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Sjöström – From National to International 25
in a Swedish interview in the magazine Filmjournalen turned out to be prophetic:
Your stories are too heavy for American audiences. Not for some of us – but for public
success. To me, it seems as stupid to ask you to make other stories – as to ask a
great artist to make the cover for a commonplace magazine. For the success of your
films, however, it seems necessary to “compromise” in that direction. But it is sad that
it should be needed! 24
As Terriss seemed to have foreseen, The Phantom Carriage completely failed
with the American audience. Now, SF instead put great faith in the next, more
internationally oriented production, Love’s Crucible, though without the expected
outcome as Goldwyn declined the offer to import the film. Swedish
films, therefore, seem to have been successful in America only to the degree
that they were different. As soon as the former “national style” was changed to
“international”, the interest faded. To compete with Hollywood on their own
conditions turned out to be more difficult than the Swedish producers had expected.
However, Goldwyn’s decision to invite Sjöström to Hollywood was undoubtedly
just as much based on the great success of his films with critics and
audiences alike in Europe, and not least in France: a promise for the future as to
export possibilities. 25
American critics, however, do not always seem to have shared the general
enthusiasm of the producers concerning the import of European directors. With
eye-catching headlines such as “With Berlin Foreign Center; Famous Shuffling
Directors”, “The Foreign Legion in Hollywood” or “The Swedish Invasion”, the
American press hailed the European colony of film workers that arrived in Hollywood
during the 1920s invited by several American production companies.
Captions such as “Metro’s bringing them in by car load”, clearly demonstrate
the sceptical or at least ambivalent attitude in the public sphere of the receiving
country towards this potential assault. 26 Critical comments speak of the immigrants
keeping closely together in the new context, and note that consequently
only a few of them really become Americans. Rhetorical remarks mention that
these adventurers or “foreign invaders” want to capture the American film industry
and American dollars. But there are also more positive comments on the
competence of the imported film workers, pointing towards a potential creative
exchange. A few individuals are mentioned (e.g. scriptwriter Hanns Kräly, who
accompanied Ernst Lubitsch to Hollywood and “made the screen better for his
coming”), but in general focus lies on the contrasts between “them” and “us”. 27
There is more to this rhetoric than historical curiosity only. It points to the
dividing line between Europe and the United States in film production that
might easily be interpreted as razor-sharp – a view that, as we shall see, might
have to be revised or at least nuanced. In the European press of the period,