UFA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22455, 27 December 1934, Page 8

UFA

THROUGH GERMANY’S ; HOLLYWOOD By Geoffrey Cox. UFA is a name which means little to the New Zealander or the Englishman, but to the German it brings to mind all that Paramount and United Artists, Hollywood and' Elstree convey to us. It stares at him from the title strip of film alter film, it blazes in Neon lights from the front of kinemas all over Germany. Universal—Film— Aktiengesellshaft is the biggest film company in Europe. It produces “ Congress Dances ” and other films which have shown all over_ the world. Lilian Harvey, Conrad Veidt, Renate Muller, Willy Fretsch, Hans Albert. Brigette Homey, are amongst its stars. It owns several large kinemas —“ Ufa Palache "—in Berlin, and throughout the country. Owned by Hugenberg, the Nationalist politician and newspaper proprietor who served in the early Nazi Cabinets, it stands as a striking instance of large scale production in the world of entertainment. ' . The chief UFA studios stand in the midst of the five woods of Neubabelsberg, on the outskirts of Berlin. No splendid entrance leads to them —on]y a closely guarded gateway across a road lined with suburban houses. A “ Heil Hitler ” from the gatekeeper, my pass from the Government Culture Bureau examined, and I was inside on the private road leading past the company's tree shaded cafe to the great brick studios. There are two chief blocks of these, one built in 1926 as the largest in the world. Only two years later thousands more marks had to be spent adapting it for sound filming. Another block followed in 1929, so specially constructed for talkie work that a cannon fired outside cannot be heard within. FILMING.

In one studio here a mountain comedy —the Germans love films set in ski-ing resorts —ivas being filmed. In a circle of arc lights, cameras, producers, scenario secretaries, assistants and waiting extras a green belted man leant on an hotel counter and asked the manager and the blonde-haired clerk: _ “Have you any animals in the hotel. Not small ones" —he made like a flea—“but big ones —dogs.” The manager turned: “Isolde, have we dogs in the hotel? ” Up went the blonde’s eyebrows, and her blue eyes stared innocently.

“Oh no, sir.” “Well then, I stay” ... “Halt!” from the producer, “once again-—this part about the dog . . • and so for four, five, six rehearsals, till the lights are turned on, the siren sounded for silence, the red warning lights outside the studio door turned on, and the scene actually taken. “ Good,” says the producer. Now, ivlio’s going to bring me a glass of apple saft from the cafe?” . Filming starts at 9 in the morning and goes through till 7 at night, with only 45 minutes for lunch. Hie producer and chief cameramen usually have to be on the set an hour or two before the actors arrive. An average length film takes about five weeks to shoot, and three months in all from the time the scenario is ready till the time it is shown in tne theatre. The UFA’s schedule for this year is 28 big films, 28 short films, and 27 culture films. In a second studio a scene showing a fancy dress carnival on a steamer which, a moment later, was to begin to sink. Masked, costumed guests thronged a stairway watching three girls, one ot whom was Jessie Vibrog, a new Ur A star, dance a hula. In the biggest studio of all a complete Chinese hillside had been built, with houses and, in the distance, glimpses of the mountains. Here a cart dragged by coolie s was halted amidst a dense throng of Chinamen. Willie Fretch, the leading man of “ Congress Dances,” stood by the cart talking eagerly with a director, in open shirt and grey flannels. In the cart Paul Heideman, imprisoned by the Chinese, read the Nachtansgabe, Berlin evening paper. On the steps around waited extras. One group of actors spoke French amongst themselves; they had come from Paris to act in the French version. Their leading man, in identical costume to that worn by Willie Fretsch, stood at the back watching. Then whistles, shouts of “Achtung” from the producer, sirens, and the rehearsal of another scene began. In studio after studio new sets being built, old ones dismantled. For a film of Frederick the Great it was found cheaper to reproduce the interior of Sans Souci palace here in the studio than to obtain permission and to go to the expense of installing the requisite lighting in the palace itself.

OUTDOOR SETS. Outside, in one section of the grounds, a little earthen ridge still stood. Along this Lilian Harvey drove in her carriage in the last scene of “ Congress Dances, singing “ Das gibt nur einmal.” Now there were no leafy chestnuts, no laughing Viennese, only some old rails and a machinery dump such as you might find in an empty section oh the edge of any New Zealand town. As we watched, a long white sports car drove past, and the sunburnt dark-haired girl driving raised her arm in greeting. “ Brigette Homey said the UFA man with us, " the star in our new big picture”—“ Ein main will nach Deutschland.” . Then we turned into a little town ot two or three streets. Here Viennese houses of the sixteenth century joined .Swiss mountain hotels, an Austrian country place, and a whole section of a Chinese town —banks, shops, restaurant, railway station, and massive gateway built for the film “ Fluctlenger. ’ It was like a child’s dream, where one day a palace, the next a fortress, the next a shop could be called into being. They were not flimsy, cardboard structures, but solid facades of wood, plaster, and brick. The cost of these and the indoor sets must be enormous. They were built for spectacle films, films showing a life of such carefree beauty and wealth as exists only in fantasy or at best as only one side of a picture the reverse of which is the hardship and toil and poverty ot masses of the people. THE CHANGING FILM.

The day of these spectacle pictures is passing in Germany. Under Nazi influence the tastes of the public are being turned more towards films dealing with everyday life and particularly to everyday life as interpreted in the form of patriotism and nationalism. Films with what the Government consider to be the right attitude are given exemption from certain taxes, "and are hired out to Idneraas more cheaply. Whether this will bring a new stream, of reality into the life of the theatre ’or whether it will result in films that are mere propaganda depends on the intent to which the ideas of Nazi Germany are really rooted in the minds of the people. I asked an UFA representative, as we sat drinking a farewell glass of sherry in the studio cafe garden, whether the change in public taste came from the people themselves or was being imposed from above by the Government. With genuine German charm he smiled. “Politics! No, let us leave politics aside on an evening like this.” He raised his glass, “Prosit.”