to melancholy and deep heartbreak

The Österreichische Film-Zeitung reviewed on 24 December 1927: "In this film, which gives Bergner the opportunity to develop her great art, she actually succeeds in playing all the registers of dramatic representation, from mischievousness to melancholy and deep heartbreak, in an exemplary manner.

She finds the opportunity to do this through the neatly crafted script written by Béla Balász, which is characterised by a logically constructed, strictly avoiding improbabilities and a clear plot.

A skilful direction that is attuned to atmospheric detail, as well as the soft, picturesque photography, which especially emphasises the scenic beauty of Spain, the country in which the film is set, and which brings truly magnificent images, do the rest to make the whole film Donna Juana a masterpiece."

Vienna's Neue Freie Presse noted on 15 January 1928: "In the leading role, Elisabeth Bergner means here that one gets the opportunity to admire the whole kaleidoscope of the skills of this amazing artist.

One does not need to overestimate Bergner to nevertheless realise that one never tires of enjoying her in this film like a flashing brilliant that is slowly turned in the light to let all facets shine individually. (...) The other actors are also excellent."


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5112. Photo: Poetic Film / Distr. E. Weil & Co. Elisabeth Bergner in Doña Juana/Donna Juana (Paul Czinner 1928).


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5113. Photo: Poetic-Film / Verleih: E. Weil & Co. Elisabeth Bergner in Doña Juana/Donna Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).

Sources: Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Liebe (1927)

Austrian star Elisabeth Bergner was one of Germany’s most important theatre stars of the 1920s and was also very successful in Weimar cinema. She starred in Liebe/Love (1927), directed by Paul Czinner, her life-partner (they married in 1933), and based on the novel 'La Duchesse de Langeais' (1834) by Honoré de Balzac, part of a trilogy of novels that Balzac grouped under the title 'Histoire des treize'.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 6280. Photo: Phoebus-Film.  Elisabeth Bergner in Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1927).


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 6282. Photo: Phoebus-Film Elisabeth Bergner in Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1927).


Spanish postcard by Grafos, Madrid. Photo: Phoebus Film. Hans Rehmann in Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1926).

True love awakens

Elisabeth Bergner plays in Liebe/Love (1927) the headstrong, seductive, and tragically fallible Duchess Antoinette de Langeais, a lady of Parisian society, in the mid-19th century.

Antoinette coquettishly plays with the Marquis of Montriveau (Hans Rehmann), a high officer who is in love with her.

When he realises that he is being made a fool of, he gives her the cold shoulder. And now true love awakens in the Duchess. She writes passionate love letters to the Marquis and compromises herself in public to win him over.

She even enters his apartment disguised as a maid, and when she finds her letters there unopened, she goes to a convent in despair. Only now does the Marquis realise that the Duchess really loved him.

After years of searching, the Marquis tracks her down in the convent. Faced with the decision of betraying God or her love, she chooses death.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 6281. Photo: Phoebus-Film. Elisabeth Bergner in Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1927).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1655/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Phoebus-Film. Elisabeth Bergner in Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1927). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

The secret of her success

Liebe (1927) was made in the autumn of 1926 in the Staaken film studios. The six-act film with a length of 2697 metres had its premiere on 3 January 1927 and was awarded the rating "Volksbildend Künstlerisch".

The Swiss theatre actor Hans Rehmann made his film debut here as the Marquis of Montriveau, knave of Elisabeth Bergner's Duchess. Hermann Warm designed the film sets, which were executed by Ferdinand Bellan. Ilse Fehling created costumes, that rather look like the 1860s than 1830s.


Reviews in Germany were ecstatic, with most newspapers commentating on the prolonged ovation during the opening, when Bergner wasn’t allowed to leave the stage. "The way this soulful artist allows us to experience a fate in the film Liebe is a new proof of her high art." (Vorwärts, January 1927), "Elisabeth Bergner is the beginning, middle and end of the play ... she is a human being: tormented and cheerful, dark and alluring, a whimsical, an unpredictable enchantress. That is the secret of her success." (8 Uhr-Abendblatt, January 1927),

