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Transnational cinema and cultural
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adaptation in early 1930s Europe: the
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four language versions of ‘The Private
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Secretary’
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.. PAOLA MAGANZANI AND STEPHEN SHAROT
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.. A comparison of the German film Die Privatsekretärin/The Private
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.. Secretary (Wilhelm Thiele, 1931) and its three other-language versions
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.. (French, Italian, British) provides a case study for a topic that has been
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.. little examined: the relationship between transnational cultural adaptation
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.. and the purported national identity and ‘nationalizing’ of films in the
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.. early sound period. The level and scope of these adaptations varied from
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retaining and modifying the original to remaking the film entirely. In
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some cases the adaptations were undertaken prior to export by the
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.. company that produced the original, in others by companies in the
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.. country that had imported the film. A brief discussion of the changing
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.. relationship between these factors from the silent era through the early
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.. sound period provides the historical context for our study.
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.. The malleability of silent films enabled a high degree of cultural
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.. adaptation to be undertaken relatively cheaply for different markets. The
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intertitle was a crucial element in this process, as its ‘translation’ offered
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considerable scope for creating ‘appropriate’ meanings for the target
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audience. Large studios established their own departments for translating
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.. intertitles, but they were also often translated in the countries of
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.. exhibition. Other methods of alteration in silent films included strategies
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.. such as re-editing and adding new scenes to create, for example, a sad
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.. rather than a happy ending. New or alternative scenes were provided by
28 Screen 61:1 Spring 2020

© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Screen. All rights reserved
doi:10.1093/screen/hjaa004
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the exporter, but excisions and rearrangements of shots and scenes were
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also made by distributors and exhibitors in the importing country, in an
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.. effort to accommodate local censorship rules and cater to audience
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1 Laura Isabel Serna, ‘Translations .. expectations. Exhibitors provided musical accompaniments that were
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and transportation: toward a .. familiar, and as the visual cues of silent films were particularly amenable
..
transnational history of the ..
.. to different readings, audiences were able to contribute to the
intertitle’, in Jennifer M. Ban, ..
..
Anupama Kapse and Laura Horak ..
.. ‘nationalizing’ of a film through their interpretations and frequent vocal
..
(eds), Silent Cinema and the ..
.. participation.1
Politics of Space (Bloomington, IN: ...
Indiana University Press, 2014), ..
..
The conversion of European cinemas to synchronized sound and
..
pp. 121–45; Yuri Tsivian, ‘The wise ..
..
dialogue had important consequences for the relationship between
and wicked game: re-editing and ..
.. national cinemas and transnational cultural adaptation processes. The
Soviet film culture of the 1920s’, ..
..
Film History, vol. 8, no. 3 (1996), .. question of what constituted a product of one national cinema could now
..
pp. 327–43; Ruth Vasey, The .. be defined as a film that spoke the ‘national’ language, and the identity of
..
..
World According to Hollywood .. the ‘other’, a film from a foreign county, was now audible. European
..
1918–1939 (Exeter: University of ..
Exeter Press, 1997), pp. 69–72,
..
.. nations perceived sound as a new opportunity to overcome the
..
94–95; Richard Maltby and Ruth ..
.. domination of US films in their domestic markets, one that they had
Vasey, ‘Temporary American ...
..
..
attempted to resist in the late 1920s by quota systems and by pan-
citizens; cultural anxieties and ..
industrial strategies in the ..
..
European ventures in production and distribution, which collectively
Americanisation of European
..
..
..
came to be known as ‘Film Europe’.2
cinema’, in Andrew Higson and ..
The promise of sound was particularly welcome in those prominent
..
Richard Maltby (eds), ‘Film Europe’ ..
.. European countries with weak film industries, which supplied only a
and ‘Film America’: Cinema, ..
..
Commerce and Cultural Exchange .. small proportion of the films shown in their national cinemas. French
..
..
1920–1939 (Exeter: University of .. film producers were encouraged by their audiences’ demand for films in
..
Exeter Press, 1999), pp. 39–41. ..
2 Andrew Higson and Richard
..
.. French and by the hostile reception given to Hollywood sound films, be
..
Maltby, ‘Introduction’, in Higson ..
...
they subtitled or dubbed. The first all-French sound films were highly
and Maltby (eds), ‘Film Europe’ ..
..
..
successful in commercial terms, and the early sound years saw a
and ‘Film America’, pp. 17–18, and
Kristin Thompson, ‘The rise and
..
.. temporary economic revival of the French film industry.3 In Italy the
..
..
fall of Film Europe’, in Higson and .. fascist government led the opposition to non-Italian-speaking films, and
..
Maltby (eds), ‘Film Europe’ and .. in 1930 it banned the screening of films spoken in a language other than
..
‘Film America’, pp. 63–66. ..
.. Italian. The government sought to encourage the production of Italian
3 Martine Danan, ‘Hollywood’s ..
..
hegemonic strategies: overcoming ..
.. sound films, but more generally its aim was to oppose any threat to its
..
French nationalism with the ..
.. policy of imposing a standard form of Italian throughout the country.4
advent of sound’, in Higson and ..
Maltby (eds), ‘Film Europe’ and
..
...
Although the British film industry, unlike the French, could hardly
..
‘Film America’, pp. 225–48, and ..
..
perceive sound as its saviour from US domination, sound inspired the
Thompson, ‘The rise and fall of ..
..
..
industry with hope, particularly as there were reports of British audiences
Film Europe’, pp. 65, 76. ..
4 Carla Mereu Keating, ‘“100% .. disliking American accents and having problems with understanding the
..
Italian”: the coming of Hollywood
..
.. dialogue of early American sound films.5 This antipathy of British
..
sound films in 1930s Italy and .. audiences to American English proved short-lived, however, particularly
..
state regulation on dubbing’, ..
.. as working-class audiences came to prefer the apparently classless
California Italian Studies, vol. 4, ..
..
no. 1 (2013), <http://escholarship. ..
.. accents of the USA to the upper-class accents that were common in
..
org/uc/item/7f86023v> accessed .. British films. Nevertheless, sound provided opportunities for the
6 January 2020. ...
..
..
..
strengthening of Britain’s national cinema through the production of
5 Tony Aldgate, ‘Comedy, class and ..
containment: the British domestic ..
..
culturally specific forms of certain genres, particularly comedy.
..
cinema of the 1930s’, in James .. In contrast with France, Italy and Britain, whose film industries were
..
Curran and Vincent Porter (eds), ..
.. able to supply only a small proportion of the films distributed in their
British Cinema History (Totowa, ..
.. domestic markets, the number of German films released in Germany
NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1983), ..
..
p. 261. .. during the 1920s often exceeded the number of those from the USA, and
29 Screen 61:1 Spring 2020 Paola Maganzani and Stephen Sharot Transnational cinema and cultural adaptation in early 1930s Europe
...
..
..
the industry’s share of its domestic market increased considerably with
..
..
..
the transition to sound. The number of Hollywood films released in
6 Thomas J. Saunders, Hollywood in
..
.. Germany in 1930 and 1931 was well below half that of German films.6
..
Berlin: American Cinema and ..
.. However, if sound appeared to provide greater opportunities for national
..
Weimar Germany (Berkeley, CA:
.. cinemas in their domestic markets, it equally posed a problem for those
University of California Press, ..
..
1994), pp. 222–23, and Joseph .. industries, in particular Hollywood and Germany, that derived
..
..
Garncarz, ‘Made in Germany: ..
.. considerable income from foreign sales. Sound severely restricted the
multiple-language versions and the ..
early German sound cinema’, in
..
.. forms of cultural adaptation that had been undertaken for silent films.
...
Higson and Maltby (eds), ‘Film ..
..
The soundtrack restricted the scope for re-editing, but it was language
Europe’ and ‘Film America’, ..
..
..
that held the greatest implications for cultural adaptation, not just because
pp. 251–52. ..
.. of translation but because speech introduced elements of cultural and
..
..
.. social specificity. The possibilities for nationalizing an imported film, or
..
.. for audiences appropriating it in terms of their own cultures, became
..
..
.. more limited.
..
..
..
.. Sound appeared to undermine Hollywood’s claim, made during the
..
..
.. silent period, of cinema providing an international language, and initial
...
..
..
US concerns over its foreign markets varied greatly, ranging from
..
..
..
pessimism that they were about to lose their non-English-speaking
..
7 Danan, ‘Hollywood’s hegemonic ..
..
foreign markets to confidence in Hollywood’s continued dominance in
strategies’, pp. 225–31; Abé Mark ..
.. the international market. Variety published some alarmist items headlined
Nornes, Cinema Babel: Translating ..
.. ‘Sound eliminates much export’ and ‘US may lose Europe’, but most
Global Cinema (Minneapolis, MN: ..
..
University of Minnesota Press, .. producers and the trade press did not express undue concern, especially
..
..
2007), p. 125; Richard Maltby and ..
.. as it quickly became evident that Hollywood’s foreign sales were not
Ruth Vasey, ‘The international ..
language problem: European
..
.. declining.7 The German film industry feared losses in foreign sales,
..
reactions to Hollywood’s ..
...
particularly the loss of its lucrative British market to Hollywood.8
conversion to sound’, in David W. ..
..
..
Multiple language versions (MLVs), the most common form of
Ellwood and Rob Kroes (eds), ..
Hollywood in Europe: Experiences .. different-language versions from a single source in the early 1930s,
..
..
of a Cultural Hegemony .. appeared to provide a solution for those production companies, particularly
..
(Amsterdam: VU University Press, ..
.. in Hollywood and Germany, that were concerned to maintain their profits
1994), p. 81; Donald Crafton, The ..
.. from exports. A production company made a film in the language of the
Talkies: American Cinema’s ..
..
Transition to Sound, 1926–1931 ..
.. national cinema, and at the same time or soon afterwards it made other-
..
(Berkeley, CA: University of ..
