For the first time, read L. Ron Hubbard gushing about working with Leni Riefenstahl

[Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast]

We have a very special treat for you today, and it’s thanks to Mitch Brisker.

Mitch is one of the most interesting people to come out of Scientology in recent years, he has a memorable book out, and we’ve actually been talking to him for a couple of years. One of the first things he told us when we got to know him was how glad he was to see that we had written at The Daily Beast about L. Ron Hubbard’s interesting 1960 encounter with Adolf Hitler’s favorite filmmaker, documentarian Leni Riefenstahl.

Mitch said that very few people had known much about that story, but we got lucky when one of our readers tracked down an actual copy of the screenplay that Hubbard and Riefenstahl worked on together, an intended remake of Leni’s popular 1932 Alpine fantasy, Das blaue Licht (‘The Blue Light’).

After Hitler came to power in 1933, he tapped Riefenstahl to make two of the films most associated with the Nazi movement, 1935’s Triumph of the Will that captured a rally at Nuremberg and 1938’s Olympia, about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After the war, Riefenstahl was held in internment camps for three years, and after her release she fought a constant battle over her reputation, claiming that she had been naive about the Nazis and was not part of Hitler’s cabal.

In 1960, one of the people hoping she could make a comeback was a young Canadian film editor named Philip Hudsmith, who tried to raise enough money so Riefenstahl could remake The Blue Light and recapture her pre-war success. Initially, Hudsmith had persuaded W. Somerset Maugham to write the screenplay, but the aging writer pulled out when it became clear that the press was still quick to bring up Riefenstahl’s connection to the Nazis.

Hudsmith then turned to Hubbard, which seemed a curious choice. Hubbard had very little Hollywood experience, despite what he claimed later. His 1935 story “The Secret of Treasure Island” was turned into a 15-part serial in 1938, but there’s little evidence that he was involved in much else, despite his claims that he secretly contributed to many films, including Stagecoach.

Certainly, by 1960, whatever Hubbard had done in Hollywood was long behind him. By then he had moved to England where he was running his ten-year-old movement, Scientology, from an estate in Sussex.

In our investigation, we learned the reason why Hudsmith had turned to Hubbard after Maugham dropped out: Hudsmith himself was an early Scientologist. For the collaboration, Riefenstahl came to London, where she actually moved into an apartment Hubbard had there as the three of them worked on the screenplay. Ultimately, the movie was never made. But Hubbard and Riefenstahl continued to correspond for years afterwards.

Now, for the first time, thanks to Mitch Brisker, we have a real gem: The initial reaction from Hubbard after Hudsmith initially approached him about working on the project.

It’s a 4-page letter dated March 4, 1960 from Hubbard’s Sussex estate, Saint Hill Manor. Hubbard, of course, is flattered that he’s been chosen for the project, and so he can’t help waxing nostalgic about his Hollywood work as well as griping that greater success had eluded him, which he tends to blame on “Ed Muhl, manager of Universal-International.”

It’s also interesting to see Hubbard discuss his ideas for how the film could be modernized for a contemporary audience. Here’s our description of Riefenstahl’s original version of The Blue Light for our Daily Beast piece…

Das blaue Licht was Riefenstahl’s directorial debut, and starred her as Junta, a 19th-century woman who lives in a cabin in the Italian Dolomites. The residents of the nearby village of Santa Maria have decided she is a witch, and she does appear to have a special power: the ability to scale a sheer peak that casts a spell on the town every full moon with a mysterious blue light, which lures the young men of the village to their deaths when they try to climb it.

A German artist named Vigo then arrives at the Italian hamlet, and he falls for Junta but also discovers her secret about how to safely reach the blue light—which is actually a grotto filled with valuable crystals that catch the moonlight—and then informs the village, which plunders it. After Junta discovers that her secret cave has been looted, she falls to her death.

The film has very little dialogue and a thin plot, but its strength, particularly for its time, was Riefenstahl’s attention to the landscape, time-lapse photography, and stunning Alpine climbing sequences.

So, with that in mind, enjoy this look at Hubbard’s palpable excitement as he thought about the ways to rewrite this Alpine fantasy.

L. Ron Hubbard
Saint Hill Manor,
East Grinstead,
Sussex.

4th March, 1960

Philip Hudsmith, Esq.,
Adventure Film Productions Ltd.,
74, Marylebone High Street,
London, W.l.

Dear Philip,

Your courteous letter and an excellent treatment received.

