Arnold Pressburger
Arnold Pressburger ( born August 27, 1885 in Pressburg, Austria - Hungary, † February 17, 1951 in Hamburg) was an Austrian film producer.
Life and work
Arnold Pressburger moved in 1910 to Vienna, where he founded in 1911 together with Siegmund Philipp film distribution Philipp & Pressburger General cinematographers and film company. Hire rapidly became the largest of the monarchy.
In 1915 the company began sporadically also produce films, including Charlie, Wunderaffe ( Joe May, 1915) and Good Luck Schneider ( Hans Otto Löwenstein, 1916). In addition Pressburger worked since 1916 for the Austro- Hungarian Sascha - Film GmbH Messter, who bought 1918 Philipp & Pressburger, was converted to Sascha film industry AG and produced about 100 films for Bratislava to 1925.
In this environment Pressburger also learned the writers and scriptwriters Karl Gustav Vollmoeller know, who was then the miracle and Venetian Night celebrated by his two films international success. The collaboration with director Alexander Korda films Prince and the Pauper (1920), Lords of the seas and a sunken world were born (both 1921/22 ).
Mihali Kertész, who as Michael Curtiz international fame later, staged under Pressburger's production line, among others, The Lady with the Black Glove ( 1919), The Lady with Sunflowers, The Star of Damascus (both 1920), wife Dorothy's Confession ( 1921), Sodom and Gomorrah (1922 ), The young Medardus (1923 ), The Slave Queen (1924 /32) and The Golden Butterfly ( 1926).
1926 Arnold Pressburger went to Berlin, where he worked for the FPG film production community mbH GW Pabst's film Man, among other plays at Heart (1926 ) produced. In 1930 he left the FPG and founded the alliance - talkies, the ten films produced until 1931, including the Carmine gallon film The Singing City (1930, with Brigitte Helm and Jan Kiepura ), Hans Behrendt's historical drama Danton (1930 /31, with Fritz Kortner and Gustaf ), Fritz Kortner directorial debut The Good sinners (1931, famous with Max Pallenberg and Heinz Riihmann ) and Phil Jutzis Döblin filming Berlin - Alexanderplatz (1931, with Henry George and Mary Bard ). Since 1931, Pressburger also worked for Ufa, for which he (1931, with Harry Liedtke and Lilian Harvey ) Anatole Litvak's film productions include comedy Never again love. During this time he worked for the first time together with Gregor Rabinovitch.
Both left the Ufa in 1932 and founded the Cine - Allianz talkies GmbH, multilingual music movies with notable directors such as Marcel Carné, René Clair, Arnold Fanck, Carmine gallon, Fritz Lang, Max Ophüls, Reinhold Schünzel and Detlef Sierck and in the following years produced with international stars like Marta Eggert, Willi Forst, Brigitte Helm and Jan Kiepura. Pressburger and Rabinovich were Jews and as part of the " linearization " of the German film industry, the Cine - Allianz in 1935 was transferred to a liquidation of the Company; 1937 was followed by the expropriation. Rabinovich continued his work in France, Pressburger went across the UK to France and from there in 1941 to Hollywood, where he once again its own film production company - the Arnold Pressburger Films - founded. The company launched only four films produced, their directors, however, had world-class: The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941), Hangmen Also Die (Fritz Lang, 1943), It Happened Tomorrow ( René Clair, 1944) and A Scandal in Paris ( Douglas Sirk = Detlef Sierck, 1946). During the filming of Peter Lorre's masterpiece The Lost Arnold Pressburger died in Hamburg at the consequences of a brain hemorrhage.
Arnold Pressburger was the father of film producer Fred Pressburger ( 1915-1998 ).
Filmography
As a producer, unless otherwise indicated: