Watch on the Rhine
Encyclopedia
Watch on the Rhine is a 1943 American drama film directed by Herman Shumlin
. The screenplay by Dashiell Hammett
is based on the 1941 play of the same title by Lillian Hellman
.
For the past seventeen years, the Muller family has lived in Europe, where Kurt responded to the rise of Nazism
by engaging in anti-Fascist activities. Sara tells her family they are seeking peaceful sanctuary on American soil, but their quest is threatened by the presence of houseguest Teck de Brancovis, an opportunistic Romania
n count who has been conspiring with the Germans in the nation's capital.
Teck searches the Mullers' room and discovers a gun and money intended to finance underground operations in Germany in a locked suitcase. Shortly after, the Mullers learn resistance worker Max Freidech has been arrested, and because he once rescued Kurt from the Gestapo
, Kurt plans to return to Germany to assist Max and those arrested with him. Aware Kurt will be in great danger if the Nazis discover he is returning to Germany, Teck demands $10,000 to keep silent, and Kurt kills him. Realizing the dangers Kurt faces, Fanny and David agree to help him escape.
Time passes, and when the Mullers fail to hear from Kurt, Joshua announces he plans to search for his father as soon as he turns eighteen. Although distraught by the possibility of losing her son as well as her husband, Sara resolves to be brave when the time comes for Joshua to leave.
, and Jack L. Warner paid $150,000 for the screen rights because he felt with its focus on patriotism
it would make an ideal and prestigious propaganda film
at the height of World War II
.
Because Bette Davis
was involved with Now, Voyager
, producer Hal B. Wallis
began searching for another actress for the role of Sara Muller while Hellman's lover Dashiel Hammett began writing the screenplay at their farm in Pleasantville, New York
. Irene Dunne
liked the material but felt the role was too small, and Margaret Sullavan
expressed no interest whatsoever. Edna Best, Rosemary DeCamp
, and Helen Hayes
also were considered.
For the role of Kurt Muller, Wallis wanted Charles Boyer
. He, howevr, felt his French accent was wrong for the character, so the producer decided to cast Paul Lukas
, who had originated the role on Broadway and had been honored by the Drama League of New York
for his performance.
Meanwhile, Hammett was sidelined by an injured back, and by the time he was ready to resume work on the script Now, Voyager was close to completion. Wallis sent Davis, a staunch supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt
and a fierce opponent of the Nazi Party, the screenplay-in-progress and she immediately accepted the offer.
With Davis cast as Sara, Wallis encouraged Hammett to embellish what essentially was a secondary role to make it worthy of the leading lady's status as a star, and to open up the story by adding scenes outside the Farrelly living room, which had been the sole setting on stage. The Production Code Administration
was concerned that Kurt Muller escaped prosecution for his murder of Teck de Brancovis, and the Hays Office suggested it be established Kurt was killed by the Nazis at the end of the film in order to show he paid for his crime. Lillian objected and the studio agreed Kurt had been justified in shooting Teck, and the scene remained.
Filming began on June 15, 1942, only a week after Now, Voyager had ended production, and without a substantial vacation between projects Davis was on edge. As a result, she immediately clashed with Herman Shumlin, who had directed the play but had no experience in film, from the beginning and tended to ignore his suggestions.
Her emotional overacting prompted Wallis to send Shumlin numerous memos urging the director to tone down her performance. Shumlin threatened to quit because he was unhappy with cinematographer Merritt B. Gerstad
, who eventually was replaced by Hal Mohr
in order to appease the director. Meanwhile, Davis also was at odds with Lucile Watson
, who was reprising the role of the mother she had portrayed on stage, because she was a Republican
whose political views sharply contrasted with those of the Democratic
Davis.
Several exterior scenes shot on location in Washington had to be cut from the film prior to its release due to wartime restrictions on the filming of government buildings.
When Wallis announced he was giving Davis top billing, she argued it was ridiculous to do so given hers was a supporting role. The studio's publicity department argued it was her name that would attract an audience and, despite her resistance, the film's credits and all promotional materials listed her first.
Davis and Lukas reprised their roles for a radio adaptation that aired on the January 10, 1944 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater
.
of the New York Times called it "a distinguished film — a film full of sense, power and beauty" and added, "Its sense resides firmly in its facing one of civilization's most tragic ironies, its power derives from the sureness with which it tells a mordant tale and its beauty lies in its disclosures of human courage and dignity. It is meager praise to call it one of the fine adult films of these times." He continued, "Miss Hellman's play tends to be somewhat static in its early stretches on the screen. With much of the action confined to one room in the American home, development depends largely on dialogue — which is dangerous in films. But the prose of Miss Hellman is so lucid, her characters so surely conceived and Mr. Shumlin has directed for such fine tension in this his first effort for the screen that movement is not essential. The characters propel themselves." In conclusion, he said, "An ending has been given the picture which advances the story a few months and shows the wife preparing to let her older son follow his father back to Europe. This is dramatically superfluous, but the spirit is good in these times. And it adds just that much more heroism to a fine, sincere, outspoken film."
