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Creator
Weinberg, Herman G.
Call number
*T-Mss 1980-003
Physical description
12.38 linear feet (49 boxes)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Herman G. Weinberg collection, *T-Mss 1980-003. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Repository
Billy Rose Theatre Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Herman G. Weinberg was an American writer, foreign film translator, teacher, and film historian working from the 1920s to the 1980s. The Herman G. Weinberg collection consists of scrapbooks containing clippings, correspondence, halftones, photographs, radio scripts, ephemera, and assorted film festival material.

Biographical/historical information

Herman G. Weinberg, writer, foreign film translator, teacher, and film historian, was born in New York City on August 6, 1908. He entered the motion picture industry in 1927 as a musical consultant for the scoring of foreign silent films and then worked as a U.S. correspondent for various European film periodicals. He was a theater manager in Baltimore and New York during the 1930s and 1940s.

In the 1930s Weinberg took on another job in the film industry, subtitling major foreign films. Over the course of his career he wrote subtitles for over 300 films, including La Strada, Rome: Open City, Paisan, Grand Illusion, The Bicycle Thief, Four Hundred Blows, and Shoeshine. Weinberg translated films originally written in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Greek, Czechoslovak, Swedish, Japanese, Finnish and Hindustani.

He wrote articles and film criticism for many periodicals and taught film history at City College in New York. His books include scholarly works like The Lubitsch Touch, Saint Cinema, The Complete "Greed", Stroheim: a Pictorial Record, and The Complete "Wedding March". He also published an autobiography, A Manhattan Odyssey.

Weinberg was married to Etta Pollano and had one daughter, writer and photographer Gretchen Berg. Weinberg died in New York City on November 7, 1983.

Scope and arrangement

The Herman G. Weinberg collection consists of scrapbooks containing clippings, correspondence, photographs, and programs, writings, and diverse ephemera collected or created by Weinberg in his career as a translator and subtitler and as a film historian and author.

Correspondence pertaining to Weinberg's career as a subtitler includes invitations to screenings, corrections of his translations, letters arranging translation jobs, and letters discussing censorship battles and rules. Correspondence pertaining to Weinberg's career as an author of film scholarship is represented by letters setting up interviews, letters from directors discussing and assessing their own films, fan letters, suggestions, solicitations, and agreements with editors and publishers. His personal life and life and position as a notable member of the international film community are represented with holiday cards and personal notes discussing travel, new publications on film, and describing major film industry events. Weinberg's promiment correspondents include Louise Brooks, Claude Chabrol, Charles Chaplin, René Clair, Marlene Dietrich, Pauline Kael, Stanley Kubrick, Ernst Lubitsch, M. L. Menken, Jean Renoir, Joseph von Sternberg, Erich von Stroheim, François Truffault, King Vidor, and Orson Welles.

Writings consist of articles, reviews, and short pieces, as well as published letters written by Weinberg. These writings discuss historical, aesthetic, moral and cultural aspects of both American and international films and the film industry between 1929 and 1983. Weinberg's writings appeared in publications such as Cinema, Cinemages, Film Culture, Hollywood Quarterly, and Sight & Sound. Clippings in this collection include newspaper and magazine articles, press releases, and newsletters documenting Weinberg's career as a subtitler, scholar and writer.

Other items created or collected by Weinberg when he worked as a film teacher, a public relations consultant and a theatre manager include sheet music, programs, press kits, drawings and graphics, photographs, film festival brochures, correspondence, and clippings.

The Herman G. Weinberg collection is arranged in two series:

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Gretchen Berg in 1985.

Revision History

Added contents of Box 50 (2022-04)

Full detailed descriptions for scrapbooks and correspondence added and frontmatter updated. (2024-07)

Processing information

Processed by Diana Bertolini in 2013.

Using the collection

Location

Billy Rose Theatre Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Conditions Governing Use

The author/creator retains copyright of materials. For information on obtaining permission to publish, contact the Theatre Division at theatrediv@nypl.org.