Paul Bern
Birth : 1889-12-03, Wandsbek - Hamburg - Germany
Death : 1932-09-05
History
From Wikipedia
Paul Bern (December 3, 1889 – September 5, 1932) was a
German-born American film director, screenwriter and producer for MGM.
Bern was born Paul Levy in Wandsbek, which was then a town
in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein (now a district of the city of
Hamburg). He was one of six children of Julius and Henriette (née Hirsch) Levy,
a Jewish couple. Julius worked as a clerk for a shipping company before opening
a candy store. In 1898, Julius decided to move the family to the United States
due to the rise of unemployment and anti-Jewish attitudes in Wandsbek. The
family eventually settled in New York City. Julius Levy died in 1908. In 1920,
Henriette Levy drowned herself.
Bern pursued a career in acting on the stage and studied at
the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He later adopted the stage name
"Paul Bern". Bern soon realized he had little aptitude for acting and
pursued other aspects of theatre production. He worked as a stage manager for a
time before moving to Hollywood in the early 1920s. He was initially a film
editor before he worked his way up to scenario writing and directing for United
Artists and Paramount Pictures. This led to his working full-time as a producer
at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the major studio of the time. Bern eventually became
the production assistant of Irving Thalberg.
The star-studded film Grand Hotel, released six days after
Bern's death, won the Best Picture Academy Award for 1931–32. Bern and Irving
Thalberg produced the film, although neither was listed in the film credits (in
the early 1930s MGM did not list their films' producers in their credits).
However, the award was presented solely to Thalberg, and Bern was excluded.
Bern met actress Jean Harlow shortly before the premiere of
Hell's Angels in 1930. Bern was instrumental in helping Harlow's career as he
was the only person who took her seriously as an actress. The two struck up a
friendship and eventually began dating. They announced their engagement in June
1932 and married on July 2, 1932.
Two months after marrying Jean Harlow, on September 5, Bern
was found dead from a gunshot to the head in their home on Easton Drive in
Beverly Hills, California. The coroner ruled his death a suicide.
Self (archive footage)
Until 1932's Grand Hotel, never had there existed an all-star ensemble cast on film. Conceived by MGM's production genius Irving Thalberg, the film boasted names like Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and John and Lionel Barrymore and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. This short documentary takes a look at the making of the classic film.
Himself (archive footage)
Actress Sharon Stone hosts this documentary about the life and career of 1930s sex symbol Jean Harlow. Included are clips from many of her films, photos and stories about her life before she became a movie star, and accounts of her troubled personal life, including a domineering mother, the failure of her three marriages and the suicide of her second husband.
Story Consultant
Captain Alan Gaskell sails the perilous waters between Hong Kong and Singapore with a secret cargo: a fortune in British gold. That's not the only risky cargo he carries; both his fiery mistress and his refined fiancee are aboard!
Director
During a raid, a cop lets a pretty speakeasy employee escape and later begins dating her. Although she loves him, his salary and dull life leave her wanting.
Producer
Tad's dream is to attend a military academy so he can grow up to be a great soldier and a war hero, like his father. What he doesn't know is that his father, Slag, is actually a thief and a derelict. Slag robs a factory in order to get the money to send Tad to military school, then gets a job at the academy's horse stables to be close to his son, who doesn't know he's alive.
Writer
Norma Talmadge plays a Mexican saloon singer, known as 'The Dove.' She is romanced by a young caballero and menaced by a Villa-like brute of a dictator, played by Noah Beery.
Screenplay
François Villon, in his lifetime the most renowned poet in France, is also a prankster, an occasional criminal, and an ardent patriot.
Writer
Left penniless by her vengeful ex-husband, Madeline is forced to become a pickpocket to pay for a new wardrobe. One of her victims is a Mr. Finlay, who threatens to turn her over to the police -- until he hears Madeline's woeful tale of her cruel, possessive husband.
Writer
Writer
WW1 espionage tale....
Director
Triumph of the daughter of a cheated mine owner over a renegade and her love for the superintendent.
Director
Director
An American soldier falls in love with a French maiden but their romance is thwarted when the Yanks return home. Years later she comes to America to put on a fashion show and find her long lost lover.