This is a great story in all sense of the word. I feel honored that my box office has not been wholly forgotten and am very happy to be allowed to exercise another and fond part of my activities. I love scripting and always have and what wonderful stuff this “Blue Light” has. Further, I have an enthusiasm for out-doing Hollywood. It is a private vendetta. I wince when in California producers recall fondly the box office, for it has always been my opinion that it would have been much greater if they hadn’t gutted my scripts. And also Ed Muhl, the manager of Universal-International needs a lesson.

But please pardon these digressions. I easily could go into full cry at the whirr of a camera. Not even Hollywood could dim my belief that the cinema was a grand and total medium for a story — one becomes so impatient with cold, black words — and it is a great thing to see them come alive in co-operative artistry. So forgive the outburst.

The German/fantasy films have always been an inspiration to me. I believe there have not been more than half a dozen great movies in this class and all but one were German and “The Blue Light” was amongst them. But these pictures, I feel, were all before their proper time for America. Only a few cities had “foreign film” houses and these were small audiences. I feel to-day, whatever my opinion is worth, that a fine fantasy, stark enough, would sweep the American screen as well as in Europe. Apparently America is growing up to this and yet its own production units are too formulated to step out of their own bounds.

American TV has introduced a new note of drama and action that goes far beyond the coolness of current pictures. This new standard has changed the public taste. It is wild, stark, hyper-emotionalized. It takes some working to peak over the top of TV theater drama. Only now has the public appetite been whetted toward the German fantasy type. So to do one and do one right, straight in the tradition and a bit more so, would be to unlock the door of success for the U.S. market. Meanwhile in Europe, the Italian high drama has been keying into existence a receptive European audience for horror. “La Strada” is a fine example of success in both Europe and America.

I mention these views as my own, to prelude any suggestions I have and to clarify my attitude. I favor a full, all out rendition in the best Germanic fantasy tradition, up-dated to set a mark they won’t be able to reach for another quarter of a century.

The film could be set up, as well, with some unconscious responses planted smoothly to react like a bomb. Ed Muhl at Universal-International used some of such that I worked out for him in ’50 but he didn’t have the vehicles and they exceeded the holy Hollywood formula. “The Blue Light” could utilize such easily. The audience mind reacts in certain ways and it can be made up to fasten upon a picture such as this and not easily forget it.

Now, for comments on the treatment. At a cursory glance the frame is adequate. The internal story is excellent and needs only to be better counter-pointed. But the frame adds nothing. So we use a frame that does add something — unsolved, questions and contrast.

Here we have the lovely frailty of a legend. We are introducing it into a crass material world which in the end will destroy all its beauty. We should exaggerate this contract throughout — by sound, by characterization, by shot composition. For instance we can counter-point the elfin xylophone wind music of Junta’s life with the low brass such as the RCA piece composed for their “Adventure in Hi-Fidelity Sound” which I have. That’s not my province but I put it in to show what I mean by contrast.

The characters of the people, for a modern look, should be as I see it, sweet, gallant and lovely for Junta, Guzzio and Vigo but entirely fragile and purposeful only in beauty. For all the remaining cast we have low brass, self-righteousness, greed, and the purpose of stupid destruction. For instance Tonio can be a masterpiece of conceit and crass purpose, opposed by Guzzio a child knight-errant, beautiful of thought and deed and utterly unable to defend anything. In Vigo we find the quiet, dreamy hero and dismay the audience utterly by the hero betraying, since heros don’t.

By strengthening conflict and injecting tension and more than a hint of madness throughout, we could take any audience by storm and leave it slightly stunned. They would not forget Leni or “The Blue Light ” again.

I’ve worked out another frame for the story. Before the titles we see a bus coming through the mountains, always seen from caves or ledges. We see it all during the titles winding through the roads, closer and closer views. Then at the last title it stops and disgorges crass, loud tourists into Santa Maria and we flash up to the full swinging picture of the Junta held in a boy’s hand for sale. With sound “Who is that?” and we turn to exactly the same face of a tourist asking the boy. The tourist is the same actress but loudly painted, crass, destroyed, in company with the tourists, particularly two men. We already saw her alight when the bus disgorged. She was laughing. Now she is stunned. We go on with the business and run on into the legend. But it is this girl’s face, now hysterically laughing with the two nameless men, now stunned by the mentions of the mountain, that inspires old Vigo to tell the legend.

At the end we pan Vigo out to look at the mountain, just as in the treatment but there is a terrible question in his mind.

We finish on the tourist girl, trying to remember, half mad, then breaking into hysterical screams of laughter and demanding anything — music — drink. Then the elfin music that went with Vigo is finally wiped out and engulfed with brass.

The audience won’t consciously understand the frame but it will strike deep.

