Trivia

Completing the film short, the ballet group returned to New York City to ponder their fate. The Ballet Russe impresario Rene Blum returned to Paris. Blum was arrested December 12, 1941 in his Parisian home. Among the first Jews to be arrested in Paris by the French police after France was defeated and occupied by the German Regime, he was held in the Beaune-La-Ronde camp, then in the Drancy deportation camp. On September 23, 1942, he was shipped to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was later killed by the Nazis.

Included on the Blu-ray release of Le faucon maltais (1941).

In 1939, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo remained in New York City after their American and South American tour ended. With the unstable world conditions in England, France, Poland, and the Nazi-European war expansion, the Ballet Russe company directors' decision was to keep the company members safe in the United States.

In 1931, Colonel Wassily de Basil (a Russian entrepreneur from Paris) and Rene Blum (ballet director of the Monte Carlo Opera) founded the "Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo" giving its first performance in Monte Carlo in 1932. Sergei Diaghilev alumni Léonide Massine and George Balanchine worked as choreographers with the company, and Lauren Toub was principal dancer. Barbara Karinska joined the company when the company had relocated to Monte Carlo for a season of performances, prior to appearing in the winter Paris season of dance programming. Karinskay had been hired in 1932 to design costumes and to construct, cut, sew, and build the Ballet Russe repertoire's costume wardrobe, with a lengthy association with the dance company history. Because of the Nazi world war crisis affecting both France and England, Blum relocated his Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo dance company to London from Paris in September, 1939 for a London showcase fall repertoire performance season. Upon completion of the company's London dance engagement, the entire Ballet Russe dance company immediately sailed for an American concert-tour of the United States and South America. Karinska, in late 1939-early 1940, as part of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo dance company, was engaged by Blum in London as the company's touring-wardrobe mistress, thereby Karinska hitched her escape from Britain, sailing with the Russian dance troupe to New York City. Upon Karinska's arrival in NYC, Karinska contacted Balanchine, who gave her a small second floor room in his ballet school building both to live in and to work from. The Ballet Russe dance company was to open their NY season, premiering a new ballet titled "Bacchanal", designed by Salvador Dalí, at the Metropolitan Opera House. The ballet's stage sets had been built during their London season, with all of the scenic stage drops painted in London, but the costumes designed by Dali had been constructed/built by Chanel's Paris atelier. Unable to get the wardrobe out of Paris, France, Karinska, arriving with the company in NYC, working from color-photographs of Dali's colorful costume sketches, constructed the ballet's costumes in two weeks, delivered to the Metropolitan Opera House stage for the ballet's premier performances by taxi cabs.

It's ironic that this short would be paired with Le faucon maltais (1941) on DVD, with the director Jean Negulesco's second film directorial assignment (after Singapore Woman (1941)) being The Maltese Falcon. Previously working as a second unit director on loan to Warner Brothers, Negulesco signed a contract in 1940 to direct short features. Between 1941 and 1944, Negulesco turned out a staple of shorts, generally of a musical nature and often featuring popular big bands, like those of Joe Reichman, Freddy Martin, and Jan Garber. His first feature film directing assignment was The Maltese Falcon, but he was by [link=nm0001379 after two months. Coincidentally, that was Huston's first directing job. Huston had written the screenplay adaption, with back room politicking, replacing Negulesco.