D.W. Griffith’s Foray Into Eastern Europe: A Recuperation of History

Abstract

A film proposal on D.W. Griffith letterhead exists, virtually unknown, in the Royal Archives of HRH Prince Paul of Romania. This film proposal centers on the Odessa marriage and tragic aftermath of Crown Prince Carol II of Romania and Ioana Marie Valentino Lambrino. While the film was never made, the backstory of the contract is marked by the intersection of radical shifts in the film industry, due to transatlantic activity and industrialization, and in political dynasties in the face of Republican sentiments. This contract proposal furthers The Griffith Project’s investigation into the European interests of the American director at a time when he was becoming out of step with the industry he helped to create. It reinforces the important role of film in the writing of history, as it recuperates and also influences one of the buried stories of passion, a story not only of love but of casualties of war, dramatic intrigue and governmental cover-ups.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. New York Times, September 17, 1924, ProQuest Historical Newspapers [hereafter assumed unless otherwise stated], 23. Reception of this film was complex. See Russell Merritt and Kristin Thompson in The Griffith Project, vol. 10 (British Film Institute, 2008), 168–170 and 172–176, respectively; Richard Schickel’s D.W. Griffith: An American Life (New York, Limelight Editions, 1996), 500; Lillian Gish and Ann Pinchot’s Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 262. While Schickel, like Tom Gunning, thought this was one of Griffith’s best films and reviewers were often positive, even German ones, such as Erich Pommer, the film was not well received by audiences, either in Germany or the US. The former thought it too critical of Germany and too pessimistic, and the latter found it boring. Many exhibitors refused to book it. Kristen Thompson argues Griffith was already dated due to his failure to conform to eyeline match, which became a standard by 1918. Several critics who initially offered negative opinions, reversed themselves by the 40s, siding with directors such as Jean Noir and Roberto Rosellini who praised the film for its realism.

2. Mordaunt Hall, New York Times, November 23, 1924, x5. Also see New York Times, October 7, 1924, 26. While Mordaunt finds such ‘mythic Balkan State Affairs’ a bit tiresome, audiences apparently did not. George Barr McCutcheon’s novels seem to be a background source for the genre. Gloria Swanson’s Her Love Story, mentioned below, is based on a Mary Robert Reinhart’s Her Majesty the Queen and takes place in fictional Vlatavia. Lubitsch’s film of the same genre takes place in fictional Rurutanian in Eastern Europe.

3. The contract proposal on D.W. Griffith letterhead bears the name of agent, John McHugh Stuart. The date of the contract is undetermined; however, it had to be prior to 8 January 1926, as it is mentioned in Ioana Lambrino’s discussions on that date, as reported in a secret governmental report of 11 March 1926. This report is also in the archive. While Griffith apparently left several films in the planning stage, this is not mentioned among those referenced in D.W. Griffith papers, 1897–1954 in Columbia’s Butler Library (microform). It is referenced by Prince Paul of Romania, King Carol II: A Life of My Grandfather (London: Methuen, 1988), 71.

4. The Griffith Project is a twelve-volume monograph (encompassing six hundred of D.W. Griffith’s works) which is linked with a retrospective at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival 1996–2008. It combines the efforts of 35 silent film specialists who volunteered to enable this massive monograph. The first eleven volumes focus on works ‘directed, written, produced, supervised’ or acted in by Griffith. Volume twelve is a compilation of essays by the specialists on a subject of their choice dealing with the legendary director. The monograph contains information on Griffith’s work in US but also in London, Paris and Berlin. The editor of the series is Paolo Chercei Usai, the Director of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and co-founder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival and of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House (Rochester, New York). He has also written David Wark Griffith (Editrice Il Castoro, 2008).

5. For convenience, I have chosen the Gregorian date which was not in use in Romania until 1919. The Julian date would be 13 days later. The story of Ioana and Carol appears in Ioana Lambrino’s autobiography which is in French and now out of print, Mon Mari Le Roi Carol (Mayenne, France [Floch Printing House] Calmann-Levy, 1950), Editors No. 7943. Her relationship with Crown Prince Carol is briefly discussed in Paul Quinlan’s The Playboy King: Carol II of Romania (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 39–50. Also see previously mentioned, King Carol II, 37–45.

6. Carol apparently studied the legal problem surrounding his marriage carefully, recognizing this might be a problem, but finally he ‘seems to have taken the view he could be prevented’ (King Carol II, 31).

