Middle years of William Dieterle

Dieterle subsequently signed with RKO and established his own production company, the first release from which was All That Money Can Buy (1941). This dramatization of Stephen Vincent Benet’s classic story The Devil and Daniel Webster featured Edward Arnold as the orator Daniel Webster and Walter Huston as the honey-tongued Mr. Scratch. Although the film earned critical praise, it was a box-office disappointment, which some blamed on the ambiguous title; the film was later released under Benet’s title. By the time Syncopation, a clumsy drama about the rise of jazz, appeared in 1942, Dieterle and RKO had already parted ways, and the director then worked for a series of studios. In 1942 he also made the biopic Tennessee Johnson, with Van Heflin as the often-overlooked Pres. Andrew Johnson, and two years later he helmed Kismet, which was perhaps best remembered for Marlene Dietrich, who appeared in a dance sequence that required several changes to comply with the Production Code.

Dieterle then joined forces with producer David O. Selznick, for whom he directed I’ll Be Seeing You (1944), starring Ginger Rogers as a woman convicted of manslaughter who, while on furlough during the holidays, falls in love with a shell-shocked soldier (Joseph Cotten). Love Letters (1945) was another glossy Selznick melodrama, with Jennifer Jones as an amnesiac accused of murdering her husband whose memory is restored after she reads old love letters; it was scripted by Ayn Rand and was hugely popular. At about this time, at the urging of Selznick, Dieterle also shot the lively opening saloon scene for King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun (1946).

After the largely forgettable This Love of Ours (1945) and The Searching Wind (1946), Dieterle found critical and commercial success with Portrait of Jennie (1948). The love story featured Jones and Cotten, and its supernatural twist was borrowed by subsequent films. In 1949 Dieterle directed The Accused, an entertaining film noir about a college professor (Loretta Young) on the run from a homicide detective (Wendell Corey) after she kills a student in self-defense. In the action adventure Rope of Sand (1949), the quest for hidden diamonds had Casablanca alumni Rains, Paul Henreid, and Peter Lorre facing off against Burt Lancaster.

Later films

Dieterle continued to work, though his Hollywood career was reaching its end. In 1950 he directed two films starring Lizabeth Scott: Paid in Full, a highly contrived soap opera, and Dark City, a good if unsurprising noir that cast Charlton Heston in his first major Hollywood role. That year also saw the release of the popular September Affair, which featured an unabashedly soapy romance between a businessman (Cotten) and a pianist (Joan Fontaine) who are thought to have died in a plane crash. In 1951 Dieterle directed Peking Express, a remake of Shanghai Express (1932), and Red Mountain, a two-fisted account of Quantrill’s Raiders, with John Ireland as the guerrilla leader fighting for the Confederacy during the American Civil War and Alan Ladd as a former comrade who betrays him.

In 1952 Dieterle directed William Holden in both The Turning Point, a drama about city corruption, and Boots Malone, about a down-on-his-luck jockey’s agent. The following year he attempted to capitalize on the popular biblical adventure genre with Salome. Even Rita Hayworth and a cast of British all-stars, however, were unable to disguise the shortcomings of the lavish Technicolor production. Elephant Walk (1954) was begun with Vivien Leigh, but she left the film when her health collapsed. Elizabeth Taylor took her place as a young wife who struggles after moving to the Ceylonese plantation of her unstable husband (Peter Finch). Dieterle made just two more pictures before departing Hollywood. Magic Fire (1956) was a turgid biopic of composer Richard Wagner, while Omar Khayyam (1957) was a foray into ancient Persia with Cornel Wilde, Debra Paget, and John Derek.

In the late 1950s Dieterle returned to his homeland, but his experiences with the German film industry were no more satisfying than his later years in the United States. He made 13 films and made-for-television movies before retiring in 1968.