"Elisabeth Bergner delicious in appearance and movement. A wealth of emotion shines and plays against the rigid uniformity of Hans Rehmann, the antagonist of fate." (Berliner Tageblatt, January 1927), "From the scene where Bergner, wrapped in her cloak and shivering, waits for her lover on a nightly street, the scene at the bars of the monastery has not much equal in dramatic strength. And when she sinks down in front of the crucifix, this real tragedy of love dissolves into a deep minor chord that resonates in the heart for a long time ..." (Lichtbild-Bühne, January 1927),

"It was more than a great film success, it was the breakthrough of a special German film, not to be imitated in any country, and therefore effective in every country. The film is not German because of its subject matter. (...) This film is German because it juxtaposes the language of the German fairy tale with something organically equivalent." (B.Z. am Mittag, January 1927), "Bergner has wonderful scenes. Inimitable, how she starts a conversation. Or she plays with a cat. Or romps around the room. Or costars with him, the tall man in love." (Film-Kurier, 1927).

In subsequent discussions of Liebe/Love, the film was less appreciated and for decades, Liebe/Love remained one of the least appreciated of the Czinner-Bergner collaborations. Jay Weissberg presented the film in 2018 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto and wrote in the festival catalogue "When viewed through a Balzac lens the film is ripe for re-evaluation". He cites the French critic Henry Poulaille, who wrote in 1928: "We may add that this lovely film comes at the right time. It is a respectful nod by one of the young masters of the universal language that is Cinema, to the great Balzac, his senior, who also, with his pen, addressed the universe."


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 825/1. Photo: Phoebus-Film / Distr. E. Weil & Co. Elisabeth Bergner in Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1927).


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 825/2 Photo: Phoebus-Film / Distr. E. Weil & Co. Elisabeth Bergner in Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1927).

Sources: Antti Alanen: Film Diary, Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934)

The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934) was the first English-language film for Vienna-born Elisabeth Bergner. The historical film was directed by Bergner's husband Paul Czinner and - uncredited - by producer Alexander Korda. Tsar Peter was played by Douglas Fairbanks Junior. Although the film was overshadowed by Josef von Strernberg's masterpiece The Scarlet Empress (1934) with Marlene Dietrich, The Rise of Catherine the Great is a good film taken on its own merits.


British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 24. Photo: British and Dominions. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934) with Elisabeth Bergner.


British postcard by Valentine's, no. 5904 N. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934) with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The way to the assumption of the throne

The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934) is a straightforward biography of the Russian empress, up to her assumption of the throne. It was based on the play The Czarina by two Hungarian writers, Lajos Bíró and Melchior Lengyel.

In 1745 a German princess, Princess Sophie Auguste Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst (Elisabeth Bergner), is summoned by Russian Empress Elizabeth (Flora Robson) to marry her nephew, the Russian heir. Elizabeth chose Sophie because of dynastic claims to Swedish and Baltic territories of the Romanov Family dealing with their Holstein blood connections - connections that Anhalt-Zerbst shared.

The young princess arrives at the court of imperial Russia to marry Grand Duke Pyotr (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), who later became Peter III. Sophie, renamed Yekaterina, generally rendered in English as Catherine, initially likes him. But Peter already displays signs of mental instability and a sharply misogynist streak.

Peter rejects Catherine on their wedding night, reacting to something innocently said by his French valet, claiming that she used feminine tricks to win him over. In time, though, Peter accepts her and they have a happy marriage for a while. Meanwhile, Catherine gains important experience of government from working as principal aide to the empress.

Peter's suspicious, unstable nature gradually estranges them, and he finds solace with pretty courtiers. Catherine invents her own fictitious lovers, to make her husband jealous, which temporarily improves matters. But accession to the throne brings out the worst in Peter. After the death of the old Empress, the danger for Catherine increases and she must learn to be very cunning in order to save herself from her insane royal husband.

In reality, Catherine and Peter's marriage lasted for seventeen years, but in the film this period is greatly telescoped and no mention is made of their children. Their son Paul eventually became Tsar after Catherine's death, even though he was nearly as mad as his father.

Peter ascended the throne in 1762. As the Tsar, he proved to be a disaster, and within a few months he was removed from power by a military coup, dying in mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards. The coup plotters invited Catherine to become Empress in her own right. Catherine became the Tsarina Catherine the Great and would rule over Russia for more than 30 years. She became a benign dictator, brought Russia into the modern world, implemented several reforms, and corresponded with Voltaire.


British postcard. Photo: Tunbridge, London. Publicity still for Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934).