Variety
called it "a distinguished picture . . . even better than its powerful original stage version. It expresses the same urgent theme, but with broader sweep and in more affecting terms of personal emotion. The film more than retains the vital theme of the original play. It actually carries the theme further and deeper, and it does so with passionate conviction and enormous skill . . . Just as he was in the play, Paul Lukas is the outstanding star of the film. Anything his part may have lost in the transfer of key lines to Bette Davis is offset by the projective value of the camera for closeups. His portrayal of the heroic German has the same quiet strength and the slowly gathering force that it had on the stage, but it now seems even better defined and carefully detailed, and it has much more vitality. In the lesser starring part of the wife Davis gives a performance of genuine distinction."
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
observed, "Paul Lukas here has a chance to be indisputably the fine actor he always has shown plenty signs of being. Bette Davis subdues herself to a secondary role almost with an air of gratitude for being able to at last be uncomplicatedly decent and admirable. It is not a very colorful performance, but quiet loyalty and restrained heroism do not furnish many outlets for histrionic show, and Miss Davis is artist enough not to throw any extra bits of it to prove she is one of the stars."
Paul Lukas won the Academy Award for Best Actor
, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (the first time the award was presented), and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
.
Lucile Watson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
but lost to Katina Paxinou
in For Whom the Bell Tolls
, and Dashiel Hammett was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay but lost to Philip G. Epstein
, Julius J. Epstein
, and Howard Koch
for Casablanca
.
released the film as part of the box set The Bette Davis Collection, Volume 3, which also includes The Old Maid, All This, and Heaven Too, In This Our Life
, and Deception.
Herman Shumlin
Herman Shumlin was a prolific Broadwaytheatrical director and theatrical producer beginning in 1927 with the play Celebrity and continuing through 1974 with a short run of As You Like It, notably with an all male cast...
. The screenplay by Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
is based on the 1941 play of the same title by Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
.
Plot
In 1940, German-born engineer Kurt Muller, his American wife Sara, and their children Joshua, Babette, and Bodo cross the Mexican border into the United States to visit Sara's brother David Farrelly and their mother Fanny in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
For the past seventeen years, the Muller family has lived in Europe, where Kurt responded to the rise of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
by engaging in anti-Fascist activities. Sara tells her family they are seeking peaceful sanctuary on American soil, but their quest is threatened by the presence of houseguest Teck de Brancovis, an opportunistic Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n count who has been conspiring with the Germans in the nation's capital.
Teck searches the Mullers' room and discovers a gun and money intended to finance underground operations in Germany in a locked suitcase. Shortly after, the Mullers learn resistance worker Max Freidech has been arrested, and because he once rescued Kurt from the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, Kurt plans to return to Germany to assist Max and those arrested with him. Aware Kurt will be in great danger if the Nazis discover he is returning to Germany, Teck demands $10,000 to keep silent, and Kurt kills him. Realizing the dangers Kurt faces, Fanny and David agree to help him escape.
Time passes, and when the Mullers fail to hear from Kurt, Joshua announces he plans to search for his father as soon as he turns eighteen. Although distraught by the possibility of losing her son as well as her husband, Sara resolves to be brave when the time comes for Joshua to leave.
Production
The Lillian Hellman play had enjoyed a respectable run of 378 performances on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, and Jack L. Warner paid $150,000 for the screen rights because he felt with its focus on patriotism
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
it would make an ideal and prestigious propaganda film
Propaganda film
The term propaganda can be defined as the ability to produce and spread fertile messages that, once sown, will germinate in large human cultures.” However, in the 20th century, a “new” propaganda emerged, which revolved around political organizations and their need to communicate messages that...
at the height of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Because Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
was involved with Now, Voyager
Now, Voyager
Now, Voyager is a 1942 American drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty....
, producer Hal B. Wallis
Hal B. Wallis
Hal B. Wallis was an American film producer.-Career:Harold Brent Wallis was born in Chicago in 1898. His family moved in 1922 to Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at Warner Bros...
began searching for another actress for the role of Sara Muller while Hellman's lover Dashiel Hammett began writing the screenplay at their farm in Pleasantville, New York
Pleasantville, New York
Pleasantville is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 7,019 at the 2010 census. It is located in the town of Mount Pleasant. Pleasantville is home to a campus of Pace University and to the Jacob Burns Film Center...
. Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
liked the material but felt the role was too small, and Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
expressed no interest whatsoever. Edna Best, Rosemary DeCamp
Rosemary DeCamp
Rosemary DeCamp was an American radio, film and television actress.DeCamp first came to fame in November 1937, when she took the role of Judy Price, the secretary of Dr. Christian in the long-running radio series of the same name. She made her film debut in Cheers for Miss Bishop and appeared in...