Perhaps that’s too brief to get it across. But we’re symbolizing the degradation of a free spirit.

Also that motivation of the legend can be improved by making the villagers believe that the real horde of crystal is in the inaccessible cave but when they find it, the crystal is no better and all they ruin is the beauty of the place. The real destruction of the cave comes about by its being weakened by the villagers and it gradually collapses as Junta, finding Guzzio dead in senseless gallant defence of the place, dances in it with her memory of Guzzio and Vigo. The last we see of her is the final dust of the collapse, and Vigo takes from all that shows of her, her hand, the next day in the ruins of the cave, the crystal.

Also in the opening of the legend we will have to point up the fancied valued of the cave and its inaccessibility by Tonio’s accosting her as she returns from it and Guzzio’s full belief it was he who drove Tonio off. We get faster into the legend by Tonio’s meeting Vigo and believes Vigo is a crystal buyer. “We get the little ones like this from a stream but the big flawless ones are up there. A fortune, a fortune.”

I can see this as a very tight script not too far departed from the original in intention. It is a brilliant story and only needs camera-telling.

I’ve put down my first thoughts on this for you. Remember they are just first thoughts. A play to strike the screens hard will take a lot of doing by one and all.

Could I please have answers to the following:

a. Will it be color?
b. How many scenes long should it run?
c. Is the casting done? If so could I have their names and some stills of them?
d. When do you plan to start shooting?

It will take not long to do a script once we have fully agreed on a final treatment. (I used to do fifty final scenes a day after the treatment was done and almost got boycotted by the eight scene boys.)

And by the way, you didn’t mention contract but I want no pay, only a very small piece of the gross if it smash hits, which I think you’ll find agreeable.

Here, then, as requested, are my views on the matter. I hope you don’t find them too lengthy, too strong or too much in conflict with present plans. My opinion is that we could make a truly great picture for high-key modern release and that an excellent springboard already exists.

Best Regards,

Ron

 As it turned out, the new version of the screenplay that Hubbard, Hudsmith, and Riefenstahl produced over those weeks in London would turn out to be very faithful to the original film. For our Daily Beast piece, we sought out an expert to give us his thoughts about the writing.

We showed the script to screenwriter John Brancato (The Game), who confirmed something we suspected—that it’s written in a style that was already outdated in 1960. He noted that it was very similar to the original movie, except in places where the dialogue makes things more explicit, and said the new version had a distinct lack of nuance. Brancato wondered if this was Hubbard’s contribution, and had something to do with what the Scientology leader had been writing recently.

“I wonder if he was conditioned from writing things in order to tell people what to do,” he said, referring to Hubbard’s many Scientology books and policies. “The script reads like dialogue by someone who only writes functional prose.”

Riefenstahl, in her memoir, said that Hudsmith was pushing hard to get the film made. So he arranged to have a screening of her film Olympia in London to generate publicity, but it backfired.

“Why didn’t you kill Hitler?” one of the journalists at the screening yelled at her, Riefenstahl said.

The project was dead.

But Hubbard and Riefenstahl continued to stay in touch. Thanks again to Mitch Brisker, we know that they communicated in 1979. Mitch has a copy of a letter that Riefenstahl wrote to Hubbard that year in either August or November, depending on whether she was using European dating (“8.11.1979”).

Dear Ron,

I was very much surprised and pleased to hear from you after such a long time.

I regret to say, that I cannot provide photos of a South African village, because I have never been in that part of the continent. I spent my time mostly in the Sudan or in East Africa.

However, I can send you a photo of a Nuba village, if you want. In this case I have to know, whether in colour or in black and white, and which size.

I hope you are doing well. I should be so glad to meet you again!

With kind regards,

Leni Riefenstahl

Mitch points out that Leni had addressed the letter to Saint Hill, but in 1979 Hubbard was actually in California at La Quinta, making films in the desert.

“This would have been the exact time frame, 1979, when Hubbard was writing the script for the tech film ‘How to set Up a Session and the E-meter,’ which takes place in the fictional East African country of ‘Mahali Araficy.’ I am fairly certain that Hubbard’s description of the country is based on photos sent to him by Riefenstahl. I’m very familiar with that film because I directed it (twice — the second time because it was one of the films starring Larry Anderson that had to be reshot after he defected). So, in yet another collaboration, Hubbard reached out to Riefenstahl for location research for one of his Scientology training films.”

Fascinating! And thank you to Mitch for bringing us these amazing new items.

Ron and Leni, still collaborating, nearly 20 years after their London adventure.

We hope even more of the correspondence between the three of them — Hubbard, Hudsmith, and Riefenstahl — eventually shows up.

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