.. language versions for its foreign markets. This clearly involved a more
California Press, 1999), p. 418. ..
8 Maltby and Vasey, ‘The
..
...
expensive investment than the modification of silent films for foreign
..
international language problem’, ..
..
audiences, but for a time it was viewed more favourably than dubbing and
p. 81. ..
..
..
subtitling, neither of which were popular in the early sound years.
9 On French versions made in the ..
USA, see Martin Barnier, Des films .. The first MLVs were made by British International Pictures (BIP), and
..
.. this company continued to make most British MLVs, some in German
franc¸ais made in Hollywood, Les ..
..
versions multiples (1929–1935) .. and some in French, until 1933. However, the British production of
..
(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004). On ..
.. MLVs was on a relatively small scale compared with that of the USA
Joinville, see Harry Waldman, ..
..
Paramount in Paris: 300 Films ..
.. and Germany, the two major producers of MLVs in the early 1930s. US
..
Produced at Joinville Studios, .. studios in Hollywood and the Paramount French studio in Joinville, a
1930–1933 (Lanham, MD: ...
..
Scarecrow Press, 1998).
..
..
suburb of Paris, made the largest number of MLVs, but in terms of the
10 Chris Wahl, Multiple Language
..
..
..
proportion of a country’s film production, Germany took the lead.9
..
Versions Made in Babelsberg: .. Nearly one-third of German fiction features made up to 1934 were also
..
Ufa’s International Strategy, ..
.. produced in foreign-language versions.10
1929–1939 (Amsterdam: ..
.. All producers of MLVs, whether American or European, faced a
Amsterdam University Press, ..
..
2016), pp. 51, 132, 181. .. tension between producing a standardized product that would minimize
...
..
..
costs and providing differentiated products that took into consideration
..
..
..
the cultural diversity of the target audiences and would thereby maximize
..
.. revenue. The initial assumption among US producers that MLVs were
..
..
.. principally a mode of translation resulted in minimal sensitivity with
..
.. respect to cultural adaptation. Spanish-speaking versions made mainly
..
..
.. for the Latin American markets constituted by far the greatest number of
..
..
..
.. MLVs made in Hollywood, but there was little appreciation of the
..
..
.. national and regional variations of the Spanish language. Actors from
...
..
..
various Spanish-speaking countries used a mix of accents and dialects in
..
..
..
a single film, providing clear evidence for the critics of MLVs in the
..
.. Spanish-language press that Hollywood had little understanding or
..
11 Lisa Jarvinen, The Rise of
..
.. respect for their country’s culture.11
..
Spanish-Language Filmmaking: ..
.. Historians of MLVs have expressed somewhat different views
Out from Hollywood’s Shadow, ..
.. regarding the extent to which US and German studios culturally adapted
1929–1939 (New Brunswick, NJ: ..
..
Rutgers University Press, 2012), ..
.. their MLVs. The production of MLVs by US studios in Europe did not
..
pp. 55–61, 64–65. ..
.. necessarily involve greater cultural adaptation than those they made at
...
..
..
home. MGM made most of its MLVs in the USA, but devoted more
..
12 Crafton, The Talkies, p. 427. ..
..
resources than other studios to adapting MLVs for specific target
13 Natasa Ďurovicová, ‘Translating ..
..
..
audiences, importing directors, scriptwriters and actors with the
America: the Hollywood
multilinguals, 1929–1933’, in Rick
..
.. appropriate language skills.12 Paramount produced its MLVs in Europe,
..
.. but its industrialized (‘Fordist’) methods, with rapidly translated scripts
Altman (ed.), Sound Theory, ..
..
Sound Practice (New York, NY: .. and short shooting schedules, were not conducive to cultural
..
Routledge, 1992), p. 146. ..
14 Crafton, The Talkies, p. 438; Alan
..
.. adaptation.13 Some scholars have suggested that the US studios were less
..
Larson Williams, Republic of ..
.. sensitive to the problems of cultural adaptation than the European ones,
..
Images: A History of French .. and that closer cultural understanding among European countries resulted
Filmmaking (Cambridge, MA: ...
Harvard University Press, 1992),
..
..
..
in the greater success of their MLVs.14 The German companies Tobis and
..
p.174; Ginette Vincendeau, .. Ufa included among their productions films made only in French, and for
..
‘“Hollywood Babel”: the coming ..
.. these as well as their French MLVs they used major French actors and
of sound and the multiple ..
.. gave their French directors greater freedom than those who worked for
language version’, Screen, vol. ..
..
29, no. 2 (1988), p. 37.
..
.. Paramount at Joinville.15
..
15 Colin Crisp, The Classic French .. Ufa used polyglot actors wherever possible, but in many cases the
..
Cinema, 1930–1960 ..
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana
..
.. notable differences among their versions resided in the casting, as often
..
University Press, 1997), ..
...
the take or scene of a foreign version was filmed immediately after that of
pp. 177–78, and Dudley Andrew, ..
..
..
the ‘original’ version, using the same crew and sets. Differences among
‘Sound in France: the origins of a ..
native school’, Yale French ..
..
MLVs extended to factors such as the nationality of the protagonists, the
..
Studies, no. 60 (1980), p. 102. .. location of the story, and slight variations in the plot and characters.
..
16 Garncarz, ‘Made in Germany’, .. Different locations were indicated by inserting stock footage of the
..
p. 262; Joseph Garncarz, ‘Making ..
.. appropriate city and placing actors before a back screen of a pre-filmed
films comprehensible and popular ..
..
.. location, but for logistical and financial considerations the same interior
abroad: the innovative strategy of ..
..
multiple-language versions’, ..
.. sets were often used.16 In a detailed comparison of several Ufa film
Cinema & Cie, no. 1 (2004), ..
pp. 75–76; Vincendeau,
..
...
versions, Chris Wahl notes that in some cases there were differences in the
‘“Hollywood Babel”’, pp. 29, 37;
..
..
..
staging of dialogue, props and wardrobe, and also changes in mood.17
Crafton, The Talkies, p. 426. ..
..
..
Ginette Vincendeau states, however, that two or more other-language
17 Wahl, Multiple Language ..
Versions Made in Babelsberg,
.. versions could be remarkably similar, even when not only the cast but also
..
pp. 149–66.
..
.. the director, crew and sometimes the studios were different.18
..
18 Vincendeau, ‘“Hollywood Babel”’, .. MLVs may be considered a type of remake, but as they were made by
..
p. 29. ..
.. the production companies of the original or source film, cinema scholars
...
..
..
have often distinguished them from remakes that were mostly made by
..
..
..
production companies of other nations. A remake could more
..
.. convincingly be located within its national cinema than an imported
..
..
.. MLV, its production context provided more opportunities for the cultural
..
.. adaptation of the source, and as it was made by filmmakers who were
..
..
.. more likely to share the culture of its targeted audience than the makers
..
..
..
.. of a MLV, it was likely to find greater acceptance than a MLV among
..
..
.. that audience. The remake, however, was less cost-effective than an
...
..
..
MLV, which could be imported for a lesser sum.
..
..
..
The distinction between MLVs and remakes is not always clear. In her
..
.. much cited article on MLVs, Vincendeau writes that they were ‘shot
..
..
.. simultaneously in different languages’ but that remakes ‘made from the
..
.. same source material, but with a short time gap’ had enough in common
..
..
.. with MLVs to be considered as part of the same phenomenon, as they
..
..
19 Ibid., pp. 26–27. ..
.. have the same intention ‘to adapt the same text for different audiences’.19
20 Robert Peck, ‘Atlantic : the first ..
Titanic blockbuster’, in Tim
..
.. The problem of distinguishing a remake from a MLV is evident from the
...
Bergfelder and Sarah Street ..
..
very first example of the latter, Atlantic (E. A. Dupont, 1929), shot
(eds), The Titanic in Myth and ..
..
..
simultaneously in English and German by BIP and then made the
Memory (London: IB Tauris, ..
2004), p. 113; Wahl, Multiple ..
..
following year in French as a co-production of BIP and Établissements
..
Language Versions Made in .. Jacques Hazık. Some changes were made to the plot and characters of the
..
Babelsberg, p. 56. One of our ..
.. French version, directed by Jean Kemm, but although part of a set had to
reviewers informs us that ..
.. be rebuilt for new scenes featuring French actors, a great deal of footage
Établissements Jacques Hazık ..
..
arranged to shoot scenes in its ..
.. from Dupont’s version was used.20 Rachael Low cites the French version
Paris studio, but when the studio ..
..
.. as an example of ‘a certain ambiguity in the distinction between
was destroyed by fire in February ..
1930 Hazık rented studio space at
..
...
multilinguals and remakes’,21 but Wahl insists that it is an MLV because
..
BIP for the filming of the new ..
..
it uses material from the primary film. According to Wahl, a film is a
sequences. ..
.. remake when every shot and the entire soundtrack are new, which was
21 Rachael Low, The History of the ..
British Film 1929–1939 (London:
..
.. not the case with Atlantis.22
..
George Allen and Unwin, 1985), .. Distinctions between MLVs and remakes were of little concern to
..
..
p. 93. ..
.. audiences of the early 1930s, and whatever their origins or countries of
..
.. production, advertising and reviews in the country of reception claimed
..
pp. 251–52. ..
.. MLVs and remakes for their own national cinemas. Atlantik was billed in
..
23 Peck, ‘Atlantic : the first Titanic ..
...
Germany as ‘the first 100 percent German talking film’,23 while Atlantis
blockbuster’, p. 114. ..
24 Martin Barnier, ‘Versions ..
..
was celebrated as a ‘French film’, a domestic production, with no
..
multiples et langues en Europe’, ..
..
mention that much of it had been made by a German director in a British
Mise au point, no. 5 (2013) ..
.. studio.24 The reception of the versions of Atlantic suggests that the
<http://journals.openedition.org/ ..
.. parameters of national cinema may be drawn at the site of reception of
map/1490> accessed 6 January ..
..