Director
Therese Duverne (Viola Dana) is bored with her even-tempered husband, Edmond (Adolphe Menjou). Isabelle Fevre (Gale Henry) suggests that Edmond go to the bicycle races and stay out all night. Then she takes Therese there and introduces her to manly Petit Mathieu, one of the racers (Maurice B. Flynn). Since he has just quarreled with his sweetheart, Lea (Jetta Goudal), he is glad to have Therese's attention and offers to run away with her after he wins the six-day race. Lea, meanwhile, is spending her time with Edmond. Therese eventually decides she doesn't care for brutes like Mathieu, and Edmond gains a temper and wins his wife back. Lea and Mathieu are reunited, while Isabelle goes back to helping her own alcoholic sweetheart, Igor (Raymond Griffith), break into the movies.
Writer
Lily, a poor and friendless orphan, is married to a sensual and elderly Colonel in the German army who divorces her when he finds her with a former officer sweetheart. Introduced by a girl friend to Bohemian society, Lily loses the love of the young officer and marries her former lover, a wealthy art connoisseur.
Writer
Cleo lives in Marseilles and works as a waitress in a waterfront dive. A stranger entices her into coming to Paris to take dancing lessons, but instead she is taken to a baron, who betrays her. In spite of this inauspicious start, Cleo becomes a successful and renowned actress, but her feelings about men have never recovered. She loathes them and uses them only for the money they offer her, which she then hands over to a penniless girl.
Writer
Professor Stock and his wife Mizzi are uhappily married. The professor, suspicious of his wife, hires a detective to spy on her in hopes of obtaining a divorce. Mizzi sets her sights on seducing Dr. Franz Braun, the new husband of her good friend Charlotte. Dr. Braun's colleague, Dr. Mueller, who has his eye on Charlotte, sees this as his opportunity. Through a misunderstanding, Charlotte thinks that her husband is interested in Miss Hofer, and asks Mizzi to keep him occupied... around and around the circle goes in Lubitsch's refined comedy of mistaken infidelity.
Writer
Victor Stowell, son of the deemster of the Isle of Man, is engaged to Fenella Stanley. He becomes involved in an intrigue with local girl Bessie Collister, becomes the deemster on his father's death, and is forced to try Bessie for killing her illegitimate child.
Writer
Elliot Worthington falls in love with Myra, the maid in his sister's household. Myra is dismissed; Elliot finds her, proposes marriage, and returns home with his new bride. She is snubbed by his relatives and shocked by the hypocrisy of his wealthy friends. Disillusioned, she runs away: Elliot follows and saves her from being hit by a train when her foot gets caught in a switch.
Scenario Writer
Faulke, a swindling white trader who persuaded Madge to leave Captain Blackbird, insists that her daughter, Lorna, marry Waki, a native leader, although Lorna loves Lloyd Warren. While in search of a doll for his other daughter, Baby Madge, Captain Blackbird comes to Pago Pago and gruffly refuses to aid Lloyd and Lorna, whom he does not recognize. A chance encounter with Faulke, however, reveals the trader's evil doings and Lorna's identity. The captain and his men rush to the island and rescue Lorna from the warring natives.
Writer
Glory Quayle and John Storm, sweethearts since childhood on the Isle of Man, go to London, Glory to become a nurse and John to enter a monastery. Instead, Glory becomes a theater star, and John renounces his vows because he cannot forget his love for her. Lord Robert Ure, who has already betrayed Glory's friend, Polly Love, incites the London populace against John....
Editor
Chaney plays two roles: mad scientist Arthur Lamb and Lamb's "experiment", known only as the Ape Man. This hideous creature was the result of Lamb's attempts to transplant animal glands into human beings.
Director
When theatrical agent Sterling, a ladies man known for signing his latest paramours onto his agency's talent roster, returns to New York from a trip to Europe, he tells his more down-to-earth partner, Lawson, that he has hired a beautiful Neopolitan acrobat he saw onstage in Italy. When the acrobat, Tina Bambinetti, arrives in their office, though, Sterling is shocked to find that, offstage, she is plain, unkempt and badly dressed. Crushed by Sterling's dismissive treatment, Tina performs some acrobatics that almost destroy the office...
Writer
A melodrama of misunderstandings in which a rich couple grow more and more suspicious of each other fidelities after the groom’s father is shot dead on their wedding night.
