ABSTRACT
How did the situation seem from the point of view of Nero Film, and by extension, the German film industry? Kurt Weill had sold the film rights of Die Dreigroschenoper to the Berlin representative of Warner Brothers, who went into co-production with Tobis Klangfilm12 and Seymour Nebenzahl as owner of Nero Film. On 21 May 1930, Brecht signed a contract with Nero Film-AG, giving him 'consultative rights' ('Mitbestimmung') on the script, but no powers of a veto. 13 There were to be three versions of the flim - in German, French and English, a practice not uncommon for major productions in the brief period between the advent of sound and the invention of dubbing. 14 This already indicates that the companies involved were not only hoping for world-wide distribution. From the start the flim was conceived to be an expensive production,15 indeed, it was said to have had the 'biggest sets for a German movie ever.'16 Nero, with its aggressive production policy (other major Nero films during these years included Pabst's Kameradschift and Fritz Lang's MJ wanted to break into the international market, and also to strengthen its hand against UFA, the distribution giant in the German and European market. For Warner Brothers, teaming up with a German independent producer was a way of keeping a foot in the door. Much, therefore, was riding on the success of the project and its smooth production. Pabst, in the interview already quoted, is aware of the wider historical implications, and also of his own dilemma as creative artist and representative of a professional body within the film industry:
Once before, eight years ago, Germany was able to determine the development of the silent film. Then Germany, like the whole rest of the world, succumbed to the American flim. Now for the second time the fate of the European film is lying in the hands of Germany. France, England have already succumbed afresh to American money. Russia has not yet succeeded in finding a productive attitude to the sound-film. America's production however has driven into a blind alley, out of which the way will scarcely be found alone [sic]. Germany is uncommonly enabled by its literary and musical past to determine the shape of the sound-film of tomorrow, if ...