.. MLVs and remakes as much, or even more so, than at the site of
2020. ..
..
25 We are substituting the word ..
.. production.25 Our case study of the four language versions of ‘The
‘reception’ for the word ..
‘consumption’ here, paraphrasing
..
.. Private Secretary’ demonstrates that the cultural adaptation and
..
Andrew Higson, Waving the Flag: ..
...
‘nationalizing’ of a MLV or remake were undertaken both in their
Constructing a National Cinema ..
..
..
production and in their reception .
in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon ..
Press, 1995), p. 36. See also Eric ..
..
The source of the first language version of ‘The Private Secretary’, the
..
Smoodin, ‘Going to the movies in .. German film Die Privatsekretärin, may be traced back to a 1905
..
Paris, around 1933: film culture, ..
.. Hungarian novel by István Szomaházy, Tales of a Typewriter, which was
national cinema and historical ..
.. published at a time when ‘typewriter’ also referred to ‘typist’. A
method’, The Moving Image, vol. ..
..
11, no. 1 (2011), p. 28. .. Hungarian film based on the novel with the same title was produced in
...
26 Details and plot summary of the ..
..
1916, and a Hungarian operetta adaptation by Isfan Békeffy was staged
1916 film in Hungarian may be ..
..
..
in 1927. The 1916 film is lost, but apart from the fact that its plot focused
found at Hangosfilm, <https:// ..
www.hangosfilm.hu/filmografia/ .. on a romance resulting in the marriage of a bank director and a secretary,
..
..
mesek-az-irogeprol> accessed 14 .. the existent summary of its plot suggests few similarities with Die
..
December 2019. Greenbaum-Film .. Privatsekretärin. The latter film was produced by Greenbaum-Film, a
..
had been formerly affiliated with ..
Ufa. See Hans-Michael Bock and
..
.. small company that shot the film in Ufa’s Tempelhof studio in Berlin.26
..
Tim Bergfelder, The Concise ..
.. Soon afterwards a French version with the title Dactylo/Typist (William
..
Cinegraph: Encyclopaedia of .. Thiele, 1931), a co-production of Greenbaum-Film and Pathé-Natan, was
..
German Cinema (New York, NY: ...
Berghahn, 2009), p. 166. ..
..
shot with a French cast in the same Berlin studio and by the same
..
27 Greenbaum-Film sold the rights in ..
..
director. The rights were then acquired by Gainsborough Pictures to
March 1931 to Felsom-Film, ..
.. make a version in English, Sunshine Susie (Victor Saville, 1931),27 and
whose name was a portmanteau ..
..
of the surnames of its producers, .. by Cines to make a version in Italian, La segretaria privata/The Private
..
Hermann Fellner and Josef
..
.. Secretary (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1931).28 The nationalities of the actors
..
Somlo, and which had made a .. accorded with the language version in which they appeared, with the
..
series of co-productions with ..
Gainsborough Pictures in the
..
.. significant exception of Renate Müller, who in Sunshine Susie reprised
..
1920s. In 1931 Michael Balcon ..
.. the female lead that she had played in Die Privatsekretärin.
was appointed head of ...
..
..
All four versions of ‘The Private Secretary’ were critical and
production of both the Gaumont- ..
British and Gainsborough studios, ..
..
commercial successes in their respective countries, and may be
..
and later wrote that the remake ..
..
considered as one of the exceptions to Vincendeau’s characterization of
was suggested to him and ..
.. MLVs as aesthetically ‘terrible’ and financial failures.29 Die
arranged by Fellner. See Tim ..
.. Privatsekretärin was tremendously popular in Germany and in other
Bergfelder and Christian ..
..
Cargnelli, Destination London: ..
.. countries,30 and its considerable commercial success was replicated
..
German-Speaking Emigrés and .. elsewhere: Sunshine Susie was voted the Best British Film of 1932 in a
..
British Cinema, 1925–1950 (New ..
York, NY: Berghahn, 2008),
..
.. readers’ poll of a popular movie magazine,31 and it played for long runs
..
pp. 38–39; Andrew Higson, ‘“A ..
...
in British and Australian cinemas; the Italian version played for as long
film League of Nations”: ..
..
..
as a month at first-run cinemas in major Italian cities,32 and the success of
Gainsborough, Gaumont-British ..
and “Film Europe”’, in Pam Cook .. Dactylo, the French version, spawned a sequel, Dactylo se marie (Joe
..
..
(ed.), Gainsborough Pictures .. May and René Pujol, 1934), with the same star, Marie Glory.
..
(London: Cassell, 1997), p. 72; .. Whereas the title of the Italian version was a literal translation of the
..
Michael Balcon, Michael Balcon ..
.. German source film, the French title was more accurate regarding the
Presents ... A Lifetime of Films ..
..
(London: Hutchinson, 1969), p. 55. ..
.. occupation of the heroine, who through a ruse briefly takes the place of
..
28 The Italians also made a silent .. the bank director’s private secretary. The British producers’ decision to
..
‘international’ version for ..
cinemas not equipped for
..
...
change the title to Sunshine Susie was possibly influenced by their desire
..
screening sound films. The ..
..
for it not to be confused with the 1883 farce The Private Secretary,
intertitles for this version were ..
..
..
which had recently been revived in a West End theatre. Saville thought
viewed at the Turin Film ..
Museum, but this is a lost film. .. that the ‘Sunshine Susie’ title was ‘the height of banality’, but he
..
29 Vincendeau, ‘“Hollywood Babel”’,
..
.. admitted that including the word ‘sun’ gave it a happy sound.33
..
p. 25. .. As remakes, the Italian and British versions might be expected to
..
30 Uwe Klöckner-Draga, Renate ..
.. differ from the German source more than the French MLV, but some
Müller: ihn Leben ein ..
..
Drahtseilakt; ein deutscher
..
.. years later the Italian and British directors admitted that their remakes
..
Filmstar (Bayreuth: Verlag Kern, .. were largely copies of the German film. Goffredo Alessandrini recalled
2006), pp. 92–93. ...
..
31 Film Weekly, 26 May 1933, p. 7;
..
..
that La segretaria privata was given to him as his first directorial
..
as listed in Robert James, ..
..
assignment because, as a remake, it did not involve too much
..
Popular Culture and Working- .. responsibility on his part, and that the constraints of a short production
Class Taste in Britain, 1930–39 ..
.. schedule and limited budget resulted in an almost exact copy of the
(Manchester: Manchester ..
..
.. German film, which he viewed in slow motion for the purposes of
University Press, 2010), p. 213. ..
..
.. imitation. He explained, however, that he did make a number of changes
...
32 The newspaper Cine-Gazzettino, ..
..
reflecting his own point of view and ‘our [Italian] spirit’. He reported that
2 January 1932, probably ..
..
..
the actors had also seen the German film but that they interpreted the
exaggerated when it reported on ..
p. 3 that 50,000 residents of .. characters according to their temperaments. Alessandrini mentioned
..
..
Bologna had seen the film in its .. especially Sergio Tofano, to whose comic talent as the bank porter he
..
first week, but this was an .. apportioned more screen time than had been given to the German actor
..
indication of its popularity. For ..
discussions of the Italian version
..
.. who played the part.34 Saville, the British director, wrote that he
..
see Vincenzo Buccheri, Stile
..
.. ‘slavishly followed the German version’ but managed ‘to sneak in’
..
Cines: Studi sul cinema italiano .. several touches of his own, such as arranging for the typists in the typist
..
1930–1934 (Milano: Vita e ...
Pensiero, 2004), pp. 82–85;
..
..
pool to shift their typewriter carriages and ringing bells in unison with the
James Hay, Popular Culture in
..
..
..
music.35 The Italian and British directors appear to have taken the MLV
Fascist Italy: The Passing of the ..
.. as a model for their ‘remakes’, which would suggest that these were as
Rex (Bloomington, IN: Indiana ..
..
University Press, 1987), p. 119; .. similar to the German source film as the French MLV. Whereas the
..
.. director’s credit for the French version read, ‘un film de Wilhelm Thiele’,
Marcia Landy, The Folklore of ..
..
Consensus: Theatricality in the .. the UK credit read ‘adapted and directed by Victor Saville’, and the
..
Italian Cinema 1930–1943 ..
(Albany, NY: State University of
..
.. Italian stated ‘adapted for the Italian screen and staged by Goffredo
..
New York Press, 1998), ..
.. Alessandrini’.
pp. 70–76. ...
..
..
Film scholars have, in fact, referred to the four versions of ‘The Private
33 Roy Moseley, Evergreen: Victor ..
Saville in His Own Words
..
..
Secretary’ in considering the problem of distinguishing between an MLV
..
(Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois ..
..
and a remake in the early 1930s. By asking, ‘Shall we say that the French
..
University Press, 2000), p. 56.
.. and German versions are twins, while the English and Italian ones are
‘The Private Secretary’ was the ..
.. mere cousins?’, Pierre Sorlin questions whether there can be a clear
working title of the scenario ..
..
written by Robert Stevenson. A
..
.. criterion for a MLV.36 Anna Sofia Rossholm continues Sorlin’s
..
comparison of the scenario ..
.. somewhat playful discussion when she writes that, as Renate Müller
(located at the British Film ..
Institute (BFI) Reuben Library) and
..
.. starred in the German, English and French versions, ‘from a star
..
Saville’s completed film reveals ..
...
perspective, there are three “twins” and one “cousin”’.37 The problem
..
numerous differences. ..
..
here is that it was Glory and not Müller who starred in the French
34 Alessandrini stated inaccurately ..
that the British version was made
.. version. Wahl takes Saville at his word that almost no changes were
..
..
in Germany at the same time as .. made to the original material, and concludes that ‘In terms of cinematic
..
the German and French versions. .. history the common features therefore predominate, meaning that
..
See Francesco Savio, Cinecittà ..
.. Sunshine Susie must be considered a multiple-language version produced
anni trenta (Rome: Bulzoni, 1979), ..