7. Vartan Arachelian. ‘Iubire si destin: Carol al II-lea si Zizi Lambrino’, Journal National, January 7, 2006 < www.journal.ro>http://jurnalul.ro/special-jurnalul/istorie-romantata-iubire-si-destin-carol-al-ii-lea-si-zizi-lambrino-32570.html.

8. Ibid.: A copy of dactilografiata is in Prince Paul’s Royal Archives, Bucharest, Romania.

9. Gish, 262.

10. Schickel, 515. This critic notes that Griffith was subjected to the supervision of William LeBaron, ‘a new breed of literate … cynics attracted to, and recruited by, the movie companies …’middle management’ to oversee their day-to-day affairs.’ LeBaron’s function was ‘to discipline … [Griffith] in the new ways of industrial efficiency.’

11. Schickel, 508–10.

12. New Yorker, January 16, 1926, quoted in Schickel, 517.

13. Scott Eyman, Lubitsch: ‘Griffith of Europe’ (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 71. Robert E. Sherwood had already unfavorably compared Griffith to Lubitsch for never learning that a movie camera can speak for itself without intertitles. New York Times, December 12, 1920. Controversy concerning the quality of Griffith’s body of work and his reputation exists during the 1920s.

14. Ibid., 74.

15. The Griffith Project, vol. 10, 159 and 164. Eyman, 74–75.

16. Gish, 291.

17. D.W. Griffith Papers, Columbia University. Letter from D.W. Griffith to Lord Beaverbrook, December 31, 1925. Reel 13/1896-8.

18. Eyman, 74–5. Griffith had also done a Russian recruiting film to aid Czarist Russia according to Variety, August 31, 1917.

19. Gish, 186. Also see Russell Merritt. Quarterly Review of Film Studies. Winter 1981, 151–2.

20. D.W. Griffith Papers, Columbia University. Letter from D.W. Griffith to Lord Beaverbrook, December 31, 1925. Reel 13/1896-8. Hugo Stinnes was dubbed by Time in 1923 ‘The Emperor of Germany.’ He made his money on mines and then invested smartly. He died in 1924 and in less than a year his fortune was dissipated. Interestingly, in the 1920s he received great publicity due to a legal dispute with a Romanian, Mayer Wilderman, whose mines he took over, claiming Mayer an ‘alien enemy.’ See Causes célèbres du droit des gens: Tribunal arbitral mixte Roumano-Allemand. Affaire Wilderman c/Stinnes et autres; Lapradelle, Albert Geouffre de; Paris, Les Éditions Internationales, 1931.

21. Before he started Isn’t Life Wonderful, he had been in Rome negotiating with Mussolini’s bankers to make films in Italy; however, this fell through according to Russell Merritt, The Griffith Project, vol. 10, 169. Griffith again visited Italy while making the above film, New York Times, May 18, 1924, X7. He had encouraged Gish, who no longer worked for him, to go to Italy to film The White Sister (1923) directed by Henry King and their continued conversations perhaps kept the hope alive; however, in the above Times article, he is realistic enough to see the huge challenges.

22. D.W. Griffith Papers, Columbia University. Letter from D.W. Griffith to Lord Beaverbrook, October 30, 1926, Reel 14 in which he writes, ‘let me know if anything’ presents itself.

23. Schickel, 521.

24. Gish, 201.

25. Quinlan, 47. There is much confusion over the marriage, often termed ‘morganatic’. Many maintain that Carol was not allowed to marry a Romanian National, or someone of unequal rank; to do so was to engage in a morganatic marriage which was supposedly against the rules of the House of Hohenzollern and the Constitution. A slightly different interpretation of the term appears in the Chicago Daily News, March 18, 1920. Here, it is one option offered Ioana before the marriage was annulled: An morganatic marriage would have barred her offsprings from any rights to the throne and her from attending certain official functions. She refused. The term is commonly used, however, by New York Times’ reporters and others, e.g. New York Times May 16, 1926, 22. Ioana was of Phanariot of Greek stock and while she socialized with the Romanian elite class, given that her father (Constantin) was a colonel [or major], she was considered by some to be without a noble background. Ioana herself claims that ‘legend’ has it that ‘her family was descended from a ninth-century Byzantine Emperor Mihail Rangabe’ and this is confirmed by the family tree presented by Prince Paul in The Romanian Royal Family (Bucharest, 2011), last page.