, and Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
also were considered.
For the role of Kurt Muller, Wallis wanted Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
. He, howevr, felt his French accent was wrong for the character, so the producer decided to cast Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...
, who had originated the role on Broadway and had been honored by the Drama League of New York
Drama League of New York
The Drama League of New York originated as a national organization begun in Chicago in 1910. The organization had two primary objectives: to influence the professional production of the best plays by alerting members to performances that warranted their support; and to ensure the continuity of...
for his performance.
Meanwhile, Hammett was sidelined by an injured back, and by the time he was ready to resume work on the script Now, Voyager was close to completion. Wallis sent Davis, a staunch supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
and a fierce opponent of the Nazi Party, the screenplay-in-progress and she immediately accepted the offer.
With Davis cast as Sara, Wallis encouraged Hammett to embellish what essentially was a secondary role to make it worthy of the leading lady's status as a star, and to open up the story by adding scenes outside the Farrelly living room, which had been the sole setting on stage. The Production Code Administration
Production Code Administration
The Production Code Administration was established by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1934. The PCA required all filmmakers to submit their films for approval before release.-See also:* Pre-Code* Joseph Breen* Will H. Hays...
was concerned that Kurt Muller escaped prosecution for his murder of Teck de Brancovis, and the Hays Office suggested it be established Kurt was killed by the Nazis at the end of the film in order to show he paid for his crime. Lillian objected and the studio agreed Kurt had been justified in shooting Teck, and the scene remained.
Filming began on June 15, 1942, only a week after Now, Voyager had ended production, and without a substantial vacation between projects Davis was on edge. As a result, she immediately clashed with Herman Shumlin, who had directed the play but had no experience in film, from the beginning and tended to ignore his suggestions.
Her emotional overacting prompted Wallis to send Shumlin numerous memos urging the director to tone down her performance. Shumlin threatened to quit because he was unhappy with cinematographer Merritt B. Gerstad
Merritt B. Gerstad
Merritt B. Gerstad was an American cinematographer of silent and early sound films....
, who eventually was replaced by Hal Mohr
Hal Mohr
Hal Mohr, A.S.C. was a famed movie cinematographer.-Career:In 1915, in an early example of an exploitation film peddled directly to theater owners, Mohr and Sol Lesser produced and directed a film The Last Night of the Barbary Coast...
in order to appease the director. Meanwhile, Davis also was at odds with Lucile Watson
Lucile Watson
-Career:Watson began her career on the stage debuting on Broadway in the play Hearts Aflame in 1902. Her next play was The Girl With Green Eyes, the first of several Clyde Fitch stories. At the end of 1903, Lucile appeared in Fitch's "Glad of It"...
, who was reprising the role of the mother she had portrayed on stage, because she was a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
whose political views sharply contrasted with those of the Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Davis.
Several exterior scenes shot on location in Washington had to be cut from the film prior to its release due to wartime restrictions on the filming of government buildings.
When Wallis announced he was giving Davis top billing, she argued it was ridiculous to do so given hers was a supporting role. The studio's publicity department argued it was her name that would attract an audience and, despite her resistance, the film's credits and all promotional materials listed her first.
Davis and Lukas reprised their roles for a radio adaptation that aired on the January 10, 1944 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater
The Screen Guild Theater
The Screen Guild Theater was a popular radio anthology series during the Golden Age of Radio, broadcast from 1939 until 1952, with leading Hollywood actors performing in adaptations of popular motion pictures such as Going My Way and The Postman Always Rings Twice.The show had a long run, lasting...
.
Cast
- Bette DavisBette DavisRuth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
..... Sara Muller - Paul LukasPaul LukasPaul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...
..... Kurt Muller - Geraldine FitzgeraldGeraldine FitzgeraldGeraldine Fitzgerald, Lady Lindsay-Hogg was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Early life:...
..... Marthe de Brancovis - Lucile WatsonLucile Watson-Career:Watson began her career on the stage debuting on Broadway in the play Hearts Aflame in 1902. Her next play was The Girl With Green Eyes, the first of several Clyde Fitch stories. At the end of 1903, Lucile appeared in Fitch's "Glad of It"...
..... Fanny Farrelly - Beulah BondiBeulah BondiBeulah Bondi was an American actress.Bondi began her acting career as a young child in theater, and after establishing herself as a stage actress, she reprised her role in Street Scene for the 1931 film version...
..... Anise - George CoulourisGeorge CoulourisGeorge Coulouris was a prominent English film and stage actor.-Early life:Coulouris was born in Manchester, England, the son of Abigail and Nicholas Coulouris, a merchant of Greek origin. He was brought up both in Manchester and nearby Urmston and was educated at Manchester Grammar School...
