Michael Curtiz by Alan K. Rode

"I think he had a formula and he knew that it worked."
--Ann Blyth on Michael Curtiz, quoted in Michael Curtiz:  A Life in Film by Alan Rode (University Press of Kentucky, 2017).

I was hoping that this biography would lead to resolving the question of whether Curtiz's Casablanca (1942) was an exception to the auteur theory (as Andrew Sarris originally said) or confirmation of it (as Sarris later said).   Rode gives considerable detail of Curtiz's career, from his early days at Warner Brothers through his less successful days as an independent in the waning days of the studio system.  Curtiz directed 178 films, in his native Hungary from 1912 to 1924 and then in America until 1961.  His best films were for Warner Brothers, including Casablanca, Mildred Pierce (1945) and
The Breaking Point (1950) but I would have to say that, based on Rode's book, Curtiz was more of craftsman than an artist:  his films were generally as good as his collaborators and cast.  Unfortunately Rode is more focused on the making of the films and how they did at the box office than the artistic and personal quality of the work, though he does divide the films into the good, the bad and the ugly and does making something of a case for some of the lesser-known films, including The Unsuspected (1947) and The Scarlet Hour (1956), though it is not clear whether Rode saw every available Curtiz film.

Curtiz comes across as something of a bully on the set, particularly with members of the crew, perhaps a sign of insecurity and difficulty with the English language, though a number of actors found him quite pleasant.  Curtiz's wife, Bess Meredyth, helped him with scripts but he was often unfaithful to her and fathered a number of children with various mistresses.  Mr. and Mrs. Curtiz led a rather lavish life and there was never enough money, a factor in Curtiz's apparent willingness to direct whatever script he was handed, though he always tried to make improvements and fought often over budgets. For me the value of Rode's book is as a starting point for a more rigorous analysis of Curtiz's films.