26. The Romanian Royal Family, 6–20, documents that the Romanian Constitution made no reference to rules of marriage until 1938. It also quotes Prime Minister Alexandru Vaida Voevod, My Memoirs (Cluj: Dacia Press, Soros Foundation, 1995): ‘Because of the impending birth of Ioana Valentina’s child, I have been pressured to make sure this child would not be registered anywhere in the country as the legitimate son of Carol-Crown Prince of Romania. I am being forced to do an injustice, to break the law and violate the Constitution by labeling this poor child as illegitimate … This is an infamy …’ 22.

27. Quinlan, 45.

28. Ibid., 42.

29. New York Times, November 18, 1926, 3. This account came at the time of the court proceedings in Paris which dealt retrospectively with Ioana’s story.

30. Quinlan, 45.

31. Queen Marie, Dairy, Dosar III nr. 118, 44–5, quoted in Quinlan, 47–8.

32. Queen Marie, Dairy, Dosar III nr. 115, 181, quoted in Quinlan, 45.

33. Karney, Robyn, ed., Cinema Year by Year (London: Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2006), 159.

34. Eugeniu Buhman, Journal, Boston, courtesy Radu R. Florescu, 132, quoted in Quinlain, 40. These Republican ideals were also supported by his Swiss tutor, M. Mohrlen. As Hanna Pakula notes in The Last Romantic: A Biography of Queen Marie of Romania (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985), Carol was eighteen before Marie and Ferdinand could convince King Carol I, the child’s grandfather, who had carefully chosen the tutor in the time-honored tradition, that Mohrlen was a threat (152).

35. New York Times, ‘Obituary’, December 25, 1957, 31. Also Charles Robertson, International Herald Tribune, The First Hundred Years (New York: Columbia UP, 1986), 114. Frank Munsey merged the ‘New York Herald with his own morning Sun and later combines the Evening Telegram with another purchase, the Evening Mail.’

36. Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Robert Fitzgerald Papers, YCal MSS 222 Series V:‘Personal Papers’ Box 50, #1821, Marie Stuart Fitzgerald (John’s wife) to Edward Fitzgerald (her brother), 14 November 1934. Also see 50, #1799. John McHugh Stuart Jr. (John’s son who latter worked for Voice of America in Geneva) to Robert Fitzgerald, (his cousin who was working for the Herald Tribune and Time, and latter had a distinguished academic career). The son mentions that his father ‘finally edged into the 30-cent Fox’ Publicity Department and Zanuck was anxious to buy his story for Shirley Temple.

37. The Chicago Daily News, March 1–18, 1920, last issue.

38. Crawfordsville Press, December 3, 1918, 6. International News Service, Paris.

39. Pakula, 274 and Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York: Radom House, 2003), 134.

40. Alexander Easterman, King Carol, Hitler and Lupescu (London: V. Gallancz, 1942), 58–61. Also see Julia Gelardi, Born to Rule, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria, Queens of Europe (Headline Book Publishing, 2005), 91–93 and 115.

41. Macmillan, 134–5.

42. Quinlan, 44. It was Frank Harris, reporter/editor for the Saturday Review, who ‘assured’ the Countess of Warwick (Daisy) of the American worth of her written communication with her lover, Edward VIII’s grandfather, in 1915. See Andrew Rose, The Woman Before Wallis (London: Picador, 2013), 161.

43. At least, this seems the case in European royal circles. According to Andrew Rose, the British government feared leaked letters in both the case of in Edward VII’s affair with Daisy and the Prince Wales affair with Marguerite Alibert. However, between 1923 when Marguerite’s affair threatened to come to light, and the end of 1925, film became a complimentary threat.

44. Gish, 190.

45. Macmillan, 128.

46. Queen Marie of Hohenzollern, Insemnari zilnice VII, December 8, 1925, 391. Pakula, 148. Bibescu’s ancestors had ruled Wallachia (one of three parts of Romania) before the Hohenzollerns. In her youth, she was a friend of Romania’s Marie, even before she became Queen, although later she would have disagreements with Marie. Princess Bibescu was also a cousin to Marie’s paramour, Barbu Stirbey, and a lover of King Ferdinand.

47. Conversation with Prince Paul of Romania, February 16, 2014.

48. New York Times, October 7, 1924, 26. See Lombardi, Frederic, Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 2013), 125.

