Erich Pommer
Erich Pommer ( born July 20, 1889 in Hildesheim, † May 8, 1966 in Los Angeles ) was a German film producer. With the films Metropolis and The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich, he wrote film history.
Life
Erich Pommer, son of linen merchant Gustav Pommer and his wife Anna née Jacobson, was born on July 20, 1889 in Hildesheim. 1896 the family moved to Göttingen, where his father took over the Göttingen Conservenfabrik. 1905 the family moved to Berlin Pommer.
Here Erich Pommer completed a commercial apprenticeship and in 1907 became salesman in the French Gaumont Group Berlin branch. In 1910 he became head of the Gaumont - branch in Vienna. After his military service in 1912 he joined the French film company Éclair and became its representative established in Vienna and from 1913 in Berlin.
In World War I he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. After being wounded, he worked from 1917 to newsreels and later as head of the film department of the censorship of the military administration Romania.
Already in 1915 he was one with his partners in Berlin at the founders of the Decla Film Company Wood & Co. While Rudolf Meinert served as producer, Pommer headed the diplomatic mission. In November 1921, the Decla merged with Universum Film ( UFA ), but remained as a director with Pommer part of Ufa Group. In February 1923 Pommer joined the Executive Board of Ufa and was from 1923 to 1926 the first chairman of the umbrella organization of the film industry ( SPIO ).
In these years Pommer created some classic German silent film. Metropolis was the most visually influential silent film ever with 5 million Reichsmarks the most expensive film of German film history. In 1927, premiered works by Fritz Lang directed. The reconstructed version of the Friedrich -Wilhelm -Murnau -Stiftung has been declared a UNESCO World Documentary Heritage.
Not least because of the enormous cost of this film was not renewed Pommer's contract. In 1926/27 he worked in the U.S. for Paramount and later for MGM. In November 1927 he was taken from the Ufa again as a producer under contract.
1930 was directed by Josef von Sternberg another masterpiece: The Blue Angel with the cast Emil Jannings ( The Blue Angel ), Marlene Dietrich ( Lola Lola ) and Hans Albers. The screenplay of the film wrote Zuckmayer based on the novel The Blue Angel by Heinrich Mann. Pommer is considered as the discoverer of Marlene Dietrich.
Pommer's contract with Ufa was because he was a Jew, dissolved in 1933. After 1933, he worked first for Fox Film in Paris and later in Hollywood. At the beginning of the 1940s came Pommer after an illness in an economic emergency and worked with his wife Gertrud Ley in a porcelain factory. In 1944, his naturalization in the United States and in 1946 he returned as head of the film control the American military government back to Germany, where he remained until 1949. In this role he designed, together with Horst von Hartlieb ( Director of the Association of Film Distributors in Wiesbaden) and Curt Oertel (documentary director, Chairman of the Hessian Producers Association ), in early 1948, inspired by the American Production Code or Hays Code of 1930/34 the Voluntary self- regulation of the film industry (FSK ). After further productions which he performed both in Germany and in the United States and were provided with changeable success, died Erich Pommer in 1966 in Los Angeles.
Appreciation
Caroline Lejeune wrote 1931 Pommer: "His name for a movie is mostly a success at the box office, but also means a promise with regard to the intelligence of a film. " In his 40 - year tenure brought it Pommer total to around 200 movie titles, which in turn The Cabinet of Erich Pommer by Hans- Michael Bock and Ute T. Schneider was set a cinematic monument in the TV report.
1989 devoted to the International Film Festival of Berlin producer on his 100th birthday, a comprehensive retrospective. 1998 in Potsdam- Babelsberg Erich Pommer founded the Institute for Media Law and Economics at the University of Potsdam. It observes and accompanies the latest developments in film, television and music industries. In addition to the practice-oriented research and university teaching it operates industry-specific training and in-depth media-specific advice. In Potsdam, also recalls the Erich Pommer road to the film producers.
Pommer lived until his emigration in 1933 on the Steglitzer Spruce Mountain, one in the 19th century preferred residential area with pretentious villas. At the former home of the Carl -Heinrich -Becker -Weg the city of Berlin brought on a plaque.
After Pommers birth city of Hildesheim had long done hard with a ceremony, was named the Erich Pommer Street on 7 May 2001 in Moritzberg district and placed a plaque on 1 October 2004 at its birthplace in the Altpetristraße 7.