..
pp. 11–13.
..
.. in the same way as a remake’. Wahl supports this statement by quoting
..
35 Moseley, Evergreen, p. 58. ..
.. from a letter written by the film’s producer, Michael Balcon, to Maurice
36 Pierre Sorlin, ‘Multilingual forms: ..
or what we know about a
..
...
Ostrer in 1934, in which Balcon wrote that the rights to the script cost a
..
seemingly bright idea’, Cinema & ..
..
relatively small sum and that, in addition, they were able to use the
Cie, no. 4 (2004), p. 18. ..
..
..
female lead and the original film music of the German film.38 None of
37 Anna Sofia Rossholm, ..
Reproducing Languages,
.. these scholars appear to have seen all four versions of ‘The Private
..
.. Secretary’, and although we might agree with Wahl that their common
Translating Bodies: Approaches ..
..
to Speech, Translation and .. features ‘predominate’, the questions remain of the extent to which the
..
Cultural Identity in Early ..
.. versions differ with regard to cultural adaptation, and of whether the
..
European Sound Film (Stockholm: ..
Stockholm University Press,
..
.. circumstances of their production (the French ‘MLV’ as opposed to the
..
2006), p. 124. ..
...
British and Italian ‘remakes’) influenced the extent of their cultural
..
..
adaptation. At this point, a summary of the plot of all four versions will
..
p. 254. Wahl incorrectly states ..
..
provide the parameters of their differences.
..
that Dactylo was produced .. The heroine arrives by train in the big city, and sitting down with her
‘simultaneously’ with Die ..
.. luggage she sings a song expressing her hope for a better life. After
..
Privatsekretärin. ..
.. escaping in a taxi from a man’s unwanted attentions, the heroine arrives
..
..
.. at a working women’s residence where the other young occupants stress
...
..
..
the problems of finding work and suitable husbands. The following day
..
..
..
she enlists the help of a bank porter to obtain an interview with the staff
..
.. manager, who employs her to work in the typing pool on the
..
..
.. understanding that she will make herself available to him romantically.
..
.. The heroine returns to her room and expresses her happiness at receiving
..
..
.. the job by singing the theme song of the film (‘Today I feel so happy!’ in
..
..
..
.. English). The following day she arrives at work and joins the other
..
..
.. typists, who are shown typing as a form of marching music is played.
...
..
..
She fails to meet the staff manager for the expected date, and he takes his
..
..
..
revenge by tearing up her work and telling her to redo it after office
..
.. hours. The bank director walks into the typing pool and finds the heroine
..
..
.. working alone. She assumes that he is a clerk, and playing along with her
..
.. misapprehension he accompanies her to a venue, where the bank porter,
..
..
.. with whom the heroine has become friendly, conducts a small male-voice
..
..
..
.. choir. The bank director indicates to the porter that he should not reveal
..
..
.. his identity, and the couple dance to the music of the theme song. The
...
..
..
heroine asks that the porter be invited to their table, where together the
..
..
..
pair become inebriated from the champagne ordered by the bank director.
..
..
..
The latter jokingly accounts for his unlikely and extravagant spending on
..
39 On Britain, see Selina Todd, .. champagne, which occasions the porter to perform a song and dance. As
..
‘Poverty and aspiration: young ..
.. they return home in a taxi, the heroine explains to the director that she
women’s entry to employment in ..
.. wishes to find a wealthy husband, so although she likes him she would
inter-war England’, Twentieth ..
..
Century British History, vol. 5, ..
.. never marry a mere clerk. Once back in her room, the heroine sings a
..
no. 2 (2004), p. 123. On Germany, ..
.. song that expresses the conflict between her head and her heart. The
see Ute Frevert, Women in ..
German History: From Bourgeois
..
...
following day the bank director enters the typing pool and the heroine
..
Emancipation to Sexual ..
..
discovers his true identity. She tells the porter that the director’s secretary
Liberation (Oxford: Berg, 1989), ..
.. is preventing her from seeing the director, so the porter arranges for the
pp. 180–81. On France, see ..
..
Delphine Gardey, La .. secretary to travel to another city on the pretext of a business
..
dactylographie et .. appointment. This enables the heroine to briefly take the secretary’s place
..
..
l’expeditionnaire: Histoire des ..
.. and to explain to the director how foolish she was when she told him of
employes de bureau, 1890–1930 ..
(Paris: Belin, 2001). On Italy, see
..
.. her ambition in the taxi. The director discovers the trick played on his
..
Victoria de Grazia, How Fascism ..
.. secretary and pretends to fire the heroine and the porter, but recalls the
Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945
..
..
...
heroine and asks her to come to his apartment to take dictation. There,
California Press, 1992), ..
..
after drinking tea, he suggests an arrangement whereby she lives as a
..
pp. 192–95. ..
..
‘kept woman’; when the heroine responds angrily and storms out, he
40 Arankin Muller Matits, Glamor ..
.. takes this as proof that she really loves him, and arrives at her room with
and Gloom: The Female White ..
.. an offer of marriage just as she is about to leave the city.
Collar Worker in Mainstream ..
..
Cinema and Popular Fiction of the .. The appeal of this narrative across the four nations relates to a social
..
..
Late Weimar Republic (PhD .. phenomenon that was common to these and other western countries – the
..
thesis: City University of New ..
York, 2007), p. 39. On the
..
.. feminization of low-level, low-paying office work. This process started
..
iconography of the female office- ..
...
somewhat later in European nations than in the USA, but it accelerated in
worker at the typewriter and the ..
..
..
Europe after World War I and by 1930 was well advanced, with the
reinforcement of gender roles in ..
Die Privatsekretärin, see Angelika ..
..
proportion of women in the clerical workforce ranging from over forty
..
Führich, ‘Woman and typewriter: .. per cent in Britain, to almost a third in Germany, and about one quarter in
..
gender, technology, and work in ..
.. France and Italy.39 Typing, in particular, had become a feminine
late Weimar film’, Women in ..
.. occupation, and in 1930 ninety per cent of the typists in Berlin were
German Yearbook, no. 16 (2000), ..
..
pp. 151–66. .. female.40 Apart from a very few secretarial positions there were almost
...
41 In Germany in 1930, for example, ..
..
no opportunities for women’s occupational mobility, and it was
four out of five typists were ..
..
..
commonly assumed that female office workers would leave work when
under the age of thirty and more ..
than ninety per cent were .. they married, an assumption reinforced by the widespread application of
..
..
unmarried. See Matits, Glamor .. a ‘marriage bar’. The vast majority of female office workers were,
..
and Gloom, p. 40. ..
.. indeed, young unmarried women.41 Their meagre salary, the routine,
42 At least one contemporary ..
.. often strenuous work, and a lack of job security often focused their
reviewer, in this case of the ..
..
French version, noted that the ..
.. aspirations onto an advantageous marriage that would enable them to
..
heroine’s achievement was the .. leave their work. ‘The Private Secretary’ and other cross-class romance
..
dream of many typists, in Le ...
Progrès de la Côte-d’Or, 26 May ..
..
office films addressed that aspiration, even if most female office workers
..
1933, p. 4. A German communist ..
..
were sufficiently realistic to understand that they were unlikely to marry
magazine condemned Die ..
.. their boss and to confine their hope to a white-collar spouse with a salary
Privatsekretärin for conveying the ..
unrealistic message that a
..
.. and an occupational status higher than their own.42
..
secretary could climb the social
.. Insofar as none of the four versions deviate from the narrative
..
..
ladder by marrying her boss. See .. summarized above, it may be said that common elements predominate
..
Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung, July ..
1932, qtd in Jennifer M. Lynn,
..
.. with regard to plot. Some differences of cultural adaptation are
..
Contesting Images: ..
.. immediately obvious, such as the language spoken by their casts and,
Representations of the Modern ...
..
..
with respect to three versions, the location of the story: Vilma arrives
Woman in the German Illustrated ..
Press, 1924–1933 (MA thesis: ..
..
from a rural area in Berlin in Die Privatsekretärin, Simone arrives in
..
University of North Carolina at ..
..
Paris in Dactylo, and Elsa arrives in Rome in La segretaria privata. In
Chapel Hill, 2008), p. 102. ..
.. Sunshine Susie, however, Vienna rather than London is chosen as the
Siegfried Kracauer was among ..
.. location. Vienna was associated in popular culture with music and
the contemporary observers who ..
..
wrote of female white-collar .. romance, and there was a vogue during the early sound years for
..
..
workers as avid cinemagoers .. operettas set there, beginning with Ufa’s Liebeswalzer/Waltz of Love
..
who enjoyed the cross-class ..
romance films, in ‘The little
..
.. (Wilhelm Thiele, 1930) and its French and English versions, all starring
..
shopgirls go to the movies’ ..
...
Lilian Harvey. Other Viennese operettas soon followed, including Ufa’s
(1927), in Richard W. McCormick ..
..
..
most extravagant production, the highly successful Der Kongress tanzt/
and Alison Guenther-Pal (eds), ..
German Essays on Films (New .. Congress Dances (Erik Charell, 1931), which was also made in French
..
..
York, NY: Continuum, 2004), .. and English with Harvey again starring in both versions. The cross-class
..
pp. 99–111. .. romance of Viennese operettas between aristocratic men or military
..
43 Thomas Elsaesser, Weimar ..
.. officers and working-class women were ‘costume’ films set in the past,
Cinema and After: Germany’s ..
..
Historical Imaginary (London: ..
.. but their success may well have influenced the decision to adopt Vienna
..
Routledge, 2000), pp. 372–73, .. as an appropriate setting for a cross-class, white-collar musical
..
and Timothy K. Conley, Screening ..
Vienna: The City of Dreams in
..
...
romance.43 When Sunshine Susie was released in Britain one month after
..
English-Language Cinema and ..
..
the English version of Congress Dances, some reviewers referred to it as
Television (New York, NY: ..
..
