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- Patricia Highsmith was born on 19 January 1921 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. She was a writer, known for The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Strangers on a Train (1951) and Carol (2015). She died on 4 February 1995 in Locarno, Switzerland.
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Robert Siodmak (8 August 1900 - 10 March 1973) was a German-born, American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of stylish, unpretentious Hollywood films noirs he made in the 1940s.
Siodmak (pronounced SEE-ODD-MACK) was born in Dresden, Germany, the son of Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak. His parents were both from Jewish families in Leipzig (the myth of his American birth in Memphis, Tennessee was necessary for him to obtain a visa in Paris during World War II). He worked as a stage director and a banker before becoming editor and scenarist for Curtis Bernhardt in 1925 (Bernhardt would direct a film of Siodmak's story "Conflict" in 1945). At twenty-six he was hired by his cousin, producer Seymour Nebenzal, to assemble original silent movies from stock footage of old films. Siodmak worked at this for two years before he persuaded Nebenzal to finance his first feature, the silent chef d'oeuvre, "Menschen am Sonntag" ("People on Sunday") in1929. The script was co-written by Billy Wilder and Siodmak's brother Curt Siodmak, later the screenwriter of "The Wolf Man" (1941). It was the last German silent and also included such future Hollywood artists as Fred Zinnemann, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Eugen Schufftan. His next film--the first at UFA to use sound--was the 1930 comedy "Abschied" for writers Emeric Pressburger and Irma von Cube, followed by "Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht," another comedy, yet quite different and unusual, a likely product of Billy Wilder's imagination (remade a noir, "DOA," in 1950). But in his next film, the crime thriller "Stürme der Leidenschaft," with Emil Jannings and Anna Sten, Siodmak found a style that would become his own.
With the rise of Nazism and following an attack in the press by Hitler's minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels in 1933 after viewing "Brennendes Geheimnis" ("The Burning Secret"), Siodmak left Germany for Paris. His creativity flourished, as he worked for the next six years in a variety of film genres, from comedy ("Le sexe fable" and "La Vie Parisienne" ) to musical ("La crise est finie," with Danielle Darrieux) to drama ("Mister Flow," "Cargaison blanche," "Mollenard"--compare Gabrielle Dorziat's shrewish wife with that of Rosalind Ivan's in "The Suspect"--and the superb "Pièges," with Maurice Chevalier and Erich Von Stroheim). While in France, he was well on his way to becoming successor to Rene Clair, until Hitler again forced him out. Siodmak arrived in Hollywood in 1939, where he made 23 movies, many of them widely popular thrillers and crime melodramas, which critics today regard as classics of film noir.
Beginning in 1941, he first turned out several B-films and programmers for various studios before he gained a seven-year contract with Universal Studios in 1943. The best of those early films are the thriller "Fly by Night" in 1942, with Richard Carlson and Nancy Kelly, and in 1943 the touching weepie "Someone to Remember," with Mable Paige in a signature role. As house director, his services were often used to salvage troublesome productions at the studio. On Mark Hellinger's production "Swell Guy" (1946), for instance, Siodmak was brought in to replace Frank Tuttle only six days after completing work on "The Killers." Siodmak worked steadily while under contract, overshadowed by high profile directors, like Alfred Hitchcock, with whom he had been often compared by the press.
At Universal, Siodmak made yet another B-film, "Son of Dracula"(1943), the third and best in a trilogy of Dracula movies (based on his brother Curt's original story). His second feature, and first A-film, was the Maria Montez/Jon Hall vehicle, "Cobra Woman" (1944), made in garish Technicolor (Montez's cobra dance alone is worth the price of admission).