49. Gish, 190.

50. Quinlan is of the opinion that Carol’s decision to renounce the throne was ‘preying upon his mind for a long time’ but was announced in a letter dated December 12, 1925. Neagu, Fapte din umbra [Facts from the Shadows] (Bucuresti: Editura Politica, 1975–80) 3:38, quoted in Quinlan, 75. Also see Regina Maria Hohenzollern, Regina Maria a Romaniei: Insemnari zilnice [Queen Marie of Romanian: Daily Notes], Vol. VII, 1 Januarie–31 Decembrie 1925 (Bucharest: Polirom, 2013), 380–81, 394, 400.

51. Quinlan, 71 and 81. Paramount to Carol’s renunciation was his meeting with his mistress Elena Lupescu in Paris, a married woman who, ‘was able to deftly maneuver him,’ (Quinlan, 75). Also see King Carol II, 85. This seems likely, yet one wonders what influence, Edward, Prince of Wales, might have had on Carol. The two were but a year apart in age (born 1894 and 1893, respectively) and both romantics who seemed to have been affected by Republican sentiments which were reinforced by the breakup of the Russian monarchy. Just about the time of their meeting, Edward’s affair with Marguerite Alibert threatened to come to light in the courts, but was contained by a British government intervention (Rose).

52. Eugene Jolas. Man From Bablel, ed. Andreas Kramer and Rainer Rumold (New Haven: Yale UP, 1998), 66–70. Jolas offers a picture of the tight network of the overseas press personnel.

53. New York Times, November 30, 1926, 4. This indicates a 10-year exile was part of the Regency law.

54. Chicago Daily News, March 13–18, 1920 and New York Times, June 15, 1930, E3. Quinlan, 55. The compensation offered 500,000 francs initially and 110,000 francs each subsequent year for 20 years, (income made on an investment), after which the principal would be paid out. The principal was 2,200,000 francs, which decreased drastically in worth as a result of the economic problems throughout Europe in the thirties.

55. In spite of this silencing, one of Carol’s letters emerged, on the front page of the 17 January 1920 issue of Romania’s Epoca. However, it was immediately suppressed.

56. Quinlan, 45, 47.

57. Quinlan, 44.

58. Hoover archives, Stanford University. Ioana Lambrino Box 2: Ioana’s interview of 1936. The school was in Michelet (in some versions Vanves). New York Times, April 29, 1926, 12.

59. Schickel, 525–6.

60. Ibid., 528.

61. Noted by Gish, quoted in Schickel, 529.

62. Hoover archives, Stanford University. Ioana Lambrino Box 2: Ioana’s letter to Queen Marie July 2 1928 and Ioana’s interview of 1936.

63. D.W. Griffith Letters, Columbia’s Butler Library, Reel 12/0228, Letter from Mr. Nevrouz, March 30, 1924, requesting Bucharest exhibition rights for Orphans of the Storm. Reel 12/0242 indicates they had already been sold in Bucharest.

64. Michael J. Stoil, Balkan Cinema: Evolution After the Revolution (Ann Arbor, MI, 1993), 13. Also see Quinlan, 64.

65. Pakula, 340.

66. Insemnari zile, Volumne VIII, 1926, 116, 123 and 143.

67. Quinlan, 82, 84, 86.

68. Insemnari zile, Volumne VIII, 1926, 138.

69. New York Times, October 19, 1926, 2.

70. Pakula, 341.

71. Conversation with Prince Paul February 16, 2014.

72. Ionescu, Adrian-Silvan Regina Maria si America (Bucuresti: Noi Media Print, 2009). Radiogram from Gloria Swanson, Apprendix 28, 275–6; William Fox Studios Apprendix 55, 315; Cosmopolitan Studios, Apprendix 56, 316.

73. Ionescu, 80–1.

74. Lebedeff, was in Griffith’s The Sorrows of Satan, which was to be released through Paramount’s Astoria Studio. Griffith was not with United Artist at this time. See ‘Big Pictures Coming’ New York Times, November 28, 1926, x7.

75. Gloria Swanson, Swanson on Swanson (New York: Random House, 1980), 136. Also see New York Times, October 26, 1926, x7 and New York Times, November 28, 1926.

76. Ionescu, 275.

77. Stephen M. Shearer, Gloria Swanson, the Ultimate Star (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2013), 127. It is also possible that the Queen could have invited or intended to invite Gloria to her suit at the Hotel Ambassador where the whole fourth floor had been reworked for her into a miniature palace with its own private elevator and thirty detectives on staff (Pakula, 349). According to Pakula, Marie’s last days (20–24 November) in New York were ‘crammed with activities’: ‘she attended two or three luncheons, teas and dinners every day’ (Pakula, 353).