..
an operetta, and all, with one exception, favoured its Viennese setting:
Cambria Press, 2016). ..
44 The Stage, 10 December 1931; .. Vienna was ‘the home of romance and music’, the film’s settings
..
.. ‘convey to the last resort the Viennese atmosphere’, the film floated ‘like
The Bioscope, 9 December 1931; ..
..
Sunday Chronicle, qtd in .. a cork on the crest of the Viennese vogue’, and it was ‘British made in
..
advertisement in The Bioscope, ..
16 December 1931; The Sketch,
..
.. the sparkling Viennese manner’.44 While one British reviewer described
..
13 January 1932. ..
.. Sunshine Susie as an ‘adaptation of an Austrian musical comedy’,
..
45 Saturday Review of Politics, .. another described it as a ‘German musical spectacle’ which ‘follows in
Literature, Science and Art, 12 ...
December 1931, p. 156; Film
..
..
..
the vivacious footsteps of Congress Dances’.45
..
Weekly, 15 April 1932; qtd in ..
..
Rossholm writes that as Sunshine Susie takes place in Vienna, a
Rossholm, Reproducing Languages, ..
.. location that in reality is German-speaking, it might be considered as
Translating Bodies, p. 124. ..
.. more of a twin to Die Privatsekretärin, while Dactylo is more of a
46 Rossholm, Reproducing ..
..
Languages, Translating Bodies,
..
.. cousin.46 The German names of the characters in Die Privatsekretärin
..
p. 124. .. were changed only partially for Sunshine Susie: the heroine Vilma Föster
...
..
..
became Susie Surster, the bank director shifted minimally from Arvai
..
..
..
to Arvray, while the bank porter was named Hasel in both. In the
..
.. French and Italian versions the characters’ names were changed
..
..
.. accordingly: the heroine became Simone Dupré and Elsa Lorenzi, the
..
.. bank director became Paul Derval and Roberto Berri, and the bank
..
..
.. porter became Jules Fanfarel and Otello. However, Sunshine Susie’s
..
..
..
.. German names, its German star and its Viennese location were unlikely
..
..
.. to make UK audiences recognize it as anything other than a British
...
..
..
film. The ‘Viennese’ working women in Sunshine Susie speak with the
..
..
..
cut-glass English accents typical of UK film actresses of the time,
..
.. whatever social class they are supposed to be playing, and the only
..
..
.. character with a non-English accent is the star Müller, who explains to
..
.. the other women that she came to Vienna from Germany. The
..
..
.. ‘Englishness’ of Sunshine Susie was reinforced substantially by the
..
..
..
.. casting of Jack Hulbert as the bank porter, a factor that was noted by
..
..
.. contemporary reviewers. This was one of Hulbert’s first films, but he
...
..
..
was already well known from his appearances in stage musicals and
..
..
..
light comedies; unlike the actors who played the role in the other
..
..
..
versions, he received second rather than third billing after the female
..
.. star, and was given more screen time and opportunities to promote his
..
.. character. In the beer-garden sequence, for example, he accentuates the
..
..
.. comedic element when conducting his male-voice choir, snapping at
..
..
..
.. the choristers, and also when Susie playfully insists that the porter and
..
..
.. the bank director (posing as a clerk), should exchange kisses. The film
..
..
...
provided opportunities for Hulbert to display his talent for comic dance
..
..
..
routines, and he shows less deference and a greater playfulness towards
..
.. his boss than is shown by his counterparts.
..
..
.. A comparison of Die Privatsekretärin with the other versions reveals
..
.. that it is the French version that follows the German source most closely.
..
..
.. Dactylo generally adopts the same sequence of shots as Die
..
..
..
.. Privatsekretärin, although the camera in Dactylo tends to stand slightly
..
..
.. further away from the actors. It uses the same sets and props as the
..
..
...
German version, and although the Biergarten is referred to in Dactylo as
..
..
..
a restaurant, ‘le banquet de la Tirelire’, the only change is that it features
..
..
..
different table-cloths and a banner in French rather than German. Most of
..
.. the non-speaking parts, such as the women in the typing pool, are played
..
.. by the same extras. The last two shots of Die Privatsekretärin –
..
..
.. following shots of the bank director about to kiss the heroine and of the
..
..
.. porter peeping at them through the keyhole – were used again for the
..
..
..
.. French version: five smiling young females, seen together at a boarding
..
..
...
house window, appear to sing the theme song; this dissolves into a shot
..
..
..
in which the same women are shown as multiple images. This ending
..
..
..
suggests that not only are the other women happy for the heroine but that
..
.. they too could find happiness through an advantageous marriage. La
..
.. segretaria privata also ends with shots of the young women from the
..
..
.. pensione, but in this version they gather outside the heroine’s room,
..
..
.. joining Otello, the bank porter, as he peeps through the keyhole. Otello
...
..
..
proceeds to conduct the women in a chorus of the theme song, and the
..
..
..
last shot shows him leading them dancing and singing down the corridor.
..
.. The ending of Sunshine Susie pictures the women at the boarding house,
..
..
.. each at their separate windows, apparently singing the film’s theme song,
..
.. and in the last shot, from inside Susie’s room, the bank director is set to
..
..
.. kiss her when he draws down a blind to hide them from view.
..
..
..
.. As these different endings indicate, in certain scenes the Italian and
..
..
.. British remakes differ noticeably from the German source and the French
...
..
..
MLV. Although some scenes are very similar in all four versions, the
..
..
..
angles, length and sequences of shots in Sunshine Susie and La
..
.. segretaria privata often vary considerably from those in Die
..
..
.. Privatsekretärin and Dactylo. There is greater mobility of the camera in
..
.. some of the scenes of the Italian version, with a number of tracking and
..
..
.. dolly shots. The English sets are somewhat sparse and functional, with
..
..
..
.. fewer elegant objects than the highly decorative Italian sets. The bank
..
..
.. offices and the bank director’s home in the Italian version were ‘an
...
..
..
advertisement for the latest in modernist, geometric furniture and interior
47 Landy, The Folklore of Consensus,
..
..
..
design’,47 with his living room modelled on an ultra-modernist design
p. 74. ..
..
..
that had been shown at the 1930 Monza Biennale architectural
48 Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Fascist
..
.. exhibition.48
..
Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 ..
.. Marie Glory, the French actress who plays the heroine in Dactylo,
.. described Thiele, the director of both the German and French versions, as
California Press, 2001), p. 239. ..
..
..
.. an impartial and intelligent man who was willing to introduce new
..
..
.. elements into the French version in accord with French ideas and
..
49 ‘Des souvenirs de Marie Glory’, ..
...
temperament.49 Glory did not give examples of these elements, but a
Revue Hebdomadaire Illustrée ..
..
..
close comparison of the versions reveals a few differences that could be
Paraissant, 18 August 1934. ..
.. interpreted as adaptations for a French audience. One such occurs in the
..
..
.. scene in the Biergarten/restaurant in which Glory acts in a more
..
.. uninhibited and passionate fashion than Müller. The French heroine
..
..
.. initiates at least two long kisses on the lips of Jean Murat, who plays the
..
..
..
.. bank director, whereas in the German film Müller only gives Hermann
..
..
.. Thimig a peck on his cheek and it is he who initiates a kiss on the lips, as
..
..
...
do his counterparts in Sunshine Susie and La segretaria privata. Elsa
..
..
..
Merlini in the Italian version drinks more champagne and acts as if more
..
..
..
inebriated in this scene than her equivalents, but after giving a peck on
..
.. the lips of the bank porter she affects modesty, before submitting to the
..
.. kiss of Nino Besozzi.
..
..
.. The one element that really differentiates the French version from all
..
..
.. the others is the song lyrics. The same music composed by Paul Abraham
..
..
..
.. is used in all four films, but in the French version it is not only the
..
..
...
language of the lyrics that is different but also their content. The German
..
..
..
title of the theme song ‘Ich bin ja heut so glücklich’ is closely translated
..
..
..
into the English ‘To-day I feel so happy’ and the Italian ‘Oggi son tanto
..
.. felice’, but the French title, ‘Je vois la vie en rose’, is entirely different.
..
.. This version expresses similar sentiments, but the refrain about being so
..
..
.. happy becomes instead about a path full of roses, with the repetition of
..
..
.. the word ‘roses’ instead of ‘happy’. Whereas the British and Italian
...
..
..
versions of the song ‘Ich hab’ne alte Tante’ retained the motif of a rich
..
..
..
aunt (‘I have an Aunt Eliza’, ‘Io ho una vecchia zia’), the French version,
..
.. ‘La Tirelire’, alters the identity of the financial source from a rich aunt to
..
..
.. a piggy-bank, held by the bank porter as he sings the song, and also
..
.. provides the name of the restaurant. The popularity of the songs in each
..
..
.. version contributed not only to the success of the films but also to the
..
..
50 Renate Müller recorded both the ..
.. identity of the films within their respective national cinemas.50
..
German and English versions of .. A comparison of an early sequence in the dining room of the working
..
the theme song and ‘Just ...
because I lost my heart to you’. In ..
..
women’s boarding house demonstrates the ways in which each version
..
Dactylo Marie Glory sang the ..
..
inserts the common narrative into its particular cultural milieu. The
songs in the film but they were ..
.. versions vary little in the number and perspective of shots in this
recorded by Armand Bernard. In ..
..
the Italian version Elsa Merlini .. sequence, as they all alternate shots of several women around a dining
..
sang the songs in the film but .. table with closer medium-shots of just one or two of them. Prior to the
..
..
never recorded them, and the .. entrance of the heroine to the dining room, the young women are
..
theme song was recorded with ..
the voice of Ines Talamo.
..
.. complaining of the poor quality and constant sameness of the food
..
..
.. provided by the landlady. The specific food or drink about which the
...
..
..
boarders complain provides some indication of the country in which the
..
..
..
film is set. In the German film the young female boarders complain of yet
..
..
