Dissecting William Dieterle

I can’t think of a Classic Hollywood director whose reputation has been as tarnished by time as William Dieterle. When he first burst upon the scene in 1931, he was greeted as a wunderkind: one whose eye roamed with impressive freedom at a time when cameras were practically nailed to the floor; one with equal gifts for whimsy and pathos, highly adept at developing and sustaining a screen romance; and one seemingly at home in every genre, from historical drama to musical to romantic comedy. (The New York Times’ film critic Mordaunt Hall hailed his “artistry and fertile brain,” predicting that Dieterle “could make a poor story interesting and a good story a masterpiece.”)