Though born in Manhattan and based in New York for many years, Weinberg's early career in film can be traced to Baltimore, where he managed The Little Theater, opened in 1927 and located at 523 North Howard Street (it has since been demolished, and is now a parking lot). Incidentally, several short biographical sketches of Weinberg that I've looked at online state that he was the manager of "a little theater" in Baltimore, apparently not realizing that "The Little" was actually the name of the theater. The Little was known as a venue for what would today be termed art house fare, including important foreign films and independent films (my grandfather, an avid moviegoer in Baltimore at the time, recalls seeing the Technicolor production of The Mikado there in 1939).
But Weinberg's contributions to Baltimore's film culture extended beyond his curatorial role as the manager of the Little Theater. In 1931, he wrote and directed an important film in the American avant garde movement, Autumn Fire. This 15-minute lyrical film poem follows two lovers who are separated by distance -- the man in the city, the woman in the country -- and are finally reunited in New York. The silent film tells its story entirely through images, aided occasionally by the text of written letters. The beauty of Weinberg's compositions demonstrate a real eye for setting and detail, making it a pity that this was the only film he completed. It borrows aspects of the "City Symphonies" of the 1920s, with its montages of a modern industrial metropolis, and contains elements of what P. Adams Sitney in Visionary Film calls the "trance film", in its dreamlike unfolding of narrative events and emphasis on the relationship between the characters and their respective environments.
According to Robert A. Haller's article on the film (originally published in Field of Vision, Nos. 9-10, Winter-Spring 1980, and reprinted in Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1893-1947, ed. Bruce Posner), Autumn Fire grew out of an earlier film project that Weinberg began but never finished, called A City Symphony, and notes that Weinberg was influenced by filmmakers such as Eisenstein (Romances-Sentimentale), Dimitri Kirsanoff (Brumes d'Autome), and Walter Ruttman (Berlin). He also mentions a charming anecdote about the production, that it was intended as a kind of cinematic love letter to Erna Bergman, who played the girl in the film.
Knowing that Weinberg was based in Baltimore at the time he made Autumn Fire, I became interested in the possibility that he had filmed at least some of it there. As a native of Maryland as well as a filmmaker myself, I was intrigued by this previously-unexplored link between Autumn Fire and its possible connection to the city.
Having seen the film several times, I knew the final scenes were shot, or at least set, in New York, as indicated by an on-screen note that refers to the "Central Station". Haller notes that the Manhattan footage Weinberg shot for A City Symphony in the late '20s was cut up and edited into Autumn Fire, which would explain the later "city" scenes taken in New York.
However, it is the earlier "city" scenes that interested me, and I revisited those with an eye toward looking for any identifiable signs that they might have been shot in Baltimore. Although the sequences consisted mostly of brief glimpses of the ships, piers, harbor, etc., there were a couple of shots that contained a view of the city skyline. I realized upon closer inspection that the skyline was all wrong for it to be New York, due to the lack of towering skyscrapers and other recognizable landmarks that would have been present even in 1931.
Taking a closer look at Autumn Fire on DVD, freeze-framing the fragmentary shots, it suddenly became clear: Weinberg did indeed shoot these scenes in Baltimore. Again, it was the skyline that provided the clue. In the shot below, I recognized the unmistakable structure of the Baltimore Trust Company Building (at one time the tallest building in the city and today the Bank of America building, built in 1929 and located at 10 Light Street). Immediately to its left in this shot is another building that remains today, the First National Bank Building (formerly the Legg Mason Building, built in 1924).
With this evidence, I headed to Baltimore to take photos of the area today. Knowing how much the skyline has built up over the years, I doubted I would be able to get a picture of the buildings from the same angle. I was correct -- this particular view is no longer visible from the Inner Harbor, but I was able to find a view of the buildings from a similar angle, further up on Pratt Street:
Here is what the view from Pier 1 looks like today. The area has been built up considerably, between the skyscrapers and the construction of Harbor Place:
Many of the shots in the film appear to have been taken on or around piers that no longer exist. I have been unable to identify the precise locations of which piers might have been used. However, one shot shows a boat docking, clearly marked "Balto, MD", evidence that these scenes were at least taken in Baltimore's harbor:
There is one shot of the harbor taken from a high vantage point, which was possibly filmed from Federal Hill, located across from Harbor Place:
From atop Federal Hill, this was the only view I could get that resembled that in the film at all, though it is difficult to be certain, again, considering how much the area has been developed over the years. The only distinctive elements to go on were the height of the vantage point from which it was taken, which suggested Federal Hill, and the fact that the harbor veers off to the right at an angle:
Presumably, Weinberg shot these scenes in Baltimore due to the need to incorporate the character of "The Man" (played by non-professional actor Willy Hildebrand) into the story, and to supplement the Manhattan footage that he was recycling from A City Symphony (the majority of which seems to focus on the towering skyscrapers, trains, and bustling traffic). Haller notes that the scenes with Erna Bergman were shot first, which suggests that they were filmed somewhere in rural Maryland, though without further research, it is impossible to be sure.
This discovery of Baltimore's role in Autumn Fire establishes a link between the city and the early American avant garde film movement of the 1930s, and provides a starting point in continuing to examine Weinberg's contributions to Baltimore's film culture both as a filmmaker and exhibitor.
Herman G. Weinberg's papers are held in the collection of the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. I plan to continue my research using the materials held in his archive and to hopefully be able to shed new light onto Weinberg's time in Baltimore.
*Update: Read about the filming location in Preston Gardens Park here.
References:
Freedman, Samuel G. "Herman G. Weinberg, Writer and Foreign Film Translator." The New York Times. 8 November, 1983. NYTimes.com. Web. Accessed 26 May, 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/08/obituaries/herman-g-weinberg-writer-and-foreign-film-translator.html>
Haller, Robert A. "Herman G. Weinberg, Autumn Fire (1930-1933)", originally published in Field of Vision, Nos. 9-10, Winter-Spring 1980, pp. 6-7, reprinted in Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1893-1947, ed. Bruce Posner. Filmmakers Showcase, 2001. pp. 137-138.
Herman G. Weinberg Collection, Biographical/Historical Information. The New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts. Web. Accessed 20 May, 2015. <http://archives.nypl.org/the/22482#bioghist>
Levin, Michael. "The Little Theatre in Baltimore". CinemaTreasures.org. Web. Accessed 20 May, 2015 <http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/7923>
1 comment:
I found an article in the Baltimore Sun of December 27, 1931 announcing the world premier of Autumn Fire. It states that "much of the picture was photographed around Baltimore."
Post a Comment