
Géza von Cziffra
Directing
Biography
Géza von Cziffra (19 December 1900 – 28 April 1989) was a Hungarian and Austrian film director and screenwriter. Cziffra was a Banat German in origin, born in 1900 in Arad in the Banat region, at that date in the Kingdom of Hungary, now in Romania. Cziffra made films from the 1930s onwards, at first in Hungary, and from 1936 in Germany as well, where he was initially more active as a screenwriter. In 1945, in Prague, then occupied by the Germans, he made the film Leuchtende Schatten ("Glowing Shadows"). As adviser for the criminal police, he was assigned SS-Sturmbannführer Eweler, a member of the SD and brother of the actress Ruth Eweler. After some time, Cziffra banned Eweler from the studios for excessive and obstructive criticism. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested and taken to the Prague Gestapo Headquarters in the Pecec Palace, where he was accused of having eaten several times in the Czech restaurant "Neumann" without using ration stamps. He was eventually dispatched to Pankrác Prison, the remand and interrogation prison of Prague, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, beginning on 12 February. He was released from detention on 19 April, shortly before the end of the war. In 1945, in Vienna, Cziffra founded the first post-war Austrian film production company: Cziffra-Film. Principally, and for preference, he made light entertainment and musical films, with well-known German and Austrian actors such as Peter Alexander, Rudolf Platte, Senta Berger and Hubert von Meyerinck. Through the input of musicians like Bill Ramsey or Bully Buhlan, the films mostly progressed to being musical revues with a local Austrian slant and flavour (Heimatfilme). Cziffra also worked as an actor himself, and later in his life published a number of books. He was married to the actress Ursula Justin, who starred in six of his films in the 1950s. He died on 28 April 1989 in Diessen am Ammersee in Bavaria. His remains are interred in the crematorium in the Ostfriedhof, Munich.
Known For

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NDR Talk Show

A long-running German-language entertainment television show based on the format of the British show You Bet! and the American show Wanna Bet?.
Wetten, dass..?
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German Film Award

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Heut' abend
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Je später der Abend

Ingeborg starts her new job at the hospital. Her boss is the venerable Professor Burger, a famous heart surgeon who devotes himself entirely to his work. His son, womanizer Manfred, is an assistant doctor on the same ward. After an affair between Ingeborg and Manfred, the father sends his son away and dismisses Ingeborg, unaware that she is expecting Manfred's child. She gives birth in secret. Only when Manfred has a car accident and the father saves his son's life in a costly operation is there a reconciliation at his bedside.
Nachtschwester Ingeborg

A scientist and his nephew are hosts of Lana, queen of the Amazons, while other crew men try to find and take hold of the legendary Amazons' treasure.
Lana: Queen of the Amazons

Peter and Paul are old friends who happen to meet again. Both are dentists and both want to get married the next day.
Dog Days

Peter, a young, bankrupt homeowner, wants to sell his house and move in with his aunt Agathe in the countryside. In the meantime, his friend Albert and his niece Inge are supposed to guard the house. When he learns that the three crooks Boxer-Franz, Taschen-August, and Klau-Maxe are already living there, he breaks into his own house, where he encounters the three burglars, who mistake him for a "colleague." The crooks expect him to pretend to be the homeowner and want to keep the proceeds for themselves.
Kriminaltango

Schoolgirl Josefine learns from an early age to use sex to gain advantages. The school's gym teacher is arrested and accused of indecent behavior but the court dismisses the case when Josefine uses her female charm on the jurors.
Should a Schoolgirl Tell?

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Der Vogelhändler

Operetta star Gitta Alpar plays a singer engaged for a performance at the Savoy Hotel, where she mistakes Baron von Wollheim for a waiter. But the baron is content to play the game for a while and changes his role with the real waiter. Of course the singer is quite happy when she discovers the real identity of the baron, but now she mistakes him for a thief, as her necklet has gone missing. Further complications arise when the baron's cousin Mary, a composer, arrives at the hotel and wants a music publisher to listen to her songs.
Ball at the Savoy

The young emperor Joseph II of Austria and Hungary is not interested in romance and marriage, and every time his mother makes arrangements for him to meet eligible young ladies, he escapes under some pretense. This time he is off on a 'tour of inspection' with his trusted friend von Kleber. Things become complicated when von Kleber, pretending to be the emperor so as to protect the real Joseph from discovery, falls in love with Christine, the landlady of their lodgings. And when Christine later writes to the emperor, her letter is read by the mother of the real emperor, as keen as ever to see him getting married, and so the lady is invited to the imperial court.
Tanz mit dem Kaiser

Hermann König, owner of an ice palace, wants to make his niece Inge a star. Inge, on the other hand, has a completely different dream - the theater stage. The talented girl then falls head over heels in love with ice hockey player Hans Haller, who also happens to work at the Palace Theater. A game of mistaken identity full of hurdles takes its course...
Kauf Dir einen bunten Luftballon

The 1930 Hollywood-produced anti-war film "Nothing New in the West" is one of the great works in film history. But like hardly any other cinema classic, it was ostracized, shortened, censored, altered in image and sound and banned. The documentary deals with the eventful fate and especially the censorship history of the film classic.
Bruised Celluloid

An Englishman has been working in the US so long he now speaks with an American accent. He is drafted into the British Army during WWII but is injured and loses his memory. Because he talks like an American, the doctors repatriate him to the States where he is housed with a New York family. After the war they all travel throughout Europe, searching for the women he still remembers in the hope of restoring his lost memory
A Tale of Five Cities
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Das Haus der Schlangen

In hell, equipped with the latest technological advances, the devils watch the happiness of a Viennese revue singer and her sculptor fiancé on a television screen. Some representatives are sent to Earth to seduce the singer and thus undermine the couple's love, but this soon leads to rebellion among the devilish emissaries, who want to emigrate.
Höllische Liebe

Edward Collins wants nothing more than to live a modest life. But as a millionaire with a luxurious villa, chauffeur, and everything his heart desires, women are desperately after him. This time, however, Edward wants to play it safe and, together with his devoted butler, Alfons Heinz Erhardt, hatches a plan. The sweet waitress Ninette Germaine Damar, whom he meets by chance, tells Edward that he is completely penniless. Ninette promptly gets him a temporary job as a parking attendant. But that's only when the complications really begin.
So ein Millionär hat's schwer

Peter wants to practice for an upcoming jazz competition with his friends Willi, Oskar, and Jupp. But his uncle Tobias, on whose farm Peter lives, must not find out about it.