His first all-out noir was "Phantom Lady" (1944), for staff producer Joan Harrison, Universal's first female executive and Alfred Hitchcock's former secretary and script assistant. A classic, however flawed, it showcased Siodmak's skill with camera and editing to dazzling effect, but no more so than in the iconic jam-session sequence with Elisha Cook Jr. in throes on the drums. Following the critical success of "Phantom Lady," Siodmak directed "Christmas Holiday" (1944) with Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly (Hans J. Salter received an Oscar nomination for best music). Beginning with this film, his work in Hollywood attained the stylistic and thematic characteristics that are evident in his later noirs. "Christmas Holiday," adapted from a W. Somerset Maugham novel by Herman J. Mankiewicz, was Durbin's most successful feature, which she considered her only good film (and that Mankiewicz said was among his work in the 40s of which he was most proud). Siodmak's use of black-and-white cinematography and urban landscapes, together with his light-and-shadow designs, formed the basic structure of classic noir films. In fact, he often collaborated with cinematographers, such as Nicholas Musuraca, Elwood Bredell, and Franz Planer, to achieve in his films the Expressionist look he had cultivated in his early years at UFA (for "Christmas Holiday," he instructed Bredell in the use of deep-focus photography, which Gregg Toland had perfected for "Citizen Kane"). During Siodmak's tenure, Universal made the most of the noir style in "The Suspect," "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" and "The Dark Mirror," but the capstone was "The Killers" in 1946, Burt Lancaster's film debut and Ava Gardner's first dramatic, featured role. A critical and financial success, it earned Siodmak his only Oscar nomination for direction in Hollywood (his German production "The Devil Strikes at Night" ("Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam"), based on the true story of serial killer Bruno Lüdke, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1957). While still under contract at Universal, Siodmak worked on loan out to RKO for the thriller "The Spiral Staircase," which he edited freely, without taking screen credit. For 20th Century Fox and producer Darryl F. Zanuck, he directed, partly on location in New York City, the crime noir "Cry of the City" in 1948, and in 1949 for MGM he tackled its lux production "The Great Sinner," but the prolix script proved unmanageable for Siodmak who relinquished direction to the dependable and bland Mervyn LeRoy. On loan out to Paramount in 1949, he made for producer Hal B. Wallis his penultimate American noir "The File on Thelma Jordan," with Barbara Stanwyck at her most fatal--and sympathetic. That she can be both is owed entirely to Siodmak who saw in this film a thematic link with "The Suspect" and "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry," with the failed lovers of these films and significantly their tragic conclusions (ten years later he addressed the same theme in "The Rough and the Smooth"). Perhaps his finest American noir--although not his last--is "Criss Cross" that was to reunite him not only with Lancaster, but also "The Killers" producer Mark Hellinger, who died suddenly before production began in 1949. Working without the hands-on control of Hellinger again, Siodmak was able to make this film his own as he could not the earlier film. Yvonne De Carlo's working-class femme fatal (a high mark in her career) completes the deadly triangle, along with Lancaster and Dan Duryea: the archetype of doomed attraction central to all Siodmak's noirs, but the one he could fully express to its nihilistic conclusion.
Siodmak immersed himself in the creative process and genuinely loved working with actors; in fact, he was considered an actor's director, discovering Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine, Tony Curtis, Debra Paget, Maria Schell, Mario Adorf, and skillfully directing actresses, such as Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Dorothy McGuire, Yvonne de Carlo, Barbara Stanwyck, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Ella Raines.[1]
He directed Charles Laughton (a close friend) and George Sanders, actors with indelible personas, and got from both perhaps the unlikeliest, most natural and under-played performances of their careers. He managed with Lancaster to capture a youthful vulnerability--despite the actor's age (he was 33)--that, watching him in "The Killers," surprises us even today. He accomplished the impossible and got a believable, dramatic performance from Gene Kelly who never before or since looked so (intentionally) frightening on screen. But above all, it must be acknowledged, he made audiences sit up and notice Ava Gardner and her potential to ruin men.
Before leaving Hollywood for Europe in 1952, following the problematic production "The Crimson Pirate" for Warner Bros. and producer Harold Hecht, his third and last film with Burt Lancaster (Siodmak dubbed the chaotic experience "The Hecht Follies"), Siodmak had directed some of the era's best films noirs (twelve in all), more than any other director who worked in that style. However, his identification with film noir, generally unpopular with American audiences, may have been more of a curse than a blessing.
He often expressed his desire to make pictures "of a different type and background" than the ones he had been making for ten years. Nevertheless, he ended his Universal contract with one last noir, the disappointing "Deported" (1951) which he filmed partly abroad (Siodmak was among the first refugee directors to return to Europe after making American films). The story is loosely based on the deportation of gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Siodmak had hoped Loretta Young would star, but settled for the Swedish actress Marta Toren.
Those "different type" of films he had made--"The Great Sinner" (1949) for MGM, "Time Out of Mind" (1947) for Universal (which Siodmak also produced), "The Whistle at Eaton Falls" (1951) for Columbia Pictures (Ernest Borgnine's debut and Dorothy Gish's return to the screen)--all proved ill-suited to his noir sensibilities (although in 1952 "The Crimson Pirate," despite the difficult production, was a surprising and pleasing departure--in fact, Lancaster believed it was inspiration for the tongue-in-cheek style of the James Bond films).
The five months he collaborated with Budd Schulberg on a screenplay tentatively titled "A Stone in the River Hudson," an early version of "On the Waterfront," was also a major disappointment for Siodmak. In 1954 he sued producer Sam Spiegel for copyright infringement. Siodmak was awarded $100,000, but no screen credit. His contribution to the original screenplay has never been acknowledged.
