Some truly great actors have appeared in the once low-rent film genre called horror, and none greater in his own way than Eric von Stroheim.  While he did only a few films that could truly be labeled as fright flicks, he was memorable enough in them that his performances are recalled vividly to this day.  That may be because Eric von Stroheim purposely worked to bring out the dark side of his character, to purposely become...

By JOE WINTERS

He was known as "the man you love to hate" both on screen and off. He was considered a cinematic genius, but that genius would prove his undoing.

Born Erich Oswald Stroheim on September 22, 1885 in Vienna, Austria to Jewish parents, his father manufactured and sold hats. As a young man, Erich served in the Austrian army for about five months. He came to America in 1909 and proclaimed himself Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim.

He would be prone to many such exaggerations regarding his background. Despite the grand moniker, he held a series of menial jobs while trying to write plays. He married his first wife, Margaret, in 1913 and after a stormy marriage they divorced the following year.

Erich found work in the growing film industry as an extra, supporting player, assistant director, and by 1919 the director and star of Blind Husbands at Universal. Casting himself as a military officer with an eye for the ladies, this image would serve him well. His knack for detail and penchant for costliness would, however would prove problematic.

For Foolish Wives (Universal, 1922) Stroheim oversaw the expensive re-production of a Monte Carlo casino in which his phony Count would put the moves on innocent and not-so-innocent ladies. Greed (MGM, 1924), despite its original length at around nine hours, was a harrowing account of distrust and murder, and considered by many today, even at around half that length, to be Stroheim’s best.

Over the decade his extravagance and clashes with money-conscious producers would lead to a ruinous end of his directing career. He relied on acting and screenwriting to pay the bills and survive. His image translated into a series of bizarre roles, often that of an egomaniacal genius who rides high, then comes to a bad end.

The Great Gabbo (1929) starred Stroheim in the title role as a bitter ventriloquist who presented his good side through his dummy Otto. It was Erich’s first talkie appearance. He is said to have re-wrote much of the script, which allowed him to rant, rave and break down while revealing many of his personality quirks and obsessions as he basically sent up his own image.

He was easily the best thing in the movie, hampered by forgettable musical numbers and stagy delivery. Co-starring was the director James Cruze’s wife, Betty Compson, then a star, but in later years she played Bela Lugosi’s "dead" wife in Monogram’s Invisible Ghost (1941).

During the next few years Stroheim played a German spy in Three Faces East; a cruel husband in Friends And Lovers; a mad film director in The Lost Squadron; and an aristocrat, novelist and all-around jerk in As You Desire Me. He was back in the director’s chair for Walking Down Broadway (1932) but a power struggle between Fox executives resulted in the film being mostly re-shot with a different director and released as Hello Sister. Stroheim never directed again.

A reputation for being difficult (partly true, partly not) led to fewer acting opportunities. Personal tragedies marred 1933 and 1934. His third wife Valerie was disfigured at a beauty shop when a dry shampoo treatment ignited. Their son Josef was thought to have been stricken with infantile paralysis. Stroheim’s second wife, Mae Jones, sued him for non-support of Erich Junior, then 18. Charitable show biz friends aided Stroheim.

Roles at Poverty Row studios Mascot, Invincible and Republic ranged from an unscrupulous German pilot to a lecherous, but good-humored officer. He worked as a staff screenwriter at MGM in 1935 where he contributed to the studio’s The Devil Doll (1936), along with Guy Endore (Mad Love and Mark Of The Vampire) and Garrett Fort (Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dracula’s Daughter), based on a story by the film’s director Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks, and Mark Of The Vampire).

What Stroheim’s actual contributions were to the finished screenplay is not clear, but some of the bizarre touches one finds in this revenge-via-shrunken- humans tale may have been his.

On a time-out from MGM, Stroheim dropped by Poverty Row again for the title role in The Crime Of Dr. Crespi (1935). Stroheim later referred to it as "the crime of Republic, the author of the screenplay, and the director." Nevertheless, this creepy little number, loosely based on Poe’s "The Premature Burial," has much to recommend it for genre fans.

It was Stroheim’s first mad doctor role, and he adds some of his trademark flourishes (white gloves, immaculate attire, smoking, tossing down drinks and being a stickler for detail). Crespi is quietly amused at reading of a romantic rival’s injuries in a car wreck.

As in the opening of that same year’s The Raven, the doctor is begged to operate (in this instance by the victim’s wife). The operation seems to fail, but a late night solo visit to the morgue reveals that Crespi has given the man a drug that simulates death. "Hello, Stephen, my friend…my dear friend…my dead friend…" whispers Crespi as he injects the man with another 24-hour shot of imitation death. "I hoped and prayed for the chance to pay you back some day…with compound interest." Crespi goes on to gleefully relate the details of the upcoming burial and concludes with a chilling "pleasant dreams."

Dr. Thomas (Dwight Frye) suspects poisoning and accuses Crespi who promptly knocks out, ties up and throws the young man in a closet. The funeral scene is reminiscent of the one in Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr from just a couple years earlier. The corpse-eye view of the trees and sky as the casket is carried to the grave, the onlookers including the triumphant Crespi glaring down as the earth is shoveled onto the helpless victim.

