“Genius is the Word for Bergner"

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12821, 16 August 1939, Page 6

“Genius is the Word for Bergner"

Robert Montgomery stars with Janet Gaynor, Franchot Tone and Reginald Denny in "Three Loves Has Nancy,” commencing on Monday at the Regent.

(By LAURA EYRE) I have known Elisabeth Bergner for many years and am among the few who knew her in Vienna, in Berlin, and now in London. Time was when Bergner was the reigning, favourite of the Gerftian stage. Her “St. Joan,” her playing in Shakespeare, and in modern plays, has enslaved theatregoers, but talents and tyrrany are strange bedfellows and Germany's loss is England’s gain.

So you see, success was not new to Bergner when she scored her triumph here on the stage in “Escape

Me.Nevex - .” She packed the theatre at every performance. It was not a success of curiosity. People didn’t come to see that “amazing little person” just for the sake of saying that they had seen Bergner. People don’t shout “bravo” at the fall of the curtain, out of politeness.

Yet when you ask a playgoer to tell you 'about Bergner, the reply usually is: “Well, I can’t quite describe her, but she gets me.” That is the average person’s tribute to genius. Even her 'failures have been glorious. Those who saw ißarrie’s play “The Boy David’’ may argue about the merits of the author, but Berghner’s performance was ineffaceable. It lives in the memory, and that is genius.

. I recall, too, seeing her in the film studios for the first time, when she declared that her first picture would be her last. She had played a part in “Der Bvangelimann,” After seeing herself in the projection room she said she stay away from the screen, but Paxil Cziriner, producer, and' now her husband, knew better. He recognised genius and she returned. It was not a woman’s caprice. She came back because she needed money to pay for a sick friend in a sanitorium. She played in “NJU” with Conrad Viedt and Jannings. Then followed “The Violinist of Florence” (called “Impetuous' Dove” in England), “Dove,” “Donna Juanna,” “Frauline Else,” “Arine” and the original“ Dreaming Dips” which won the prize for the best film in Europe in 1932.

The Bergner of those films is as vivid and real to me as the Bergner in her latest film “Stolen Life.” I 'remember scenes screened ten or more years ago, and I am never likely to forget them. People may say the films were so good, the stories so dramatic, but to me there, is only one reason —the genius of Elisabeth Bergner. . Yet genius does not imply that everything is natural and easy for the artiste. I have been on the set and watched Dr Paul Czinner directing Bergner. The aim has always been perfection. Cynics may sneer, but it makes one humble to see the care and trouble taken to shoot a one-minute scene.

It is difficult for the picturegoer who sees “Stolen Life’’ to realise how Bergner and Czinner' slaved to achieve perfection. True, without Berguer’s genius and the inspiration of the director the hours of unremitting toil would have given an ordinary result. The very smoothness of “Stolen Life” is the best tribute to their efforts.

I was present when an interviewer asked Bergner how she worked. She pressed her hand to her heart and said very simply: “It comes from

here.” That is the literal truth. A scene may be shot a dozen times. Yet each time she plays as if it were real life, each time different, each time perfect. Imagine then what it meant to play two characters in a film, alike physically, but a hundred per cent diffex--ent in mentality and in outlook'' on life. It seems easy. It sounds good fun for an actress to play two sisters, but if Bergner had failed in one scene the whole film would have been a failure.

The only adequate word to describe Bergner is “genius.”