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934). Although the postcard credits the kissing lady as Elisabeth Bergner, we think she is Diana Napier who portrays Countess Vorontzova, the mistress of Peter III (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.).


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934) with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Diana Napier.

A homicidal Hamlet

The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934) was the first English-language film for Vienna-born Elisabeth Bergner. She is radiant as the obscure German princess who would become the most powerful woman in Russian history. Bergner definitely makes Catherine interesting and worth caring about.

As Grand Duke Peter - later Czar Peter III - Douglas Fairbanks Jr. behaves like a homicidal Hamlet, all moodiness and flares of deadly temper. He makes an interesting effort to create a charmer out of a pathetic man who was obviously a maniac.

The supporting cast is excellent. Dame Flora Robson is wonderful as the Empress Elizabeth: suspicious, domineering and rather wanton. Robson portrays Tsarina Elizabeth as a tired, dying woman, desperate to try to save the dynasty and her nation but aware of the rotten material she has to work with. She has the best lines and delivers them impressively.

Celebrated stage actress Dame Irene Vanbrugh makes a rare screen appearance as Catherine's mother. Vanbrugh was a stage star of the 1890s till the 1920s. She was in the original cast of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. The small role of Peter's French valet is performed by Sir Gerald du Maurier, one of the great English actor-managers of the early days of the century. In this, his penultimate role, a few months from his death, Sir Gerald had become largely forgotten by his once enormous public. He gives his few lines great dignity.

The mid-eighteenth century was a period when clothes and furnishings favoured by the wealthy classes of Europe were particularly fanciful and elaborate, and this is reflected in the lavish sets and costumes on view in the film.

The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934) was overshadowed by the Hollywood epic The Scarlet Empress (1934), directed by Joseph Von Sternberg and starring a glamorous Marlene Dietrich. However, The Rise of Catherine the Great is still a good effort that is worth watching.


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934) with Irene Vanbrugh as Princess Anhalt-Zerbst, and Elisabeth Bergner.


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934) with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Flora Robson as Empress Elizabeth, and Elisabeth Bergner.


Elisabeth Bergner. British cigarette card in the Stars of Screen & Stage series by Park Drive Cigarettes, Gallaher Ltd., London & Belfast, no. 17. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Sources: Ron Oliver (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Elisabeth Bergner

The profoundly sensitive acting of Austrian-British actress Elisabeth Bergner (1897-1986) influenced the German cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. 'Die Bergner' as she was known in Germany, specialised in Hosenrollen (androgynous trouser roles), in films and on stage. Nazism forced her to go in exile, but she worked successfully in the West End, and later on Broadway. After the war, she returned to Germany, where she became one of the grande dames of film, television and cinema.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1289/1, 1927-1928. Photo: G. Trautschold, Berlin. This was a postcard for the stage play Kreidekreis (Chalk Circle), a Chinese fairy tale by German writer Klabund (or Alfred Georg Hermann Henschke). After the first night in January 1925 in Meissen with Klabund's future wife Carola Neher in the lead, Elisabeth Bergner henceforth played the lead, e.g. at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin from October 1925. The play was very successful and inspired two operas by Zemlinsky and Mors, as well as Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3228/2, 1928-1929. Photo: M. v. Bucovich (Atelier K. Schenker). Publicity still for Doña Juana/Donna Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3228/3, 1928-1929. Photo: M. von Bucovich (Atelier K. Schenker). Publicity still for Doña Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).


German postcard by Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 6465. Photo: Poetic-Film. Publicity still for Doña Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5113. Photo: Poetic-Film / Verleih: E. Weil & Co. Publicity still for Doña Juana (Paul Czinner, 1928).

Taking Berlin by storm

Elisabeth Bergner was born as Elisabeth Ettel in 1897 in Drohobycz, Austria-Hungary (now Drogobych, Ukraine). She was the daughter of a merchant, Emil Ettel, and his wife Anna Rosa Wagner. Soon after her birth, the family, whose surname had been changed to the more German-sounding Bergner, moved to Vienna.

In 1911 she was enrolled at a private acting school and from 1912 to 1915 she attended the Academy for Music and the Performing Arts. She started acting in Innsbruck in 1915. By the end of that year she had already appeared in the major role of Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.

In 1916 she moved to Zürich, where she performed at the highly-regarded Stadttheater (Municipal Theatre). She also worked as an artist's model. She posed for the expressionist sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, who apparently committed suicide in 1919 because Bergner rejected his advances. She eventually moved to Munich, and in 1921 to Berlin.

