Alfred Junge
August Alfred Young (born 29 January 1886 in Görlitz, † July 21, 1964 in Bad Kissingen ) was a German art director with outstanding career in British film.
Life
The beginnings in Germany
Young had 18 -year-old started as an actor at the city theater of his hometown Görlitz and played in the aftermath of provincial theaters ( for example, in Upper Silesia, where he had pitched his home in Bytom around the year 1908). After studying art in Italy came boy to Berlin, where he worked at the city's Opera House and the State Theater as a set designer. In 1920 he joined the film. There, assisted the boy initially experienced architect colleagues Paul Leni, from 1923 he served as chief architect himself.
An early patron Alfred Young was the director EA Dupont, for the Görlitz designed, among other things, the buildings to the most famous film music hall. In addition, he was active mainly for the directors Hans Steinhoff and Erich Waschneck. Dupont and Young went to England in late 1927, two films ( Moulin Rouge and Night World ) implement. Following this, both went back to Berlin. Two other England exposures brought the team again in 1930 to the British Isles. The resulting contacts there led in 1932 to Young decision to settle in London. Young was naturalized on 22 October 1946.
The success in England
He found immediately following the British film industry and worked for the company Gaumont. In addition to numerous weaker films designed boy several times the scenes of Alfred Hitchcock (whose secondary work Waltzes from Vienna and the early thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much and young and innocent ). With the fussy Adventure Fabric King Solomon's Mines, the original adaptation of AJ Cronin's just socially critical novel, The Citadel and the much-acclaimed, acclaimed teacher biography Goodbye, Mr. Chips boy worked his way to the top British film architects.
1942 began a very successful collaboration with the director and production duo Michael Powell (with whom he had worked previously for the first time in the decade ) and Emeric Pressburger, for the Alfred boy in the next four years equipped some of the most exquisite color film major productions of the decade. Especially his decorations to the romantic fantasy tale error in the afterlife - particularly worth mentioning: the sky sequences boy drew with compatriot Hein Heckenroth - and based in northern India in the Himalayan mountains nuns and school drama Black Narcissus, for which he was awarded an Oscar, were among the excellence of British film architecture of the 1940s.
After winning the Academy Award, the American film company MGM boy named head of the design department of its British branch. In this capacity he oversaw in the coming years, all filmed in the UK MGM productions in terms of their artistic design. His best late works as Production Designer consisted primarily of historical subjects, especially the two splendid knight movies Ivanhoe and The Knights of the Round Table with Robert Taylor in the respective main role. After the commercial failure of the comeback of David O. Selznick designed, extremely costly and ambitious remakes Hemingway A Farewell to boy pulled back in 1957 at the age of 71 years in the movie business.