Géza von Cziffra

Géza von Cziffra [ge ː zɒ fɔn ʦifrɒ ] ( born December 19, 1900 in Arad in the Banat region, Kingdom of Hungary, now Romania, † April 28, 1989 in Diessen ) was a Hungarian film director and screenwriter.

Life

He attended a Jesuit boarding school, and from 1914 to 1918, a Marine and a military school. Then he moved to Budapest, where he worked as a newspaper editor, and in 1920 to Vienna.

In 1922, he worked as a volunteer at the Sascha film industry and directed the largely landscaped with dolls movie Gulliver's Travels. In 1923 he went to Berlin and wrote for the Berliner Tageblatt and the world in the evening. He has written short stories, articles and film for the world stage glosses to the Hungarian judiciary and politics. In this environment, he met the then major poet and film pioneer Karl Gustav Vollmoeller know. In his autobiography Buy yourself a colorful balloon writes Cziffra:

" There was only one well-known author who was interested in the sound film: Karl Vollmoeller ... in the twenties he was one of the most enigmatic phenomena in the literary and social world of Berlin ... he wrote novels and films, including the movie today yet everyone knows: the Blue Angel ... In Vollmoeller apartment I met the sculptor Renée Sintenis, the Bauhaus leader Walter Gropius, the art dealer Alfred Flechtheim, the communist publisher Wieland heart field; the visual artist George Grosz, Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Barlach; Fritz Lang ... Erich Mendelsohn ... Princess Lichnowsky Mechtilde; the Jewish police commissioner Bernard White and the Crown Prince. "

Vollmoeller with its enormous contacts it, the Cziffra paved the way to the film studios and meetings are important so enabled him to Max Liebermann and Albert Einstein was.

Cziffra participated at that time in various screenplays and was from 1932 to 1933 the owner of the cabaret in the Palm House on the Kurfürstendamm. After the " seizure of power" of the Nazis, he returned in April 1933 returned to Budapest, where he made several films for the local Hunnia film as director or co-director.

In 1936 he went to Berlin, where he was at first primarily as a screenwriter and assistant director operates. He also published several stage plays. In 1941 he went to Vienna again. After a directed sample at some scenes of his play The Immortal face him with the highly successful revue film succeeded The White Dream in 1943 under the artistic direction of Karl Hartl breakthrough as a director.

In 1945, he turned in the then German-occupied Prague to film Bright Shadow. As of criminal consultant there was SS -Sturmbannführer Eweler, member of the SD and brother of actress Ruth Eweler provided. After some time Eweler of Cziffra was expelled for excessive criticism of the studio. Shortly thereafter, Cziffra was arrested and taken to the Prague Gestapo headquarters in the Palais Pecec. He was accused of having eaten without brands in the Czech Restaurant "Neumann " several times. Cziffra was eventually transported to the Prague Detention Pankrác and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, which he was supposed to start on 12 February. Claims to be Cziffra was able to escape a transport to Theresienstadt only through manipulation of documents. Shortly before the war ended Cziffra was released from prison on April 19.

In 1945, Cziffra founded in Vienna with an American license, the first Austrian film production company after the Second World War, the Cziffra film, which existed until 1949. In 1952 he co-founded Arion -Film GmbH in Hamburg.

Notably, he turned the entertainment and music films in which well-known German and Austrian actors such as Peter Alexander, Rudolf Platte, Senta Berger and Hubert von Meyerinck participated. With musicians like Bill Ramsey or Bully Buhlan the films usually advanced to musical revues with home - character. Cziffras work significantly influenced the German - Austrian entertainment movie of the 50s and early 60s. As a screenwriter, he frequently used pseudonyms (Peter Trenck, Albert Anthony, John Ferguson, Thomas Harrer, Richard Andes, Enrico Andes and Horace Parker).

He was at times married to actress Ursula Justin and finally since 1958 in fifth marriage. Cziffra was in the crematorium East Cemetery in Munich buried ( Urn Hall D - G3).

Filmography

Writings

  • The best of my jokes and anecdotes from the film collection. Heyne, München 1977, ISBN 3-453-00739-5.
  • Dr Martin Ottler, fellow travelers. Roman ( = lambda dossier, no. 3). Lambda edition, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-925495-25-8.
  • It was a glittering ball. A social history of German film. Herbig, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7766-1341-6.
  • Hanussen. Clairvoyant of the devil. The truth about the Reichstag fire. Herbig, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-7766-0879- X.
  • The Holy Drinker ( about Joseph Roth). Luebbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1983, ISBN 3-404-10215-0.
  • In the waiting hall of fame. Encounters with famous people such as Bert Brecht, Albert Einstein, Erich Kastner, inter alia, ( = Bastion Luebbe General series, Volume 10660 ). Luebbe, Bergisch Gladbach, 1985, ISBN 3-404-10660-1.
  • It was always the women ... An intimate history. Herbig, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-7766-0784- X.
  • Buy yourself a colorful balloon. Memories of gods and demigods. Herbig, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-7766-0708-4.
  • The cow in the coffee house. The Golden Twenties in anecdotes. Herbig, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-7766-1147-2.
  • Tango. Novel of a Berlin family. Herbig, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7766-0946- X.
  • Tanja and her forty men. A novel. Wancura - Verlag, Wien 1957.
  • No lie. Memories of my century ( autobiography). Herbig, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-7766-1500-1.

Awards

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