78. Pakula, 339. This critic agrees that by 1926 the ‘fading light’ of the Romanian royalty needed a boost.

79. New York Times, October 19, 1926, 2.

80. Pakula, 342.

81. Daily Times-Star, August 11, 1926, depicted in Ionescu, 103.

82. New York Times, November 18, 1926, 3.

83. Ionescu, 200. Insemnari zilnice, Vol. VIII, 404.

84. Chief among these was The New York Times’s statement that it had verified ‘no telegrams were dispatched from Bucharest regarding Ferdinand’ (New York Times, November 21, 1926). In fact, Ferdinand’s letters to Marie seemed relatively cheerful during this period and her daughter Mignon sent a cable saying ‘papa better, do not worry’ (Pakula, 354). The nature of the King’s health problems seem unclear at this point. While the appendix of Marie’s book on her American trip abounds with supporting telegrams/radiograms or letters, the two she received on November 15th from Barbu Stirbey and Prime Minister Alexandru Averescu about Ferdinand’s health (Ionescu, 89) are not there. Marie explains in her ‘Insemnari zilnice’ that they do not appear because Barbu’s was in code that could not be deciphered. Marie claimed she interpreted this as an ominous message regarding her husband’s health (Ionescu, 198–200 and Insemnari zilnice, Vol. VIII, 397–404). Clearly Ferdinand was having health problems, but that had been the case for some time.

85. Royal Archive of HRH Prince Paul of Romania. Letter from Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Diamaddy) to French Minister of Justice Louis Barthou asking him to address the President of the Tribunal of Seine to intervene on the process of Mrs Lambrino against Crown Prince Carol, November 6, 1926. #7881. Also see New York Times, November 25, 1926, 27.

86. On 3 December 1926, the New York Herald Tribune announced, the shutdown of the studios of Paramount’s East Coast arm, namely, Famous Player’s Astoria studios in Queens, Long Island. The closing was due, in part, to increasing labor problems (D.W. Griffith Letters, Columbia Butler Library, Reel 14, 1346). Astoria was not to open again until 1975 according to Stanley Corkin, Starring New York (Oxford, England: Oxford, 2014). Only Cosmopolitan Studio in the Bronx was then remaining in the New York area. Griffith returned to California in 1927.

87. Dan Romalo and Marian Stefan, ‘Putea fi salvat Regele Ferdinand?’ Magazin Istoric, nr. 10 (403)/October 2000, 46–49. There were intimations of this earlier which probably account for Barbu’s coded telegram, if it did exist but New York Times, November 30, 1926, 4. The king died on 20 July 1927. Marie’s powers even more curtailed when Prime Minister, Bratiano, died four months later. According to Pakula, the ‘ascendance to the Roumanian throne of a baby King presaged frightening instability in an area of the world that had already given birth to one world war.’ (360, and Quinlan, 87.)

88. W.E. (2011, film) Wallis and Edward (2005, TV movie); The Woman He Loved (1988, TV movie); To Catch a King (1983, TV movie); Edward and Mrs. Simpson (1978, TV miniseries); The Woman I Love (1972, TV drama). Visual representations of the couple embedded in a larger drama: Any Human Heart (2010, TV mini-series) and The King’s Speech (2010, film).

89. If the relationship between the two had occurred a few years later, perhaps it would not have been truncated for Queen Marie and Ferdinand seem to have been unwilling or unable to separation Elena (Magda) Lupescu – who confessed she had taken lessons from Ioana – and Carol in 1926. Interestingly, Lupescu was also offered a film opportunity, which she refused, but left the door open for future possibilities. Elena Lupescu,M-au denumit jidoavca [derogatory reference] cu parul rosu: Memoriile Elenei Lupescu, [They Called Me the Yid with the Red Hair: Memories of Elena Lupescu] (Bucuresti: Editura Tesu, 2013), 35.

90. Ioana eventually published her memoirs in France Mon Mari Le Roi Carol (1953) and Carol, in spite of his Republican sentiments, returned to Romania and was crowned King Carol II on 8 June 1930. His ten year reign was part of what is known as the Golden Age of Romanian History. He lived the rest of his life with Elena Lupescu. The Royal name and rights of inheritance were eventually awarded to Ioana’s son, Mircea but only after her death.