Tita Binz

February 17, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Tita Binz (1903-1970) was a German photographer, who portrayed in her Atelier Binz many of the film stars of the Third Reich. For Film-Foto-Verlag, she also made portraits of the soldiers who were holders of the Knight's Cross.


Irene von Meyendorff. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 3035/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz, Berlin.


Hansi Knoteck. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. A 3218/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz, Berlin.


Maria Landrock. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3309/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Binz.


Kirsten Heiberg. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3373/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz, Berlin.


Winnie Markus. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3714/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Berlin-Film.

Showing personality

Tita Binz was born as Juanita Ladewig in Frankfurt am Main in 1903. Binz was the daughter of the chemist Prof. Arthur Binz and his wife, the writer Juanita Reutlinger. In 1911, her family moved to Berlin. During her school years Tita was already fascinated by photography.

From 1928 till 1930, she did an apprenticeship in Paris at the photo studio of her uncle, the famous photographer Léopold Reutlinger. The renowned Reutlinger Studio was opened in 1850 and had become one of the most prestigious photo studios internationally since then.

Later, Binz settled in Berlin. She first earned her living as an assistant in photo studios, but in 1938 she opened her own studio, Foto Binz, located on the chic Kurfürstendamm. Her studio had five employees.

From the start, Foto Binz specialized in portrait photography. Tita Binz portrayed actors, scientists, artists as Käthe Kollwitz, authors, but also military and politicians. The newspaper Berliner Tageblatt praised her for "her talent to show the personality of the person she portrayed".

One of the first clients of Foto Binz was the publisher Film-Foto-Verlag, formerly Ross Verlag. Since 1937, Ross Verlag was no longer in the control of its Jewish founder, Heinrich Ross. The National Socialists had forced Ross out through their Arisierung (Aryanization) program (no Jews could own a business.)

Interestingly enough, the Nazis retained the Ross Verlag name until 1941, next to the new name Film-Foto-Verlag. Film-Foto-Verlag became known for its postcards of film stars who figured in the German and also in the fascist Italian cinema during the years just before and during World War II.


Clara Calamai. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3171/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / DIFU.


Fosco Giachetti. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 118, 1941-1944. Photo: DIFU / Binz, Berlin.


Vivi Gioi. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 3173/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz, Berlin / Difu.


Viktor de Kowa. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3457/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Foto Binz.


Will Quadflieg. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3525/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz, Berlin.


Paul Klinger. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3739/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz, Berlin.

Propaganda Postcards

Tita Binz was also asked by Film-Foto-Verlag to portray soldiers who were holders of the Ritterkreuz (the Knight's Cross) for their R series of military propaganda postcards. The Nazi regime needed more propaganda and therefore the R series was started in 1939.

At his blog, Pantorijn writes: “It is at this point that two different worlds seem to run together at least in pictures. The actor, the hero of the silver screen and the soldier, the hero of the theatre of war were both raised in the same way. (…) it was not only the image itself but also the design of the postcard that ensured that these two worlds together began to look like one another. It was decided that the lay-out for actors also had to be used for the knight cross bearers.”

Pantorijn illustrates this with the example of film star Hannes Stelzer, a popular Ufa hero during the Nazi period. In 1941 he starred as a Luftwaffe pilot in the propaganda film Stukas (1941). Director of the film was Luftwaffe Major Karl Ritter and director and star worked five times together.

In 1941, Stelzer was photographed (by Baumann) for Ross-Verlag/Film-Foto-Verlag in a uniform of the Luftwaffe to promote Stukas. Two years later, Stelzer was obliged to report for active duty and got a pilot training. In 1944, the Luftwaffe pilot died when his airplane was shot in Russia.

Binz did never photograph the Waffen-SS. Pantorijn: “This might be due to the fact that she was friends with Hans Oster, a convinced opponent of the Nazi regime. She knew by that friendship also the 'conspirators'Erwin von Witzleben and Erich Hoepner who she portrayed all three. These pictures were not made for Film-Foto-Verlag.”

Immediately after World War II ended in 1945, Tita Binz left Berlin. Until 1949, she lived and worked in Heidelberg. That year, she moved to Mannheim.

Tita Binz died in 1970 in Mannheim at the age of 67. In the collection of the Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM) are her portraits of Konrad Adenauer, Luise Rinser, Viktor de Kowa, Otto Hahn, Gustav Heinemann, Theodor Heuss, and many other celebrities.


Paul Wegener. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3283/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Foto Binz.


Karl Schönbock. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3572/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz, Berlin.


Wolf Albach-Retty. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3585/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz, Berlin.


Theo Lingen. German Postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3799/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz, Berlin.


Paul Kemp. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3864/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz / Bavaria Filmkunst.


Joachim Brennecke. German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. G 82, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Binz, Berlin.

Check out our other posts on film star photographers. See the links at right under the caption 'The Photographers'.

Sources: Pantorijn, Film.Foto.Verlag.comhttp://www.filmfotoverlag.com/about-the-r-series.html, DHM (German), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

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New rare postcards from the Cinema of the Russian Empire

February 18, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Last week, collector Didier Hanson sent me new scans of Russian film postcards from the pre-Soviet era. In October he shared already rare postcards of such silent stars as Vera Karalli, Nathalie Kovanko, Vitold Polonsky and Ossip Runitsch. This time we present you postcards of other stars of the cinema of the Russian empire, like Ivan Khudoleyev, Vasily Kachalov, Vladimir Nikolaevich Davydov, Leonid Leonidov and the beautiful Ye. Volkonskaya.


Ye. Volkonskaya. Russian postcard. Photo: Parikas Foto. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Ye. Volkonskaya is an actress, known for supporting roles in the films La fille sauvage/The wild girl (Henri Étiévant, 1922) starring Nathalie Lissenko and Romuald Joubé, Medvezhya svadba/The Bear's Wedding (Konstantin Eggert, Vladimir Gardin, 1925) with Vera Malinovskaya, and Belyy oryol/The Lash of the Czar (Yakov Protazanov, 1928), starring Vasily Kachalov and Anna Sten.


Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Kholodnaya (1893-1919) was the first star of the Russian silent cinema. Only 26, the ‘Queen of Screen’ died of the Spanish flu during the pandemic of 1919. Although she worked only three years for the cinema, she must have made between fifty and hundred short films. The Soviet authorities ordered to destroy many of the Kholodnaya features in 1924, and only five of her films still exist.


Ivan Khudoleyev and Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard, no. 137. Collection: Didier Hanson. Photo: publicity still for Posledneiye tango/Last Tango (Vyacheslav Viskovsky, 1918).

Ivan Nikolaevich Khudoleyev (1875-1932) was a Russian silent film actor. From 1917 on he was the film partner of Vera Kholodnaya in films like Isterzannye dushi/Tortured soul (Vladimir Kasyanov, 1917), the Emile Zola adaptation Chelovek - zver/Man - Beast (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1917), Molchi, grust... molchi/Be quiet, sadness ... be quiet (Pyotr Chardynin, Cheslav Sabinsky, 1918) and Posledneiye tango/Last Tango (Vyacheslav Viskovsky, 1918). Later he starred in Soviet productions like Slesar i kantsler/Locksmith and Chancellor (Vladimir Gardin, 1923) and Do zavtra/Until tomorrow (Yuri Tarich, 1929).


Vladimir Maksimov. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Vladimir Maksimov. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

From 1910 on, Russian stage actor Vladimir Maksimov (sometimes written as Vladimir Maximov, 1880-1937) appeared in films by Yakov Protazanov and Pyotr Chardynin and became a star of the Czarist cinema. He was known for Skorb beskonechnaya/Infinite Sorrow (Aleksandr Panteleyev, 1922), Katsi katsistvis mgelia/Man Is Enemy (Ivane Perestiani, 1923) and Dekabristy/The Decembrists (Aleksandr Ivanovsky, 1927). Maksimov died in 1937 in Moscow.