On stage as Rosalind in William Shakespeare's As You Like It (a role in which she played a record 566 consecutive performances), she took Berlin by storm and won plaudits not only from theatregoers but also from such critics as Kurt Tucholsky.

She made her film debut in Der Evangelimann/The Evangelist (Holger-Madsen, 1924) with Paul Hartmann. Under Max Reinhardt's direction she reached international fame in the stage production of Saint Joan (1924) by George Bernard Shaw.

She specialised in playing Hosenrollen (women in trousers with childlike or boyish traits), and captivated spectators and critics in such stage productions as Romeo and Juliet, Queen Christine, and Camille.

Elfi Pracht-Jörns describes the 'Bergner Phenomenon' beautifully: "Seemingly contradictory elements created an inimitable aura, the magic she projected: she was at one and the same time both a tender, fragile child-woman and a 'femme fatale'. Behind her dreamy manner and engrossed concentration one could detect intellect, vitality, tenderness, a strong will, humour and wit. With her androgynous appearance, nervous gestures and capacity for total selflessness, Bergner embodied a new, erotic ideal, a complex, fastidious type of female."

Hungarian director Paul Czinner, who had come to Germany from Budapest via Vienna, gave Elisabeth Bergner a role in Nju - Eine unverstandene Frau/Husbands or Lovers (Paul Czinner, 1924). The film was an instant success, and Czinner became both her artistic and private partner.

Their successful collaboration also included films like Der Geiger von Florenz/The Violinist of Florence (1926), Liebe/Love (1927), Doña Juana (1928), and the Arthur Schnitzler adaptation Fräulein Else/Miss Else (1929). Among her co-stars were the great film actors Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, and Albert Bassermann.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1846/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Trude Geiringer & Dora Horovitz, Wien. (The upper and lower edges of this card were cut off by a previous owner).


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 825/1. Photo: Phoebus-Film / Distr. E. Weil & Co. Elisabeth Bergner in the German silent film Liebe/Love (Paul Czinner, 1927), based on Honoré de Balzac's novel La duchesse de Langeais.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5689. Photo: Poetic Film / Lux-Film Verleih.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6127. Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1931. Photo: Mondial-Film A.G.


German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin-Wilm, no. 6657. Photo: Poetic-Film. Publicity still for Fräulein Else/Miss Else (Paul Czinner, 1929), with Albert Steinrück and based on the play by Arthur Schnitzler.

Charming her audience in an almost hypnotic way

With the coming of sound, Elisabeth Bergner began to portray a more sentimental and delicate woman. Soon critics labelled her characters as fragile, emotional, or nervous. Bergner acted her roles in such a manner as to charm her audience in an almost hypnotic way.

Czinner allowed her to play the whole gamut of emotional experience in a series of films. The peak of her career is represented by her work in two films. In the first, Ariane (Paul Czinner, 1931), an adaptation of a novel by the French author Claude Anet, Bergner played a girl who plunges into adventure with an older, more experienced man (Rudolf Foster).

The second is the drama Der träumende Mund (Paul Czinner, 1932), an adaptation of a play by Henri Bernstein. Here, Bergner played a sensitive, pure woman who cannot escape her passion for a musical virtuoso, but does not want to hurt her loving husband. This film was remade by Czinner in 1937 as Dreaming Lips, with Bergner again in the leading role.

When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Bergner, who was in England working on a new film, did not return to Berlin. Bergner and Czinner, who were both Jews, went in exile in London, where they had married in 1931. She particularly infuriated the Hitler regime by encouraging other famous actors to leave Germany, even sending them money to help them escape.

Rapidly learning English, she was soon able to resume her former stage and screen career. Her stage debut as Gemma Jones in Escape Me Never (1933) was met with great enthusiasm, and she repeated the role in New York (1935) and again for the film version, Escape Me Never (Paul Czinner, 1935), which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Another film The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934) was banned in Germany because of the government's racial policies, reported Time magazine (26 March 1934).

