the PCA approved. Furthermore, it included “close-up detail of the Heroine presumably in the act of her surrender.”31
PCA chief Joseph Breen was far from happy: “This seems to me to be a pretty clear cut-and-dried case of bad faith, and I hope you will keep me advised as to the developments. It is really shocking!”32
On 2 February 1950, the two agents, now accompanied by a Miss Young, returned to the Rialto to see how things were shaping up. Not only did they find the same picture playing, the only change was that the PCA's seal had been removed. The New York State Censor Board issued a general alert for any versions of the offending picture and the Ecstasy print went underground. In January 1951, the illicit print again appeared at the Times Theatre at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue.
The film also played in Germany in 1950, where it was again promoted on the promise of sexual explicitness and Hedy Lamarr's nude scenes. This version had a new ending, shot with a stand-in for Hedy, where the young couple, it hints, live happily ever after in South America. In Frankfurt, screenings of the film were accompanied by protests that took the form of defacing the posters bearing the star's naked image. The protestors were divided into two camps: a Catholic youth organization that was opposed to the film's eroticism, particularly as promoted in its publicity, and filmgoers who were disappointed by its lack of erotic qualities.33 Again, the suggestion that the film had been banned in the 1930s because its star was Jewish was revived by the Jewish press.
In America, the film continued to emerge and vanish equally swiftly, and, as so often was to be the case, to disappoint audiences by its unpornographic take on sexuality. Exhibitors began to intervene and Pauline Kael reported hearing of “versions in which someone had decided to prolong the ecstasy by printing the climactic scenes over and over.”34
In 1933, however, all this was yet to come and the film's beguiling star was still named Hedy Kiesler and only nineteen years old. She was, as far as most people were concerned, an exquisite Viennese mädl, whose acting abilities were as yet untested by a major dramatic role. Her reputation was the creation of men who were considerably older and worldlier than she. She would soon meet one more such man, her first husband, Fritz Mandl.
4
Fritz Mandl
THE SUCCESS and notoriety of Ecstasy opened doors for the young star; although for the moment those were to be stage doors. Interviewed during the shooting of Ecstasy, Hedy was firm: she did not want a Hollywood career. “I don't want to become a slave to cinema,” Hedy said. “I want to film when I feel like it, and to take a break when I don't. I'll probably go back to Berlin.”1 Any mention of a contract with Paramount and a trip to Hollywood with her mother vanished as unexpectedly as they had appeared. What she did not then know was that she had left Berlin and the Weimar film industry for good.
As the German film industry increasingly fell under Nazi control, a brief window of opportunity opened for studios in Vienna. Over the long winter of 1932, nothing had been filmed. By summer, the Filmhof Café was filled with the same faces that had so recently gathered in Berlin's Romanische Café. Six companies were filming simultaneously in The Sascha Film Studios, and anyone from the opera world willing to work in a light operetta, set in Vienna, and featuring sweet young Viennese girls, could name their price.
According to Christopher Young's account of Hedy's life and her autobiography, during this period her fiancé, Franz von Hochstetten, pleaded with her to marry him and when she refused, he committed suicide. Soon afterward, Hedy met Count Blucher von Wahlstatt and they announced their engagement. This too ended quickly. If true, the engagement must have ended around December 1932. It's difficult to pinpoint where and how the many rumors surrounding Hedy started, particularly when you find them repeated in Ecstasy and Me. From a young age, she seems to have reveled in the company of adoring men, many of them older. She also seems to have held little regard for the bonds of marriage, but beginning in her teens, evidently enjoyed the idea of marrying. As she grew older, she slipped in and out of a fantasy world, emerging from it only to utter often garbled pronouncements. For the moment, however, she stood squarely in reality; yet she was determined, sure of her talent, and of the power she had over people. She did not hesitate to use that power to her advantage.
In early 1933, Hedy was actively looking for more roles. That year, the popular Viennese actor Willi Forst was preparing to direct his first film, Unfinished Symphony (Leiseflehen meine Liedef), which was about the love affair between Franz Schubert and Countess Esterhazy. Walter Reisch was working on the script and their first choice for the plum role of the Hungarian Countess Esterhazy was the young Hedy Kiesler. Also on board was the renowned costume designer Gerdago, known as the Edith Head of Austrian Film. Hans Jaray was confirmed to play Schubert, and Luise Ullrich, who had starred in Max Ophüls’ Liebelei, was cast as the innocent object of Schubert's attentions.2 There was one problem, however: Forst and Reisch joined forces to tell the producer, “Pretty is not enough. She has to sing Schubert songs. She was not trained for singing and she cannot sing Schubert songs. We have to take Martha Eggerth.”3Eggerth had a minor film career but was better known for her beautiful singing voice. Hedy was replaced.
The film was shot from March through May 1933 and Hedy dropped into the studio one day to visit the filmmakers. She was very sorry, Eggerth remembered, not to have played in the film.4 Symphony was a monumental success across Europe and catapulted Eggerth into stardom overnight; her career in musicals lasted until the war, when she and her husband, Jan Kiepura, fled to America. Both resumed their careers in America, with their main triumphs now on Broadway.
If Hedy was disappointed not to play in Symphony, another opportunity shortly came her way. In autumn of 1932, the forthcoming production of Sissy in the Theater an der Wien was all the talk in Viennese theatrical circles. Sissy was based on the courtship between the young Emperor Franz Josef and Elizabeth (nicknamed Sissy), the favorite daughter of Bavaria's Duke Max, and had been composed by the violinist Franz Kreisler. He badly needed the income—a recent $10,000 win at the tables in Monte Carlo barely saved him from selling his collection of rare books and manuscripts. Relying on sentimental songs he knew would strike a chord with his audience, Kreisler recycled his well-worn violin tunes from earlier operettas and added in two new numbers: “Wine Is My Weakness” and “With Eyes Like Thine, Tis Sin to Weep.”
To play the title role was the dream of any young star, and it was no surprise when Paula Wessely was chosen to play the latest incarnation of Sissy. The operetta premiered on 23 December 1932 in time for the Christmas season, with Paula Wessely as Sissy and Hans Jaray as Franz Joseph. Reviewers and audiences were enchanted and management of the chronically impoverished theater anticipated a long and lucrative run. In early January, it was announced that Rose Stradner would take over the role of Sissy from Paula Wessely, who would soon move on to a new role elsewhere.5
In early 1933, for a short period Hedy was the understudy for Paula; unexpectedly the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung reported that Hedy had been announced as the successor to Paula Wessely for the role of the Countess Elisabeth in Sissy.6 Rose Stradner had since been contracted to take over the part of Fanny in the comedy Fanny playing at the Raimund Theater; only when she had completed this contract could she play Sissy.
An announcement was placed in the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung on 20 January confirming that Hedy Kiesler would replace Paula Wessely. Once again her portrait appeared in Die Buhne, this time in profile with a cigarette delicately placed on her lips and photographed by Edith Glogau.
In the end, Paula Wessely played Sissy until March 1933, when she was replaced by Rose Stradner. The director, Hubert Marischka, also pressed her to reschedule her holiday so she could stay on in the role. Then, before she began her second
