In December 1922, Ernst Lubitsch came to Hollywood at the invitation of “America’s sweetheart” Mary Pickford. Pickford wanted to have the acclaimed German director of Madame Dubarry and Anna Boleyn helm an adaptation of Charles Major’s historical novel Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. The idea was soon abandoned, however, in favour of a long-cherished project of Lubitsch’s: an adaptation of Faust. Lubitsch got as far as shooting a series of screen tests with different actors in the role of Mephistopheles in early 1923 before Pickford promptly shut the production down, having realised that she would not be playing the leading role, and the part of Marguerite would have marked too great a departure from her previous girlish roles. She later claimed her mother had intervened after learning that in the Faust story Marguerite kills her illegitimate child. Pickford and Lubitsch made Rosita instead. Pickford would subsequently make Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall with director Marshall Neilan, while Faust was famously adapted by F.W. Murnau in 1926.

Stefan Drößler and Oliver Hanley