Her stage work in London included The Boy David (1936) by J.M. Barrie, his last play which he wrote especially for her. She repeated her stage role of Rosalind, opposite Laurence Olivier's Orlando, in As You Like It (1936), the first sound film version of William Shakespeare's play, and the first sound film of any Shakespeare play filmed in England. Bergner had previously only played the role on the German stage, and several critics found that her accent got in the way of their enjoyment of the film, which was not a success. In 1938 she became a citizen of Great Britain.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5659/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Nero-Film. Still for Ariane (Paul Czinner, 1931).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5230/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frh. von Gudenberg, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5229/1, 1930-1931. Sent by mail in 1930. Photo: Atelier Gerstenberg, Berlin.


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 6508, distributed in the Netherlands by Jacob Stuvé's echte Nougat. Photo: Mondial Film / Matador Film. Publicity still for Der träumende Mund/Dreaming Lips (Paul Czinner, 1932) with Rudolph Forster.


Dutch postcard by Fim Film, no. 454. Publicity still for Der träumende Mund/Dreaming Lips (Paul Czinner, 1932) with Rudolph Forster.

A Fan Called Eve

In 1940, Elisabeth Bergner and her husband emigrated to the United States. There, Bergner had to begin her career anew. While Czinner had no difficulty finding work in Hollywood, it was only at the end of 1941 that she herself received a major role in the anti-Nazi film Paris Calling (Edwin L. Marin, 1941) with Randolph Scott, which was not a success.

She returned to the stage and scored a Broadway triumph in The Two Mrs. Carrolls, which was performed more than three hundred times in 1943–1944 and earned her the Delia Austrian Medal of the Drama League of New York.

An incident with a fan/aspiring actress, while Bergner was performing in The Two Mrs. Carrolls on Broadway, inspired Mary Orr to write her short story The Wisdom of Eve. The story was ultimately filmed as All about Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950). In the story Eve does not get a comeuppance - as was required by the Hollywood Production Code for the film - but gets away with everything and is last seen heading to Hollywood with a thousand dollar a week contract in her pocketbook.

After the war, Bergner worked in New York, for instance in the title role of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1946. In 1950 she returned to England, and in 1954 temporarily to Germany. For nearly two decades she performed intermittently in German and Austrian theatres, and in 1970 she made her debut as a director.

In 1961, after a 20-year absence, she made a come-back for the cinema. The child-woman had been transformed into a charming, though occasionally unfathomable, old lady. Among her later film appearances were Die glücklichen Jahre der Thorwalds/The Happy Years of the Thorwalds (John Olden, Wolfgang Staudte, 1962) with Hansjörg Felmy, Cry of the Banshee (Gordon Hessler, 1970) starring Vincent Price, Strogoff (Eriprando Visconti, 1970), Der Fussgänger/The Pedestrian (Maximilian Schell, 1973), and Der Pfingstausflug/The Pentecost Outing (Michael Günther, 1978) with Martin Held.

Elisabeth Bergner won awards at the Berlin Film festivals of 1963 and 1965. She became the first actress to win the Schiller Prize (1963) for contributions to German cultural life. She also received the Ernst Lubitsch Prize in 1979, and the Eleonora Duse Prize of the city of Venice in 1982. In the Berlin district of Steglitz a city park was named after her.

Husband Paul Czinner died in 1972. Her last TV performance was the lead role in Wenn ich dich nicht hätte/When I Wouldn't Have You (Konrad Sabrautzky, 1984) with Rudolph Platte. Elisabeth Bergner passed away in 1986 in her London home, aged 88. A year later her memoirs, Bewundert viel und viel gescholten (Greatly admired and often cursed), were published. The book received favourable reviews.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1141/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.


German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin-Wilm, no. 6741. Photo: Trude Geiringer & Dora Horovitz, Wien.


Vintage postcard, no. 3950. Photo: Trude Geiringer & Dora Horovitz, Wien.


British postcard by Real Photograph, no. 96. Photo: British & Dominions Films.


British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 24. Photo: British and Dominions. Publicity still for Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934).


British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 28. Photo: British and Dominions. Publicity still for Escape Me Never (Paul Czinner, 1935).


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. PC 165. Photo: United Artists. Publicity still for Escape Me Never (Paul Czinner, 1935) with Hugh Sinclair.


Dutch postcard by Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: United Artists. Publicity still for Escape Me Never (Paul Czinner, 1935).


German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 894. Photo: Hilde Zenker, Berlin.

Sources: Elfi Pracht-Jörns (Jewish Women's Archive), Karel Tabery (Filmreference.com), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Androom (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.