You may be well aware of Marlene Dietrich's 1936 film, I Loved A Soldier, which went into production but was never completed. Doctor Macro's site has impeccable stills from that abortion. Did Dietrich perform in any other unfinished flicks? I don't know, but according to the American Film Institute catalog ( here and here), Marlene Dietrich was considered for the following films:
Confessions of a Nazi Spy, a 1939 Warner Bros. propaganda film in which Dietrich would have reportedly starred and probably refused to avoid any association with Nazi Germany. Aside from that, Dietrich was still “box office poison” and had yet to humanize herself in Destry Rides Again. I bet the role played by Dorothy Tree would have been hers.
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All Through The Night, a 1942 Warner Bros. thriller. On April 10, 1941, The Hollywood Reporter listed Dietrich as a possible co-star alongside her chum George Raft, with whom she made another Warner movie (Manpower). Of course, Hollywood wasn't bereft of Germans who opposed the Nazis because Kaaren Verne got the part and shared screen credits with the great Humphrey Bogart.
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China Girl, a 20th Century-Fox war drama released at the end of 1942 (the years in the AFI catalog appear inaccurate). One version of the script cast Dietrich as “Captain” Fifi. Maybe Dietrich was busy making Pittsburgh for Universal instead, but the beauty of Dietrich and Gene Tierney (who, by the way, played a Chinese character) in one picture would have been incomparable. On the other hand, who would want to see Dietrich and Victor McLaglen together again?
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Dangerous Partners, an MGM crime drama released in 1945. In March (?) 1944, The Hollywood Reporter apparently announced Dietrich and Douglas Morrow as possible lead actors. In retrospect and with the help of Steven Bach's biography, I can't imagine why anyone would have considered Dietrich because she was in the midst of her USO tour. Then again, Dietrich was supposed to perform in a second film for MGM after Kismet, and Signe Hasso does exude the European mystique that would bring to mind Dietrich or more obviously Greta Garbo.
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I Remember Mama, a 1948 RKO historical drama starring Irene Dunne in the lead role rejected by Greta Garbo. Supposedly, Dietrich dispatched Mitchell Leisen, a Dietrich devotee and the director of The Lady Is Willing and Golden Earrings, to win her the role of Mama, but RKO refused due to Dietrich's “racy image.” No wonder Dietrich became the star of RKO's Rancho Notorious in 1952. Even though a matronly character would have fit her late '40s real-life role as a grandmother, Dietrich's part in A Foreign Affair proved her flair for the racy after all.
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All About Eve, a 1950 20th Century-Fox masterpiece starring Bette Davis as Margo Channing. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck considered Dietrich for this role, and Steven Bach wrote that Joe Mankiewicz convinced Zanuck otherwise. Although the role would have given Dietrich the best dialogue of her career, I would be foolish to argue that Davis didn't own that part with her performance.
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Know more roles that Dietrich would have reportedly played but didn't? Tell us about them in the comments section.
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Know more roles that Dietrich would have reportedly played but didn't? Tell us about them in the comments section.
Being fond of Dietrich, I enjoyed your affectionate blog post about the roles she nixed for one reason or another. It's always fun to imagine what might have been. Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteI think Steven Bach metions "French Without Tears" (later filmed in 1940); the Chopin / Sand project that never got off the ground; "Gigi" (probably the role that went to Isabel Jeans); and, much later, Billy Wilder's "Fedora".
ReplyDeleteIf she hadn't walked out on the stage production of "One Touch of Venus" she may have ended up doing the movie of that one, too.
missladiva
Last week I viewed the All About Eve DVD extras for the first time and noted that Marlene had been considered for the Margo role. With all due respect to Ms Davis, I think Dietrich would have been an even better choice.
ReplyDeleteThanks, DorianTB!
ReplyDeleteThank you, too, missladiva. You are always a wealth of information.
xl, I wonder whether Dietrich would have hijacked the film from Anne Baxter (or whoever may have played Eve) the way she stole Stage Fright from Jane Wyman. It's hard to imagine a woman ever being able to compete with Dietrich (the image of Dietrich sneering at Peter's lover in The Scarlet Empress always comes to mind), and the only reason why Jean Arthur could beat Dietrich in A Foreign Affair was because they were polar opposites.
Apparently, Marlene and Ernst Lubitsch (or Max Ophuls, depending on your source) discussed a version of :"Der Rosenkavalier" starring her and Gerard Philipe sometime in the forties.
ReplyDeleteMarlene and Jean Gabin were supposed to do "Les Portes de la Nuit", but they dropped that project to do "Martin Roumagnac" instead. Go figure!
I just read about that adaptation of "Der Rosenkavalier" and--if the Lubitsch involvement is to be believed--his death in the '40s was likely what killed that plan. Shame. I also just read that Lubitsch wanted Jeanette MacDonald to play Marschallin. If that's the case, I wonder whether Lubitsch intended to direct a fairly straight-forward adaptation. By the 1940s, MacDonald had established herself as a true opera singer. Obviously, that wouldn't have worked for Dietrich.
ReplyDeleteI believe Dietrich was considered to play Death in Cocteau's "Orpheus", which would have been incredible. Also, wasn't she supposed to have played a role in Pal Joey?
ReplyDeleteYeah, Steven Bach wrote about Pal Joey. Apparently, Columbia head Harry Cohn wanted to exchange Jean Louis' designer skills for Dietrich's screen presence, but Dietrich rejected the deal because she wanted to star with Frank Sinatra (who eventually did play Joey), not Jack Lemmon (Cohn's pick). Come to think of it, who would have believed that Dietrich would fight over Lemmon? Anyway, Bach hinted that Dietrich had used a mob connection to convince Cohn to loan Louis anyway.
ReplyDeleteLate to the party, but here are a few other projects that were never made:
ReplyDeleteThere was some shop talk at Eden Roc during the summer of 1938: 20th Century Fox announced that Marlene would star in "The Rains Came" (the role eventually went Myrna Loy, and later, Lana Turner in the remake).
Earlier that year, Rudi and Sternberg had announced their intention to form a French production company. Two projects (in which Marlene would star, if she were free of Paramount) were announced: film versions of Zola's "Germinal" and Zuckmayer's "Ein Sommer in Österreich" (the latter to co-star Richard Tauber).