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Although the language barrier made communication with casts and crews difficult, he continued to invest time in preparation. Before directing his first Western, for example, he spent three weeks reading up on the histories of Texas and the lives of its leading men. He found it necessary to continue to intensively study American culture and habits in preparation for most other film genres. But he was quite satisfied being in Hollywood:

It's great to work here in this country. You have everything at hand to work with. The director doesn't have to worry about anything except his ideas. He can concentrate on those without worrying about his production otherwise.

The Third Degree (1926), available from the Library of saudi arabia email list Congress, made good use of Curtiz's experience in using moving cameras to create expressionistic scenes, such as a sequential shot from the perspective of a moving bullet. The film was the first of eight Curtiz films to feature Dolores Costello as its star.



1928 Curtiz film
Warner Bros. Curtiz had directed three more mediocre stories to ensure that he could take on larger projects, during which time he was able to familiarize himself with their methods and work with the technicians, including cameramen, whom he would use on later productions.:137 As biographer James C. Robertson explains, "In each case, Curtiz strove valiantly but unsuccessfully to revitalize unconvincing scripts through spectacular camera work and strong central performances, the most notable features of all those films.":137