It’s not enough to be Hungarian. You must have talent too. — Alexander Korda
From the seed bed of the Austrian silent film Sodom und Gomorrha came several filmmakers whose later work in Hollywood led to international renown. The films of Michael Curtiz, of course, guaranteed enduring fame. Besides Casablanca and Mildred Pierce, he directed such classics as 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, The Aventures of Robin Hood, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and White Christmas. Beginning in Hungary in 1912, Curtiz (1886-1962) directed more than sixty films in Europe before his arrival in Hollywood in 1925. By the end of his career, he had directed some 180 pictures. The chief reasons for Curtiz' enormous output, and the high quality of much of his work, are craftsmanship and versatility. From Sodom und Gomorrha to White Christmas to his last two films, both released in 1961 -- Francis of Assisi and the John Wayne western, The Comancheros -- surely no film genre was alien to him.
Curtiz spoke five languages -- all of them badly, according to his adopted son. Famous in Hollywood for his mangled English that attained the level of comic poetry, he unwittingly supplied the title of a David Niven memoir published some forty years later. While filming The Charge of the Light Brigade in 1936, Curtiz wanted a number of equine strays wandering across the battlefield, presumably to show that their riders had been killed. What he yelled to the assistant director was: “Now, bring on the empty horses!”
Other Michael Curtiz howlers: “Don't talk to me while I'm interrupting” and “Always a bridesmaid, never a mother.” Also, “The scenario in't the exact truth, but we have the facts to prove it” and “It's dull from beginning to end, but it's loaded with entertainment.”
Another director who later achieved fame of a different sort in Hollywood also worked on Sodom und Gomorrha. Edgar G. Ulmer is credited with production design, along with Julius von Borsody. Today Ulmer is a cult favorite owing to such B-pictures as The Naked Dawn, The Black Cat, and Ruthless. (Although some rate his work lower than B, the Ulmer cultists have hoisted him above A+.) His versatility is a match for
that of Curtiz, for Ulmer directed four Yiddish films in the 1930s, two Ukranian-language films shot in the United States, several so-called “race films” aimed at black audiences (e.g., Moon Over Harlem in 1939), and at least one film in Spanish.
Ulmer's later low-budget work in Hollywood belies the flamboyant artistry of Sodom und Gomorrha, whose panoramic dimensions and towering architecture outrank the film's direction and acting. The disconnect between early and late Ulmer vanishes, however, when you learn that he studied architecture at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Vienna, and that he was also a stage designer for Max Reinhardt. Ulmer's other qualifications include film design with such demanding directors as Alexander Korda and F.W. Murnau
According to legend, when Walter Slezak was twenty years old his father, the world-famous tenor Leo Slezak, brought him to Kertész/Curtiz. “Do something with this boy if you can,” the father said. “He's my own flesh and blood, yet he can't sing. He can't act. What can I do with him?” The director cast the slim young man as Edward, one of Mary Conway’s paramours in Sodom und Gomorrha. Slezak, in his autobiography, told a more flattering version of his path to stardom. The director, he claimed, spotted him in a restaurant, walked over to his table, sat down, and said, “With your kind permission, I have imagined you. You are my vision.” Curtiz explained that for a new film “we need a beautiful young man -- and you are a beautiful young man.” Two days later, he reported to the Sacha Film Studio in the Viennese suburb of Sievering.
Those who remember Walter Slezak as a portly character actor with an ingratiating Viennese accent in such films as Lifeboat and in dozens of television shows will be surprised to learn that his work in German films during the 1920s made him a matinee idol. Adoration changed to amusement, however, when he began gaining weight every year. Rich food supplanted romance.
In 1983, two weeks before his eightieth birthday, Slezak shot himself. He was thought to be despondent over failing health.
Victor Varconi gives the best performance in Sodom und Gomorrha. Born Mihály Várkonyi in Hungary in 1891, he appeared in some fifty European films before Curtiz cast him as the handsome, intense angel who comes to destroy the city. (Varconi also plays the priest whom Mary leads into temptation.) Previous stage work served Varconi well: his movements, gestures, and facial expressions are those of an actor trained in realistic technique. He, unlike most other cast members, knew that whatever is exaggerated on the stage must be toned down before the camera. Watching this film, where actors fling their arms in the air, strike their breasts, and emote full force as though coached for the Victorian stage by Fanny Kemble or Sir Henry Irving, one guesses that Curtiz left them to their own melodramatic devices. Managing legions of extras, teams of construction workers, and herds of livestock left scant time for actors.
Varconi's memoir, It’ Not Enough to Be Hungarian, published shortly after the actor's death in 1976, has this to say about Sodom und Gomorrha: “It was a big hit in Europe. So big it actually got a play date in the United States, the first Austrian film to do so. It wasn't a success in the U.S., but one man saw it who was to make a profound change in the life of Mihály Várkonyi. Cecil B. DeMille didn't care much for the movie, but he did like the leading man.”
Arrived in Hollywood in 1924, Varconi made his American debut in Poisoned Paradise: The Forbidden Story of Monte Carlo, starring Clara Bow. Varconi's supporting role in this picture foretold his Hollywood career for the next thirty-five years, until his retirement in 1959. Despite his classic profile and fiery dark eyes, he didn't reach the top. He did, however, appear in almost a dozen DeMille pictures, most notably as Pontius Pilate in The King of Kings (1927). Stern and imperial as the prefect of Judaea, he smolders like a young Brando as he conveys Pilate's tortured indecision when Jesus of Nazareth stands before him. (Varconi would surely have given a more passionate performance than H.B. Warner in the title role.)
Lucy Doraine (née Ilona Kovács), who plays Mary Conway and also Lot's wife, was married to Michael Curtiz from 1918 until 1923. She acted in some two dozen European films between 1918 and 1931, when her career abruptly stopped. In Hollywood she found no success, although she apparently stayed on friendly terms with her ex-husband throughout his other marriages. Lucy Doraine died in Los Angeles in 1989, at the age of ninety-one, like so many in town a forgotten star who used to be big.