..... Teck de Brancovis - Donald WoodsDonald Woods (actor)Donald Woods was a Canadian-born American film and television actor whose career spanned six decades....
..... David Farrelly - Donald BukaDonald BukaDonald Buka was an American supporting actor in films and television from 1943 to 1971 when he appeared in A Memory of Two Mondays.He appeared in episodes of Dragnet, Ironside and The High Chaparral....
..... Joshua Muller
Critical reception
Bosley CrowtherBosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
of the New York Times called it "a distinguished film — a film full of sense, power and beauty" and added, "Its sense resides firmly in its facing one of civilization's most tragic ironies, its power derives from the sureness with which it tells a mordant tale and its beauty lies in its disclosures of human courage and dignity. It is meager praise to call it one of the fine adult films of these times." He continued, "Miss Hellman's play tends to be somewhat static in its early stretches on the screen. With much of the action confined to one room in the American home, development depends largely on dialogue — which is dangerous in films. But the prose of Miss Hellman is so lucid, her characters so surely conceived and Mr. Shumlin has directed for such fine tension in this his first effort for the screen that movement is not essential. The characters propel themselves." In conclusion, he said, "An ending has been given the picture which advances the story a few months and shows the wife preparing to let her older son follow his father back to Europe. This is dramatically superfluous, but the spirit is good in these times. And it adds just that much more heroism to a fine, sincere, outspoken film."
Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called it "a distinguished picture . . . even better than its powerful original stage version. It expresses the same urgent theme, but with broader sweep and in more affecting terms of personal emotion. The film more than retains the vital theme of the original play. It actually carries the theme further and deeper, and it does so with passionate conviction and enormous skill . . . Just as he was in the play, Paul Lukas is the outstanding star of the film. Anything his part may have lost in the transfer of key lines to Bette Davis is offset by the projective value of the camera for closeups. His portrayal of the heroic German has the same quiet strength and the slowly gathering force that it had on the stage, but it now seems even better defined and carefully detailed, and it has much more vitality. In the lesser starring part of the wife Davis gives a performance of genuine distinction."
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures was founded in 1909 in New York City, just 13 years after the birth of cinema, to protest New York City Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr.'s revocation of moving-picture exhibition licenses on Christmas Eve 1908. The mayor believed that the new medium...
observed, "Paul Lukas here has a chance to be indisputably the fine actor he always has shown plenty signs of being. Bette Davis subdues herself to a secondary role almost with an air of gratitude for being able to at last be uncomplicatedly decent and admirable. It is not a very colorful performance, but quiet loyalty and restrained heroism do not furnish many outlets for histrionic show, and Miss Davis is artist enough not to throw any extra bits of it to prove she is one of the stars."
Awards and nominations
The film won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture.Paul Lukas won the Academy Award for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (the first time the award was presented), and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
The New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor is one of the awards given by the New York Film Critics Circle to honor the finest achievements in filmmaking....
.
Lucile Watson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
but lost to Katina Paxinou
Katina Paxinou
Katina Paxinou was a Greek film and theatre actress.-Early life:Born Aikaterini Konstantopoulou in Piraeus, Greece, she trained as an opera singer, and appeared in the operatic version of Maeterlinck's "Sister Beatrice," with a score by Dimitri Mitropoulos, but changed career and joined the Greek...
in For Whom the Bell Tolls
For Whom the Bell Tolls (film)
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1943 film in Technicolor based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It stars Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff and Katina Paxinou. This was Ingrid Bergman's first technicolor film. Hemingway handpicked Cooper and Bergman for their roles. The film...
, and Dashiel Hammett was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay but lost to Philip G. Epstein
Philip G. Epstein
Philip G. Epstein was an American screenwriter most known for his adaptation in partnership with his twin brother, Julius, and others, of the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's which became the Academy Award-winning screenplay of the film Casablanca .Epstein was born in New York City and...
, Julius J. Epstein
Julius J. Epstein
Julius J. Epstein was an American screenwriter, who had a long career, best remembered for the adaptation - in partnership with his twin brother, Philip, and others - of the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's that became the screenplay for the film Casablanca , for which its team of writers...
, and Howard Koch
Howard Koch
Howard Koch is the name of:* Howard Koch , American screenwriter* Howard W. Koch , American film and TV director, producer* Hawk Koch , American film producer...
for Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
.
DVD release
On April 1, 2008, Warner Home VideoWarner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
released the film as part of the box set The Bette Davis Collection, Volume 3, which also includes The Old Maid, All This, and Heaven Too, In This Our Life
In This Our Life
In This Our Life is a 1942 American drama film, the second to be directed by John Huston. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Ellen Glasgow. The cast included the established stars Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters and...
, and Deception.