..
again being given white cheese, sausage and spruce-needle tea. When
..
.. one boarder asks the landlady if she bought the cheese cheap at a sale at
..
.. Tietz, a department store in Berlin, the landlady replies that she will paint
..
..
.. the cheese black and present it as caviar. The British version closely
..
..
..
.. follows the German but without the caviar joke – ‘same old cheese’,
..
..
.. ‘same old sausage’, ‘same old tea’. The French complain that they are
..
..
...
only fed sardines and potatoes, and that the potatoes are not cooked, but
..
..
..
they complain mostly about the wine tasting like vinegar. The Italians
..
.. complain ‘always the same pasta in brodo’, and ‘the usual boiled beef
..
..
.. and cabbage’. The Italian version includes closeups of the unappetizing
..
.. food and shots of the heroine grimacing as she tastes the soup and tries to
..
..
.. cut the meat.
..
..
..
.. When the heroine enters and introduces herself to the other residents,
..
..
.. she answers their enquiries by informing them that she will be looking
..
..
...
for a job as a typist. They bemoan the small monthly salary she may
51 The equivalent in 1931 UK
..
..
..
receive, eighty German marks, 600 French francs or 500 Italian lire.51
sterling is about £4 for the ..
..
..
The British and Italian versions closely follow the German source when
German and between £5 and £6 ..
for the French and Italian. This .. one resident says that a girl needs a rich male friend, and another says
..
ranges from about £260 to £350,
.. better still, two rich friends. In all versions one boarder states her hope of
..
..
less than a quarter of today’s ..
.. finding a husband who earns a modest salary. The German boarder
average typist’s salary. In ..
.. would like ‘a good man with 300 marks a month’, the French says that
Sunshine Susie one of the ..
..
residents tells another that she ..
.. she will be satisfied with a husband earning 2000 francs a month, ‘a
..
asked her boss for a pay rise as ..
...
pretty living room with slipcovers, and a pendulum under the clock’, the
she receives only four schillings a ..
week, which was equivalent to ..
..
British that she will be satisfied with ‘a nice steady bank clerk’, and the
..
just fifty pence for the month. ..
..
Italian would like ‘a good guy with 1000 lire a month, it would be
..
.. happiness!’ Only in the German film does one of the boarders express a
..
.. desire to be independent by having her own fashion store where no one
..
..
.. will bark at her.
..
..
..
...
..
..
The heroine tells the girls that their aspirations are too modest and that
..
..
..
she aspires to something higher, to which they respond sarcastically: the
..
.. Germans ask her if she expects a Count, a manager or general-director;
..
..
.. the French ask if she expects a bank manager and, if so, she should hurry
..
.. as there are few left; the British ask her if she expects a businessman to
..
..
.. throw himself at her feet; the Italians ask if she expects to marry a prince
..
..
..
.. or a banker because ‘they are all waiting for her!’ The heroine responds:
..
..
.. ‘Is it so strange if you want something more in life’ (German); ‘Is it so
...
..
..
ridiculous to ask for the maximum in life’ (French); ‘I know exactly what
..
..
..
I want to get out of life and I’m going to get it’ (British); ‘Is it too
..
.. ridiculous to hope for the best’ (Italian). The young women laugh as she
..
..
.. leaves the room, and in the UK version they shout after her, ‘You be
..
.. careful, you’ve got big ideas ... which can get you in a great big mess’.
..
..
.. Thus all the versions establish the high aspirations of the heroine and her
..
..
..
.. confidence that she will achieve them, in contrast to the modest, more
..
..
.. realistic aspirations of the other young women. That this goal, whether
...
..
..
high or modest, is fixed on marital status is a reflection of how, for a
..
..
..
female typist, career aspirations would not even arise. Each version
..
..
..
presents this theme within its own cultural environment, indicated by the
..
.. type of food and drink provided in the boarding house.
..
.. In the following scene, occurring the next day, variation reflecting
..
..
.. cultural adaptation is most evident in the Italian version. The scene
..
..
..
.. shows the heroine becoming friendly with the bank porter, who sits at his
..
..
.. desk in the corridor leading to the offices, successfully persuading him to
..
..
...
help her obtain a job. In all versions she sees the porter practising his
..
..
..
conducting, and tries to gain his sympathy by showing an interest in his
..
.. music. Upon hearing the porter humming, she asks if he is a tenor; he
..
..
.. answers that he is a baritone, and that her mistake shows she has little
..
.. education in music. The heroine professes her enthusiasm for music, but
..
..
.. only in the Italian version does she ask the porter about his favourite
..
..
..
.. music and mention Verdi. The porter responds that Verdi is indeed his
..
..
.. favourite composer, and offers that his own name is Otello; when Elsa
..
..
...
tells him her name, he identifies her with Elsa in Wagner’s opera
..
..
..
Lohengrin.
..
..
..
Comparing a scene towards the end of the film in which the heroine is
..
.. at the bank director’s home, ostensibly to take dictation, reveals a minor
..
.. variation in the British version. The heroine enters the apartment and is
..
..
.. admired by the director; she then begins her work, but before long the
..
..
.. pair are interrupted by the director’s manservant, who announces that tea
..
..
..
.. is served in the adjoining room. The difference in the British version may
..
..
...
be minor but is nevertheless nationally significant. In the German, French
..
..
..
and Italian versions the bank director asks the heroine how she likes her
..
..
..
tea (light or dark, strong or weak, with lemon or cream) and finds that her
..
.. preferences are the opposite of his. As befits a nation of tea lovers, in
..
.. Sunshine Susie Arvray asks the more sophisticated question of whether
..
..
.. Susie likes her tea from India or China, and after she answers China he
..
..
.. takes off the lid off one of the two teapots to identify it by smell. After
...
..
..
pouring the appropriate teas (he prefers Indian), however, Arvray follows
..
..
..
the continental mode by asking Susie if she likes it bitter or sweet, and
..
.. with lemon or milk.
..
..
.. Although the French, Italian and British versions adapted the German
..
.. source to their respective national cultures, the ‘nationalizing’ of the
..
..
.. versions was achieved more in their reception than in their production.
..
..
..
.. This was particularly the case for the French version, which as an MLV
..
..
.. followed the German source most closely. French reviewers wrote of the
...
..
..
film as a ‘new Pathé-Natan production’, without mentioning that it was a
..
..
..
co-production with a German company and was made in Germany.
..
.. Emphasis was placed on its French stars. One reviewer wrote that the
..
..
.. film was a ‘delightful musical comedy’ that had little novelty in its plot
..
.. but was distinguished by the ‘beautiful features of Marie Glory’ and the
..
..
52 Paris-soir, 4 April 1931, p. 5. ..
.. presence of Jean Murat, whose public ‘loves him more and more’.52
..
..
.. Another wrote of Murat as ‘always perfect’, described him as ‘our young
..
..
.. first national’, and wrote of Glory as having ‘the charm and grace’ that
...
..
..
justifies her character receiving all the marital and financial rewards
..
..
..
denied to the other women. The review concludes: ‘A pleasant story
53 Paris-soir, 14 April 1931, p. 5.
..
..
..
performed by artists we love’.53 The film was promoted by the
Other reviews that praised the ..
.. association of its star, Glory, with a veritable French institution of the
stars included Le Matin, 3 April ..
.. time, Les Six Jours de Paris, an annual track cycle race popularly known
1931, p. 4, and Le Petit Parisien, ..
..
10 April 1931, p. 5. .. as Vel’ d’Hiv. A reward was offered to anyone who could guess the
..
..
..
.. name of ‘la mystérieuse dactylo’, who was to be the event’s ‘queen’ in
..
..
.. 1930 and would distribute prizes to contestants. The ‘mysterious typist’
..
..
...
turned out to be none other than Glory, who had just returned from
..
..
..
making Dactylo. Advertisements for the film referenced the mystery by
..
.. displaying Glory within a question mark, and reviews of the film referred
..
54 Paris-soir, 4 April 1931, p. 5;
..
.. back to the event when they praised the star’s beauty and talents.54
..
Ciné-Comoedia, 29 March 1931, ..
.. As La segretaria privata was going into production, an Italian cinema
p. 6; Le Figaro, 5 April 1931, p. 6. ..
.. journal reported that the great interest in the project ‘resides in the
..
..
..
.. presence of three exceptional performers, the darlings of all Italian
..
55 La Domenica del Cinema, 30 ..
.. audiences [...] Elsa Merlini, Nino Besozzi, Sergio Tofano’.55 After its
August 1931.
..
..
...
release, reviewers praised it as ‘the most successful and funniest
..
..
..
masterpiece of the season’, and as ‘one of the most fluent and brilliant
..
..
..
films of Italian production [...] which honors our industry for its technical
56 Cine-Gazzettino, 2 January 1932,
..
.. and stylistic delicacy’.56 Unlike their French counterparts, Italian
..
p. 2; Il Giornale d’Italia, 24 ..
.. reviewers acknowledged the German origins of the film but wrote that
December 1931. ..
.. the Italian production had overcome vulgar elements, and linked the
..
..
.. success of the film to its stars. One Italian reviewer noted that, although
..
..
..
.. the film was an example of the type that was common across countries as
..
..
...
a consequence of joint financing and remakes, the Italian film’s success
..
..
..
was ‘exclusively due to the actors’. Another wrote that ‘regardless of the
..
..
..
work from which the film derives’ its three major actors are among the
..
.. best of the new generation and ‘compete in skill to give warmth and color
..
57 Cinema Illustrazione, 6 January
..
.. to the slender plot’.57 A review in Corriere della Sera informed its
..
1932, p. 14; Il Popolo di Roma, 23 ..
.. readers that there were many young Italian men who could have written a
December 1931. ..
.. better version of the plot than the German scenarist. Such a version
...
..
..
would not have given the comic bank porter the Germanic role of head of
..
..
..
a choral society, the heroine would not have rejected the bank director’s
..
