Conrad Veidt: Cinema's Master of Shadows-7

The Conrad Veidt Society

A little-known fact is that Conrad, along with Humphrey Bogart, helped to shape the closing scenes of CASABLANCA. The scene in point is the one where Major Strasser attempts to phone the control tower and prevent the plane containing Victor Lazslo and Ilsa Lund from taking off. The original script called for Bogart to shoot the Nazi in the back while he was on the telephone. Both Bogart and Veidt agreed that this would be out of character for Bogart's character Rick Blaine. So they convinced director Michael Curtiz to allow them to change the script by having Major Strasser go for his weapon first and Rick shoot him in self-defense. After a couple of on-the-spot run-throughs of the scene, Curtiz agreed and the rest is film history.

Another sidelight is the fact that CASABLANCA’s showing in Morocco was actually banned during the initial release by the U.S. Government, as authorities were actually concerned that the film would further inflame the conflict between pro and anti-Vichy factions in Morocco!

Also, during CASABLANCA’s initial release in Europe after the war, the film was not immediately popular with audiences in France, who at first disapproved of the film’s depiction of life in occupied France. Sweden and Germany went even further, heavily censoring their prints of CASABLANCA--completely removing all footage of Conrad Veidt and all references to the Nazis! Eventually, however, CASABLANCA achieved great popularity throughout Europe.

Immediately after CASABLANCA, Conrad was offered what would be his last role in ABOVE SUSPICION (1943) with Joan Crawford, Fred MacMurray and Basil Rathbone. ABOVE SUSPICION was the tale of a newly-wed couple drafted by British Intelligence to perform a "simple" mission for them during their honeymoon. In short order, however, things begin to fall apart and the couple find themselves in dangerous situations and escape from Germany becomes a mortal matter. Veidt ended his career playing a good guy, the Count Seidel, and at the close of the film, he helps Fred MacMurray and Joan Crawford to safely escape from Austria into Italy. ABOVE SUSPICION was highly polished suspense and intrigue. In a later interview, Joan Crawford stated that Conrad was "a brilliant actor and a fine man. Mr. Veidt's acting helped greatly to inspire me. I had never seen an actor with such dramatic intensity or such concentration and purpose in his acting."

Unfortunately, ABOVE SUSPICION wouldn't be released until April 28, 1943. Twenty-five days before, early on the morning of April 3, 1943, Conrad accepted a golfing invitation with a producer friend from MGM. Overtired by a lively party he had attended the night before, Conrad, then aged 50, collapsed on the golf course. He was stricken down by the same congenital heart condition that had taken his father years earlier. Veidt was taken to the Santa Monica Hospital, where he died a short time later after efforts to revive him failed.

Although Conrad Veidt's ashes were later entombed in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester, New York, the actor has not been forgotten. In the intervening years, a growing legion of fans and admirers has formed, culminating in the founding of the Conrad Veidt Society in 1990. In April 1998, the Conrad Veidt Society, through donated funds, had the remains of Conrad Veidt and his wife, Lily, interred at Golder’s Green Crematorium in London, England. There, the Veidts now rest with many of Veidt’s contemporaries such as Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Vivian Leigh and Sir Alexander Korda.

The Conrad Veidt Society also publishes an excellent newsletter which is available on the Internet (http://members.aol.com/CVSociety/index.html) and details the continuing efforts of a multitude of people, both in and out of the society, who are working to research Conrad Veidt’s career and preserve his memory.

One of the most interesting developments reported, in a 1996 newsletter, was the existence of a street named after Veidt in Potsdam, “Conrad-Veidt-Strasse.”

Another development was the publication in 1987 of the only English language biography of Conrad Veidt, by Jerry C. Allen, entitled Conrad Veidt: From Caligari to Casablanca. An excellent work, the book was later reissued in 1993 to honor the centennial of Conrad Veidt’s birth.

It is quite evident that, generations after his death, Conrad Veidt is still alive in the hearts and minds of film audiences. So it seems that as long as there survives a projector or video device, this great actor will live on, in the flickering, shadowy images of such films as THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and THE WAXWORKS, as well as the magic of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD and the incomparable romance of CASABLANCA.

REFERENCES

Allen, Jerry C., Conrad Veidt: From Caligari to Casablanca, Boxwood Press, Pacific Grove, CA, 2nd Ed 1993

American Heritage, December 1991

Brewer’s Cinema, Market House Books, London 1995

Conrad Veidt Society Newsletter, all issues

Eyman, Scott, Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, Simon and Schuster, NY 1993

Internet Movie Database

Motion Picture, Guide, The, Cinebooks, Inc., Chicago, IL 1987

O'LEARY, Liam, The Silent Cinema, Dutton Co., NY 1965

QUINLAN, Daniel, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Movie Character Actors, Harmony Books, NY 1985

RAGAN, David, Who's Who in Hollywood, Facts on File, NY and Oxford, England, 1992

San Francisco Chronicle, 2-20-21, 6-30-28

San Francisco Examiner, 9-13-21, 9-18-43

Seattle Times, 2-16-42, 2-21-43

TRUITT, Evelyn Mack, Who Was Who on the Screen, R. R. Bowker Co, NY and London 1984

Vincendeau, Ginette, Encyclopedia of European Cinema, Facts on File, NY 1995

Conrad Veidt:
The Cinema's Master
of the Shadows

(Continued)

*********************************

The vintage San Francisco Examiner newspaper ads were kindly provided by Mr. David K. Bowman.

This article and the title photo originally appeared in CULT MOVIES magazine, Issue #29, October 1999.

*********************************