It was just at this point, late in 1928, that Lillian and Reinhardt reached Hollywood. The press heralded their coming, recounted the story of Reinhardt’s life, and distinguished work; how now with a new and marvelous story, written by von Hofmannsthal in the great castle of Leopoldskron, for the “first lady of the screen,” he was ready to enter and electrify the picture world.
Good publicity, but it fell on deaf ears. Jolson HAD MADE the “Jazz Singer”! Chaos ruled in the studios. A dozen producers who didn’t know whether they stood on their heads or their heels, shouted that it was all just a passing fad, but meantime were knocking together “sound stages” and engaging people who could talk prettily to “Mike,” or sing, or do anything that would make a convincing noise.
Of course, everyone still believed in the old silent pictures, but nobody wanted to start one. Those already begun were dropped. Gloria Swanson, at great loss, stopped a half-completed film.
Reinhardt and Lillian were dazed. Joe Schenck, who in Salzburg had bid them hurry home to make their picture, now repudiated it—told them to make a talkie of it. Reinhardt protested, then went into the desert—not to fast and pray, but to do what Schenck demanded.
No use. He had been working for a year on a silent picture. Now to make the shadows speak ... impossible. Even the desert ... even fasting and prayer ... even “The Miracle Girl,” could not accomplish it. He lingered through the winter, hoping that those who said the talkie was just a fad were right. Then....
Lillian sighed as she remembered these sorrowful things:
“Hollywood, always more or less mad, was really an asylum. Even Mary was doing a talkie, ‘Coquette’[4]; Chester Morris was doing another ‘Alibi.’ Nobody was doing our beautiful old silent pictures, any more. Everywhere you heard the hammering of workmen building sound stages. Then—with Spring—Reinhardt returned to his neglected theatres, to his castle at Salzburg. It had been a great loss to him. I was not responsible, for he had signed his contract with United Artists before I had, but I felt terrible over it. He never blamed me, or was anything but fine about it. I did not see him again until last Summer (1930), when I was in Paris. We spoke of the pity of it all—his coming at the wrong time, when it was too late—too late and too early. Another year, and he might have been in the mood for a talkie. He had really come on a sincere errand. Most of those who come, come just for the money in it. He had come for a finer purpose.”