.. advances just because she believed that he was a clerk, and the scene
..
..
.. where the heroine rejects the bank director’s proposal to make her a kept
..
.. woman would have received a more subtle treatment, because Italians are
..
..
58 Corriere della Sera, Milano, 25 ..
.. ‘more skilled in love’.58
..
December 1931, p. 5. ..
.. The Viennese setting and German star of Sunshine Susie induced
..
..
.. British reviewers to vigorously emphasize the film’s Britishness. The
...
..
..
film was ‘British-made and British-played throughout, with the exception
59 Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 5
..
..
..
of the leading lady’,59 and was praised as ‘the best British talkie yet
December 1931. This and many ..
.. made’,60 ‘a feather in the cap of British production’, and ‘at last a British
other newspaper and journal ..
reviews are collected together in
..
.. picture which we have been waiting for so long’.61 Reviewers expressed
..
the film’s Press Book, located in .. pride that a ‘British-made picture [was] entitled to be compared with the
..
..
the BFI Reuben Library. .. best productions emerging from Hollywood’, that it was ‘a home made
..
60 Daily Express, 7 December 1931. ..
61 Quotes from News Chronicle and
..
.. article with the polish and snap of some of Hollywood’s best’, and that it
..
News of the World from an ..
.. could ‘compare most favourably with the best work of any studio in the
...
advertisement for the film in The ..
..
world’.62
Bioscope, 16 December 1931. ..
62 Daily Express, 7 December 1931;
..
..
One reviewer asked why ‘in the name of all that’s patriotic’ the film
..
The Morning Advertiser, 6 ..
..
was set in Vienna ‘when the humour and the music are essentially
December 1931; Sunday Pictorial, ..
.. English in character’,63 but most were able to reconcile the film’s origins
6 December 1931. ..
.. and setting with its Britishness. Saville was commended as a director
63 Daily Sketch, 7 December 1931. ..
..
.. who ‘has touched it with cleverness at every point’, as he ‘has by no
..
..
64 Sunday Referee, 6 December ..
.. means slavishly followed the German original’.64 One reviewer wrote
..
1931. ..
.. that, although the film was based on a German film, Saville had showed
..
..
...
‘no trace of slavish or laborious imitation’ but had adapted it to ‘our own
..
..
..
native humour’. They found ‘no discrepancy between the Viennese
..
.. background’ and the ‘humour of a thoroughly British comedian such as
..
..
.. Jack Hulbert’. Saville had recreated ‘the atmosphere of the original
..
.. operetta without that unabridged crevice between Continental milieu and
..
..
65 Illustrated London News, 19 ..
.. a home-grown company which so often occurs’.65 Another critic
..
December 1931. ..
.. complemented Saville for ‘imparting a British touch to a musical comedy
..
66 Film Weekly, 15 April 1932. ..
.. that, curiously enough, is essentially Continental in origin’.66 An
..
..
...
Australian paper complemented Saville for not being content ‘merely to
..
..
..
make a copy of the German version, but has [...] adapted it to English
..
..
..
tastes’, adding that it was evident that
..
..
67 H. P., ‘Sunshine Susie, an
..
.. had the film been made in its English form in Germany instead of the
..
analysis of its success’, The West ..
..
Gainsborough studios in the heart of London, it would not have been
..
Australian, 14 October 1932, p. 2. ..
..
anything like so fresh and spontaneous as it is. Obviously a German
68 The part of Vilma was originally ..
intended for Lilian Harvey, who
..
..
director, working at home, would not be so well able to gauge the
..
was to act together with Willy ..
..
tastes of English-speaking audiences as Victor Saville has done, and
Fritsch, her co-star in highly ...
.. the casting, too, would probably be wide off the mark.67
successful films. Their other ..
..
..
obligations enabled the casting ..
..
Die Privatsekretärin made Müller a top star in Germany, and her success
of Müller. See Klöckner-Draga, ..
Renate Müller, p. 91.
.. in the film was no doubt a factor in the decision to have her star in the
..
..
.. British version.68 The British producer Michael Balcon believed she was
.. one of the factors that made Sunshine Susie a special and colossal
Versions Made in Babelsberg, ..
..
pp. 254, 331. .. success.69 Although one reviewer felt that ‘an English girl might have
...
70 Daily Sketch, 7 December 1931. ..
..
done just as well’,70 others praised her accent: Müller ‘has just that spice
..
..
..
of foreign accent that English audiences find disarming’, and her accent
..
.. was ‘a good deal more pleasing than the probably “refaned” real thing
..
71 The Era, 9 December 1931;
..
.. would have been’.71 In its annual ranking of stars, the British film
..
Sunday Referee, 6 December .. magazine Film Weekly put Müller in fifth place among all actors, and in
..
1931. ..
72 Film Weekly, 26 May 1933, p. 7;
..
.. first place among actresses.72 One reviewer wrote that the ‘patriotic
..
listed in James, Popular Culture ..
.. paeans’ towards the film ‘have to be qualified’ because the star was not
..
and Working-Class Taste in ..
.. British,73 but some newspapers and cinemas tried to transform the
Britain, 1930–39, p. 213. ...
73 The Sphere, 19 December 1931.
..
..
heroine into a local girl. In a competition organized by the Yorkshire
..
..
..
Observer in conjunction with a Bradford cinema, Bradford women
74 The Era, 27 April 1932, p. 7.
..
.. competed for the title of the city’s ‘Sunshine Susie’,74 while the Sheffield
..
..
.. Independent ran a competition for the best Sunshine Susie sentences,
..
.. which produced ‘Saucy Susie Scintillates Smiling by Spreading
..
..
75 Sheffield Independent, 6 April ..
.. Sheffield’s Sunshine’.75
..
1932, p. 5. ..
.. Although Müller was widely praised for her performance in the British
..
..
.. press, it was Hulbert, the supporting actor who played the porter, who
...
..
..
was singled out for the most enthusiastic praise. Reviews led with such
..
..
..
headlines as ‘Jack Hulbert’s triumph’, ‘Genius of Jack Hulbert’, ‘A
..
..
..
Hubert triumph’, and ‘Jack Hubert as a British film comedian
76 Daily Mirror, 3 December 1931;
..
.. discovery’.76 Reviewers wrote that Hulbert ‘steals the show’, provided
..
Sunday Referee, 6 December ..
.. the film’s ‘mainspring’, was ‘the chief attraction of the film’, and ‘the hit
1931; Film Weekly, 12 December ..
1931; Daily Mail, 7 December
..
.. of the show’.77 One claimed that the film’s humour, ‘in spite of the
..
1931. ..
.. Viennese setting, is typically British, especially when it is in the hands of
..
77 The Bioscope, 9 December 1931, ..
.. Jack Hulbert, who provides a perfect comedy characterization’.78 An
p. 19; Picturegoer, 16 April 1932, ..
p. 18; The Era, 9 December 1931;
..
...
Australian reviewer wrote that, ‘in addition to providing a surplus of
..
Kinematograph, 10 December ..
..
effervescent humour that is essentially English, he [Hulbert] burlesques
1931. ..
.. them [the Germans] delightfully’.79
78 Dundee Courier, 12 April 1932, ..
..
p. 3. .. It was an American rather than a British critic who dwelt on cultural
..
.. incongruities between the German and British elements in Sunshine
79 H. P., ‘Sunshine Susie, an ..
..
analysis of its success’, p. 2. .. Susie. When the film was shown in London, the critic for Variety had
..
..
..
.. produced only praise, saying it was probably ‘the best box-office picture
..
..
.. which has yet come out of the English studios’, rating it ‘as much better
..
..
...
entertainment than the average American talkie’, and declaring that ‘it
80 Variety, 29 December 1931,
..
..
..
deserves a break in the States’.80 Variety’s reviews of British films that
p. 167. ..
..
..
were distributed in the USA were generally more critical than its reviews
..
.. in London, and when Sunshine Susie was shown in the USA under the
..
.. title The Office Girl, its review was almost entirely negative. The critic
..
..
81 Variety, 28 June 1932, p. 15. .. accounted for the film’s deficiencies by referring to its awkward
..
..
Other US reviews were far more ..
.. combination of the German and the British:
complimentary: Motion Picture ..
..
Herald, 14 April 1932, p. 54, and ..
..
2 July 1932, p. 40; Film Daily, 14 ..
...
What else could be expected of a picture that pitched the very British
March 1932; Hollywood ..
..
..
Jack Hulbert into a film set in Vienna and done in the German manner.
Filmograph, 12 November 1932. ..
Variety later reported that ..
..
Owen Nares as the male lead is once and a half as British as Hulbert, if
..
Sunshine Susie did poorly in the .. that is possible. These two doing a typical German comedy sequence
..
USA, but reports of its reception ..
.. in a Vienna beer garden with the German star who carries a lot of
in individual cities were good. ..
.. Teuton accent into her English speech must have worked with a lump
Variety, 27 September 1932, ..
..
p. 48, and 26 April 1932, p. 10. .. in the throat and they looked it.81
...
..
..
Most British critics, however, were undisturbed by such cultural
..
..
..
incongruity and were satisfied that the British remake was in accord with
..
.. the national tastes.
..
..
.. In Rachael Low’s book on British filmmaking in the 1930s, published
..
.. in 1985, her comments on Sunshine Susie were similar to those of the
..
..
.. negative review in Variety. She wrote that the film ‘resembled other
..
..
..
.. international productions in having a disembodied air, with no
..
..
.. explanation for the presence of two very English actors, Owen Nares and
...
82 Low, The History of the British ..
..
Jack Hulbert, in an obviously German setting’.82 Tim Bergfelder
Film 1929–1939, p. 94. ..
..
..
responded to Low’s comment on Sunshine Susie by noting that its
..
.. ‘disembodied air’ and ‘placelessness’ are precisely what the German
..
..
.. variant of this genre is about, which is ‘the pleasure involved in loss of
..
.. identity’. However, it is the bank director who disguises his class
..
