Fritz Kortner
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Fritz Kortner (12 May 1892 – 22 July 1970) was an Austrian-born stage and film actor and theatre director. Kortner was born in Vienna as Fritz Nathan Kohn. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduating, he joined Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911 and then Leopold Jessner in 1916. Also in that year he made his first appearance in a silent film. He became one of Germany's best known character actors. His speciality was playing sinister and threatening roles, though he also appeared in the title role of 1930's Dreyfus. With the coming to power of the Nazis, Kortner, being Jewish, chose to flee Germany in 1933. He emigrated to the United States, where he found work as a character actor and theatre director for a time before returning to Germany in 1949. Upon his return, he became noted for his innovative staging and direction, particularly of classics such as his Richard III (1964) in which the king crawls over piles of corpses at the end. Kortner died in Munich. Description above from the Wikipedia article Fritz Kortner, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
No description available.
German Film Award
Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.
Film Emigration from Nazi Germany
An adventurous young man goes off to find himself and loses his socialite fiancée in the process. But when he returns 10 years later, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even though she is already married.
The Razor's Edge
George Taylor returns from WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, while trying to track down his old identity, he stumbles onto a three year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.
Somewhere in the Night
Originally named "The Clairvoyant" presenting the many talents of parapsychologist Elsbeth Günther-Geffers. First banned, later extensively reworked.
The Somnambulist
The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.
Pandora's Box
No description available.
Das Profil
A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he is horrified to learn they once belonged to a murderer.
The Hands of Orlac
No description available.
Emilia Galotti
A Nazi propaganda film made to promote anti-Semitism among the German people. Newly-shot footage of Jewish neighborhoods in recently-conquered Poland is combined with preexisting film clips and stills to defame the religion and advance Hitler's slurs that its adherents were plotting to undermine European civilization.
The Eternal Jew
In post-war Europe, a diverse group of passengers aboard a U.S. Army train to bombed-out Frankfurt becomes involved in a Nazi assassination plot.
Berlin Express
A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.
Hitler: A Career
The Hitler Gang adopts the style of a gangster film as it charts Adolf Hitler’s rise from small-time politico to dictator of Germany.
The Hitler Gang
No description available.
Moderne Ehen
In 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid rules the Turkish Empire, but he is faced with the threat of revolt by the Young Turk party. He allows Hilmi Pasha, the leader of the Young Turks, to return from exile and form the country's first constitutional government. With tensions still growing, chief of police Kadar Pasha assassinates Hassan Bey, the leader of the Old Turk party, and makes it look as if a Young Turk committed the crime, in order to give Abdul an excuse for arresting the Young Turk leaders. Meanwhile, Abdul becomes infatuated with a visiting Austrian singer. When she rejects his advances, she endangers both herself and her fiancé, a Turkish officer who also knows who really shot Hassan Bey.
Abdul the Damned
Professor Mauthner, after many years of exile (having emigrated in 1933 to the USA), returns to Germany in 1948. He can in fact return to his teaching post, but the rejection and petty intrigues of his reactionary colleagues and students make his work almost unbearable.
The Last Illusion
Austrian actor Franz Huber, known for his impressions, is captured by the Gestapo and forced into plastic surgery to become Hitler's body double. Their plan is to poison Hitler and use Huber to take control of the Reich. Meanwhile, Huber's wife Anna sees her life coming undone as her husband has disappeared and her two sons are indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth.
The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler
Musical retelling of the "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" Arabian Nights tale.
Chu Chin Chow
At the height of Reign of Terror Maximilien Robespierre orchestrates the trial and execution of several of his fellow leading French revolutionaries including Georges Danton.
Danton
The fate of a French aristocrat is revealed in this historical costume drama, who, in 1792, finds herself confronted with the choice of either standing with her peers or becoming a revolutionary.