Soon after, Crespi unties Dr. Thomas, confident the frightened man will say nothing. However, Thomas and a colleague dig up the body, and later as they prepare to cut Stephen Ross open, the man revives and staggers out. A drunken Crespi calmly accepts Ross as a ghost at first, but when confronted by the other interested parties, realizes the game is up and shoots himself.

With opportunity seemingly dying out in the States, Stroheim was enticed to France and one of his better well-known portrayals in Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion (1937) as the philosophical commandant of a prison camp. In The Alibi (1937) Stroheim played a mind reader and murderer. He was a mad dress designer in the murder mystery Pieges, a.k.a. Personal Column (1939), directed by Robert Siodmak, and a crime boss and master of disguise in Thunder Over Paris (1940). While appearing in French films, Stroheim met actress Denise Vernac who became his companion for the rest of his life.

At the urging of Darryl Zanuck at 20th Century Fox, Stroheim returned to Hollywood in 1939 for I Was An Adventuress, where he and Peter Lorre played con men. Stroheim then took to the stage for Arsenic And Old Lace, playing Karloff’s role in various cities and then on Broadway when Boris returned to Hollywood.

A couple more German officer film roles included that of Field Marshal Rommel in Billy Wilder’s Five Graves To Cairo (1943). Soon, however, the Nazi roles were drying up, and Stroheim returned to Republic for The Lady And The Monster (1944). The studio had purchased Curt Siodmak’s novel Donovan’s Brain and decided to use that as a star vehicle for Vera Hruba Ralston, soon to become the wife of studio president Herbert Yates.

Ralston wasn’t so great, but Stroheim was fine as Professor Mueller who relished the opportunity to salvage the brain of a dead business magnate. When the baleful brain takes over the mind of Mueller’s colleague (played by Richard Arlen), mayhem ensues. Stroheim later said, "The book was very interesting. The film…the less said the better." Actually, the movie was good with its shadowy castle in the Arizona desert providing a gothic flavor. The remakes, Donovan’s Brain (1953) and The Brain (1962), worked well for different reasons.

But back to Republic, where Stroheim made a couple more films of interest. As The Great Flamarion (1945) he was a trick shot artist caught up in murder. And for Scotland Yard Investigator (1945) he was a thieving art collector with a sword cane.

Before returning to France he made one more Poverty Row stop, this time at PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation). The Mask Of Dijon (1946) was directed by Lew Landers, formerly Louis Friedlander, who gave us The Raven (1935).

Illusionist Dijon (Stroheim) alienates his wife and others as he sharpens his powers of hypnosis. After thwarting a robbery by placing the bandit in a trance, Dijon mesmerizes a neighbor into killing himself. Denise Vernac, who appeared in several films with her beloved Erich, plays the victim’s wife. Dijon plays a bit like The Great Gabbo, but with tighter pacing, richer atmosphere and an accidental meeting between Dijon and a guillotine.

After a handful of films in France, Stroheim grudgingly returned to America for Sunset Boulevard (1950). He didn’t care to play the role of a once-great film director-turned-butler to washed-up silent screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), but director Billy Wilder offered him a lot of money. As a result, Stroheim earned his only Academy Award nomination.

Back in Europe, he starred in Alraune (1952), a remake of a film made several times before in Germany. Dealing with the creation of a woman through artificial insemination, the film is more hauntingly romantic than shocking. Stroheim is the scientist. Hildegarde Neff (later in Hammer’s The Lost Continent) the beautiful Alraune, named for the "magical" mandrake root, which "flourishes under the gallows", and not knowing her mother and father were a prostitute and a murderer.

The scientist, pretending to be her father, is in love with her. But like the poisonous plant for which she is named, Alraune unwittingly brings death to most of her suitors, including the scientist who goes to the gallows for killing her. The film was released in the States as Unnatural…The Fruit Of Evil.

A few more minor films in France were followed by a bout with cancer and paralysis in 1956. Erich von Stroheim was awarded the French Legion of Honor in March of 1957. He died on May 12, 1957.

In Arthur Lennig’s excellent book Stroheim, the author stated "Eager to appear hateful, and then to be resentful at being hated…this is the essence of the man and the key to his work and his life, a life that was noble and tragic and exasperating."

While he looked down on most of his horror and mystery films, Erich von Stroheim lent a unique presence and style to those roles. He might have given Karloff, Lugosi and others a run for their money. A man of many talents, calling the shots behind the cameras and in front of them, von Stroheim seemed to love playing the man we love to hate.

Thanks, Joe.  Of course, Eric von Stroheim is much better known for the masterful yet fatally flawed characters he brought to life in many memorable films.  Yet, he also applied his special touch to the horror and suspense roles he did take on.  There could be no colder glint in a villain's eye than von Stroheim's...and he could play the totally heartless and obsessed man of science to perfection.  Even is his PRC cheapie, The Mask Of Dijon, he rises so far above his surroundings that he towers over the production.  Reason enough, then, for fright film fans to remember who was, above all, a truly steel-willed actor and man.

Article copyright © Joe Winters

Return To Archives