..
.. (performing an alternative identity rather than experiencing a loss of
..
..
..
.. identity), and he obviously takes pleasure in re-establishing his class
..
..
.. identity. Bergfelder argues that whereas the ‘placelessness’ reflected the
...
..
..
fluctuating identity of the German white-collar workers, its transposition
..
..
..
into the context of the British class system could be seen as posing a
83 Bergfelder, ‘Surface and
..
..
..
challenge to the rigid class distinctions of the time.83 This appears to
distraction’, pp. 41–42. ..
.. suggest that class distinctions were more rigid in 1930s Britain than in
..
.. Germany; but in fact, although class distinctions in the former were
..
..
.. indeed rigid, in Germany they were more institutionalized. There the
..
..
..
.. division between blue- and white-collar workers had been fixed in labour
..
..
.. and social legislation, and white-collar workers had stronger feelings of
..
84 Jurgen Kocka, White Collar ..
...
their status difference and demarcation from blue-collar workers.84
Workers in America 1890–1940: ..
..
..
Differing sentiments regarding class between Britain (or England) and
A Social-Political History in ..
International Perspective (London: .. continental European countries inflected other differences, including the
..
..
Sage, 1980), pp. 269–72. .. popular forms of comedy, and while these could be accommodated in
..
.. British remakes of European films, they were more difficult to overcome
..
..
.. in the production contexts of MLVs. This became obvious when,
..
..
..
.. following an agreement between Gaumont-Britain and Ufa, Hulbert and
..
..
.. other British comic actors arrived in the Ufa studios to act in Happily
..
..
...
Ever After (Paul Martin and Robert Stevenson, 1932), the English-
..
..
..
language version of Ein blonder Traum/A Blonde Dream (Paul Martin,
..
..
..
1932). Geoff Brown writes that a major reason for the box-office failure
..
.. of Happily Ever After and most other English-language versions made at
..
.. Ufa was the cultural dislocation: ‘these were entertainers of
..
..
.. overwhelmingly British appeal, dropped from above into a German
..
..
.. property’. The British and German styles of comedy varied considerably,
..
..
..
.. and Ufa was reluctant ‘to choose material easily compatible with the
..
85 Geoff Brown, ‘Happy ever after? ..
...
national horizons of its co-production partners’.85 Although Sunshine
The German adventures of ..
..
..
Susie was based on a German film, it had ‘escaped the MLV straitjacket’
Gaumont-British in 1932’, Journal
of British Cinema and Television,
..
..
..
and had been able to accommodate Hulbert’s British comic personality.86
..
vol. 7, no. 3 (2010), pp. 386–87. .. MLVs failed to overcome the conflicting demands of the
..
86 Ibid., pp. 396–97, and Wahl, .. standardization required by economic considerations and the
..
Multiple Language Versions ..
.. differentiation required by cultural adaptation to transnational audiences.
Made in Babelsberg, pp. 129–31. ..
..
.. Dubbing gained acceptance among audiences, and few MLVs were made
...
..
..
after 1933. Ufa was the only European company to make MLVs on a
..
..
..
large scale until 1936; and from 1933 to 1936, with the exception of one
..
.. British and one Dutch version, it made only French versions. The Nazi
..
..
.. takeover in 1933 compounded the problems of adapting German
..
.. materials into French or other MLVs, and in 1935 Ufa changed its
..
..
.. strategy towards its important French market with a decision to focus on
..
..
..
.. French originals rather than MLVs. Ufa’s production of MLVs did not
..
..
.. end but their number was reduced drastically, and in 1936 only three of
...
..
its fifteen fiction features were made in MLVs.87
Versions Made in Babelsberg, ..
..
..
After the failure of most of the Ufa-made English-language versions,
pp. 179–87, 191–93, 207. ..
.. British studios followed the Sunshine Susie model of remaking European
..
..
.. hits in Britain, thereby allowing the adaptations to be far more attuned to
..
.. national tastes. Most of the thirty or so British remakes of German films
..
..
.. in the 1930s (which was double the number of British remakes of French
..
..
..
.. films) were musical comedies or operettas. From 1933 onwards, MLVs
..
..
.. no longer provided a model for remakes that were made at least one year
...
..
..
after the source film, and in a number of cases two, three or even four
..
..
..
years later. To take one example, the differences between the remake
..
..
..
First a Girl (Victor Saville, 1935) with Jessie Matthews and the source
..
.. film Viktor und Viktoria (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933) with Renate Müller
..
.. are considerably more extensive that those between Sunshine Susie and
..
..
.. Die Privatsekretärin. Substantial changes were made to the characters
..
..
..
.. and dialogue, the British version did away with the German film’s
..
..
.. rhyming couplets set to music and toned down the suggestions of
..
..
...
bisexuality, a new musical score was written, and the dance sequences
88 Andrew Thomas Croft, A Portfolio
..
..
..
were changed in accordance with Matthews’s skills in song and dance.88
Producer: Michael Balcon’s ..
.. It is clear, then, that synchronized sound and dialogue changed cultural
Management of Film Production ..
..
at the Gaumont-British Picture .. adaptation, from the modifications of malleable silent films to the
..
Corporation (PhD thesis: .. production of additional language versions, either by the production
..
..
University of Leicester, 2015), ..
.. company of the original version (an MLV) or by production companies
pp. 127–28; Brown, ‘Happy ever ..
after?’, p. 397. A French version,
..
.. in other countries (a remake). This account of the versions of ‘The
..
George et Georgette (1935), was ..
.. Private Secretary’ has shown how transnational cinema in the early
co-directed by Reinhold Schünzl
..
..
...
sound years involved the cultural adaptation and ‘nationalizing’ of a film
(the director of the German ..
source film) and Roger Le Bon, ..
..
text in both the production and reception of its different versions. The
..
but hardly any of this film has ..
..
comparison has shown that, apart from the productions’ obvious
survived. Wahl, Multiple ..
.. differences in language, actors and locations, the versions reflected what
Language Versions Made in ..
.. might be considered ‘banal’ differences among the national cultures: in
Babelsberg, p. 263. ..
..
.. food, in subtleties of gender behaviour, in the degree of formality of a
..
..
.. subordinate towards an employer, in the serving of tea. Much of national
..
..
89 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism ..
.. identity inheres in banal, everyday behaviour,89 and it is likely that these
..
(London: Sage, 1995). ..
...
variations were unreflective rather than selfconscious expressions of the
..
..
..
filmmakers’ respective cultures.
..
..
..
The British and Italian remakes differed more from the German source
..
.. than the French MLV in their mise-en-scene and editing, but did not
..
.. differ significantly in the degree of their cultural adaptation of the source
..
..
.. text to their national situations. This is partly due to the production
..
..
.. context of the period; as is evident from the declarations of the British
...
..
..
and Italian directors, the MLV provided a model for their remakes. It is
..
..
..
in the reception of the versions that we find praise for them as
..
.. expressions of their respective national cinemas. For many reviewers it
..
..
.. was the stars, acclaimed as national assets, or sometimes the skill of the
..
.. director that transformed the films into praiseworthy examples of
..
..
.. national cinema.
..
..
..
.. Even without MLVs, but certainly with them, the 1930s stands out as a
..
..
.. decade of transnational remakes. Only a few transnational MLVs and
...
..
..
remakes were made in Europe after World War II, and even in
..
..
..
Hollywood the number of transnational remakes up to the 1980s was
..
.. very low. The literature on transnational film remakes of the last four
..
..
.. decades has been overwhelmingly Hollywood-centric, focusing on
..
.. Hollywood remakes of foreign films, particularly French ones, and
..
..
.. including, more recently, other countries’ remakes of Hollywood films,
..
..
90 For an overview, see Iain Robert ..
.. particularly Turkey, India and China.90 As might be expected, cultural
..
Smith and Constantine Verevis, ..
.. adaptation has been a more important focus in studies of the remake
‘Introduction’, in Smith and ...
Verevis (eds), Transnational Film ..
..
trajectories between Hollywood and Asian countries than it has in studies
..
Remakes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh ..
..
of Hollywood remakes of European films. It could be argued that
University Press, 2017), pp. 1–18. ..
..
..
transnational remakes across western societies are less of an issue now
..
.. than in the 1930s, as film cultures have become more homogeneous and
..
.. the tastes of western national audiences have converged. Carolyn
..
..
.. Durham notes that some US remakes of French films are virtually the
..
..
..
.. same as their sources, which she attributes to the breakdown of
..
..
.. boundaries among national cinemas. Conversely, Durham shows that
..
..
...
other US remakes of French films demonstrate that American notions of
..
..
..
gender difference, of romantic involvement and of adultery are dissimilar
91 Carolyn A. Durham, Double
..
.. to those of France.91 There is still considerable scope for the study of
..
Takes: Culture and Gender in ..
.. cultural adaptation of transnational remakes. By moving beyond both
French Films and Their American ..
.. Hollywood-centrism and the focus on recent decades, this will allow us
Remakes (Hanover, NH: ..
..
University Press of New England, .. to compare the impact of different socio-historical contexts and to
..
..
1998), pp. 55, 128–32, 177. ..
.. properly analyze the changes that have occurred in transnational cinema.
..
..
..
..
..
... We are very grateful to Stefan Drößler, the director of the Munich Film Museum, for the opportunity to see the completed
..
.. restoration of Die Privatsekretärin. Up to recently only the second half of Die Privatsekretärin was available from the
..
.. Bundesarchiv, Berlin, and the first half was believed lost. Stefan Drößler came across a 16mm copy of the film that enabled a
..
.. restoration of the whole film, and after the recent completion of the restoration we were granted the privilege to view it.
..
.. Dactylo was viewed at the French National Library in Paris (BnF) and La segretaria privata was viewed at the Department of
..
.. Music and Performing Arts, The University of Bologna. Only Sunshine Susie is readily available, and can be seen on YouTube.
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28 Screen 61:1 Spring 2020

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