Siodmak's return to Europe in 1954 with a Grand Prize nomination at the Cannes Film Festival for his remake of Jacques Feyder's "Le grand jeu" proved a misstep, despite its stars, Gina Lollobrigida (two of them) and Arletty in the role originated by Françoise Rosay, Feyder's wife. In 1955, Siodmak returned to the Federal Republic of Germany to make "Die Ratten," with Maria Schell and Curd Jurgens, winning the Golden Berlin Bear at the 1955 Berlin Film Festival. It was the first in a series of films critical of his homeland, during and after Hitler, which included the remarkable "Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam," both thriller and social artifact of Germany under Nazi rule, shot in documentary style reminiscent of "Menschen am Sontag" and "Whistle at Eaton Falls," and in 1960, "Mein Schulfreund," an absurdist comedy, dark and strange, with Heinz Ruhmann as a postal worker attempting to reunite with childhood friend Hermann Goering. Between these films, and "Mein Vater, der Schauspieler" in 1956, with O. W. Fischer (the German Rock Hudson), he took a detour into Douglas Sirk territory with the sordid melodrama, "Dorothea Angermann" in 1959, featuring Germany's star Ruth Leuwerik. Later the same year he left Germany for Great Britain to film "The Rough and the Smooth," with Nadja Tiller and Tony Britton, yet another noir, but much meaner and gloomier than anything he had made in America (compare its downbeat ending with that of "The File on Thelma Jordan"). He followed with "Katia" also in 1959, a tale of Czarist Russia, with twenty-one-year-old Romy Schneider, mistakenly titled in America "The Magnificent Sinner," recalling--unfavorably--Siodmak's other costume melodrama. In 1961, "L'affaire Nina B," with Pierre Brasseur and Nadja Tiller (again), returned Siodmak to familiar ground in a slick, black-and-white thriller about a pay-for-hire Nazi hunter, which could be argued was the start of the many spy themed films so popular in the 1960s. In 1962, the entertaining "Escape from East Berlin," with Don Murray and Christine Kaufman, had all the characteristic style of a Siodmak thriller, but was one that he later dismissed as something he had made for "little kids in America." His work in Germany returned to programmers like those that had begun his career in Hollywood 23 years earlier. From 1964-1965, he made a series of films with former Tarzan Lex Barker: "Der Schut," "Der Schatz der Azteken," and "Die Pyramide des Sonnengottes," all taken from the western, adventure novels of Karl May and made for little kids in both Germany and America.
His return to Hollywood film-making in 1967 to make the wide-screen western "Custer of the West" was another disappointment (it had been a project originally intended for Akira Kurosawa). With Robert Shaw in the title role and his wife Mary Ure as Mrs. Custer, it is the oddest of the Custer film biographies, yet interesting in its contemporary portrayal of Custer's anti-social individualism.
He ended his career with a six-hour, two-part toga and chariot epic, "Kampf um Rom" (1968), a more campy work (perhaps intentionally) than "Cobra Woman" had been. There was a brief and profitable foray into television in Great Britain with the series "O.S.S." (1957-58). Siodmak was last seen publicly in an interview for Swiss television at his home in Ascona in 1971. He died alone in 1973 in Locarno, seven weeks after his wife's death.
The British Film Institute ran a retrospective of his career in April and May of 2015.- One of Britain's biggest female stars of the post-war years, she appeared at various positions (3rd being the highest) in the British and Motion Picture Herald popularity polls, between 1945-50. She was pretty, vivacious and charming, which was all most of her early roles called for. She appeared in a number of the hugely popular wartime Gainsborough costume dramas, including Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) and The Wicked Lady (1945). She also made one film in Hollywood, the Technicolor Canyon Passage (1946). Her best acting opportunities were in The Brothers (1947), as a sexy orphan wreaking havoc on a remote Scottish Island, and When the Bough Breaks (1947), a stark unwed mother drama.
She moved to Paris upon her second marriage in 1949 and began to work increasingly in European cinema, filming in France and Italy (and a French-Canadian feature in Quebec). She returned to England in the late fifties, making three more films (her last) and a few TV appearances before retiring in 1963. She lived in Locarno, Switzerland for many years and died there in December 2003. - Writer
- Actor
- Script and Continuity Department
The German novelist Erich Maria Remarque was born in Osnabrück in 1898. His first novel, the famous anti-war epic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), was written based on his experiences as a soldier in WWI, and published in 1929. He moved to Switzerland until 1939 and later emigrated to the US. He died in 1970 in Locarno, Switzerland.- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Ruth-Maria Kubitschek was born on 2 August 1931 in Komotau, Czechoslovakia [now Chomutov, Czech Republic]. She was an actress and writer, known for Das Erbe der Guldenburgs (1987), Frau Ella (2013) and Sperrbezirk (1966). She was married to Götz Friedrich. She died on 1 June 2024 in Ascona, Locarno, Switzerland [Lago Maggiore].- Carl Schell was born on 14 November 1927 in Wolfsberg, Carinthia, Austria. He was an actor, known for The Blue Max (1966), Escape from East Berlin (1962) and No Man's Land (1962). He was married to Stella Mooney and Candida Robert. He died on 6 June 2019 in Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland.
- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Hans Richter was born on 6 April 1888 in Berlin, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947), 8 X 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1955) and Chesscetera (1957). He was married to Frida Ruppel, Erna Niemeyer, Maria van Vanselow and Elisabeth Steiner. He died on 1 February 1976 in Locarno, Switzerland.- Walo Lüönd was born on 13 April 1927 in Zug, Switzerland. He was an actor, known for Tatort (1970), Tristan and Isolde (1981) and Auf Achse (1980). He was married to Eva-Maria Bendig. He died on 17 June 2012 in Locarno, Switzerland.
- Janos Bekessy was born in 1911 in Budapest as the son of two converted Hungarian Jews who moved to Vienna after World War I. His father Imre Bekessy was one of the most successful newspaper publishers in his day, and also one of the most controversial, since he was said to use his editorial powers for blackmailing people - this was one of the reasons why Janos Bekessy changed his name to Hans Habe. Habe finished school in Vienna and studied one semester in Heidelberg but after that became a journalist having major success after 20 years finding out that Hitler's real family name was 'Schicklgruber' and thus embarrassing the Nazis. Later he worked for a newspaper in Prague and started writing novels - a total of 25. When the Nazis came to Vienna in 1938 his novels were burnt in public and in 1939 Habe joint the French Foreign Legion in order to fight against Nazi Germany. Getting caught he hid his Jewish identity and escaped via Vichy-France and Spain to the United States. Being on Roosevelt's list of anti-Nazi authors he was given asylum and joined the US-army for D-Day as an anti-Nazi propaganda officer working with many Jewish, German authors like 'Stefan Heym' and 'Ernst Cramer'. After the fall of the Third Reich the Americans ordered Habe to found and organize democratic newspapers in Germany: At the top of his career he led 18 newspapers with a total of 8 million pieces being published (e.g. 'Neue Zeitung').
- Franziska Zu Reventlow was born on 18 May 1871 in Husum, Germany. She was married to Alexander von Rechenberg-Linten and Walter Lübke. She died on 26 July 1918 in Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland.
- Hans Richter was born on 6 April 1888 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor, known for Smil og Taare (1923) and Rovedderkoppen (1916). He died on 1 February 1976 in Locarno, Switzerland.
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Edwin Loehrer was born on 27 November 1906 in Andwil, St. Gallen, Switzerland. Edwin is known for The Gang of Four (1989). Edwin died on 10 August 1991 in Locarno, Switzerland.- Horst Budjuhn was born on 30 July 1910 in Bromberg, Posen, Germany [now Bydgoszcz, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Poland]. He was a writer, known for Die mißbrauchten Liebesbriefe (1940), Im Weissen Rössl (1952) and Constable Studer (1939). He died on 24 December 1985 in Locarno, Switzerland.
- Karl Otten was born on 29 July 1889 in Oberkrüchten, Viersen, Germany. He was a writer, known for Comradeship (1931). He was married to Ellen Kroner and Marie Rosalie Friedmann. He died on 20 March 1963 in Locarno-Muralto, Tessin, Switzerland.
- Transportation Department
Silvio Moser was born on 24 April 1941 in Zurich, Switzerland. He is known for Le Mans (1971) and Formula 1 (1950). He died on 26 May 1974 in Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland.- Xanti Schawinsky was born on 26 March 1904 in Basel, Switzerland. He was an actor, known for Schawinsky (1971). He was married to Gisela Hatzky and Irene von Debschitz. He died on 11 September 1979 in Locarno, Tessin, Switzerland.
- Composer
- Music Department
Ernst Fischer was born on 10 April 1900 in Magdeburg, Germany. He was a composer, known for Die lustigen Weiber (1936) and Vor Gericht seh'n wir uns wieder (1978). He died on 10 July 1975 in Locarno, Switzerland.- Josef Somlo was born on 5 October 1884 in Pápa, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. He was a producer, known for The Inheritance (1947), Mädchen zum Heiraten (1932) and Be Mine Tonight (1932). He died on 29 November 1973 in Locarno, Switzerland.