V. I. Likhachev. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

V. I. Likhachev (1879-1965) was a Russian stage actor, who had a great success as King Dagobert in André Rivoire's play Le Bon Roi Dagobert (Good King Dagobert) (1908) in the Nezlobin theatre in Moscow in 1909 and 1910. Later, Likhachev was imprisoned in the Solovki Prison Camp (1923-1939), where he and other prominent political prisoners performed in the Central Theatre.


Leonid Leonidov. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian actor and stage director Leonid Leonidov (1873-1941) was born in a Jewish family in Odessa (his real last name was Volfenzon, Russian: Вольфензон). From 1903 on, he worked in the Moscow Art Theatre under Konstantin Stanislavski, who called him "the only Russian tragic actor." His roles included Dmitri Karamazov, Othello, and Lopakhin. From 1918 on, Leonidov starred in several films, such as Khleb/Bread (Richard Boleslawski, Boris Sushkevich, 1918) with Olga Baclanova, and Krylya kholopa/The Wings of a Serf (Yuri Tarich, 1926) as Tsar Ivan the Terrible. He began teaching at the State Institute of Theatre Arts in 1935 and was its dean and artistic director from 1939 until his death. In his teaching, he represented the precepts of Stanislavski. Leonidov was honoured with People's Artist of the USSR in 1936.


Vasily Kachalov. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian film and stage actor Vasily Kachalov (1875-1948) was one of Konstantin Stanislavsky's best known performers. He led the so-called Kachalov Group within the Moscow Art Theatre. It was Kachalov who played Hamlet in the Symbolist production of 1911. He also appeared in four films.


Vladimir Nikolaevich Davydov. Russian postcard, no. 2954. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian actor Vladimir Nikolaevich Davydov (1849-1925) was born into a noble family of modest means. He took drama lessons from I. V. Samarin, a famous actor of the Malyi Theater. From 1867 to 1880 he acted in the provinces. From 1880 to 1924 he was in the troupe of the St. Petersburg Alexandra Theatre. Davydov's brilliant technique in transforming himself into the character coupled with his ability to make the character seem true to life enabled him for roles in comedy, tragedy, and musical comedy. (He even played female roles.) His greatest achievements were in the Russian classics, especially the dramas of Anton Chekhov. In 1887, he was the original Ivanov in Chekhov's play. In 1883 he started to teach in the St. Petersburg Theatre School. In 1922 he was honoured as People’s Artist of the Republic.


Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard, no. 86. Collection: Didier Hanson.


A Who is Who of the Russian silent cinema. In a circle from left: actor Vladimir Maksimov (with bear), actress Vera Kholodnaya, actor Vitold Polonsky, actor Ivan Khudoleyev, actor Ivan Mozzhukin, actor-director Pyotr Chardynin and Ossip Runitsch. Russian postcard, no. 108. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Check out our 12 October 2014 post 'Rare postcards from the Cinema of the Russian Empire'. Many thanks for sharing these postcards at EFSP, Didier!

Sources: The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Sophia Loren

February 19, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Le Petit Poucet (1972)

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Sophia Loren (1934) rose to fame in post-war Italy as a voluptuous sex goddess, but proved to be an excellent, Oscar winning actress. She became one of the most successful international stars of the 20th Century with such unforgettable films as La Ciociara/Two Women (1960) and Una giornata particolare/A Special Day (1977). Loren made over 100 films in her 60-year career and her pictures in the 2007 Pirelli calendar proved that she is still a major sex symbol.


French postcard by Editions du Globe (EDUG), Paris, no. 373. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof (UFA), no. CK-221. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Sam Lévin/Ufa.


French postcard. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2993.


French postcard by Mexichrome, no. 16. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by E.D.U.G. (Editions du Globe), Paris, no. 39. Offered by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Miss Eleganza

Sophia Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in the charity ward of a Roman hospital in 1934. She was the illegitimate daughter of construction engineer Riccardo Scicolone and piano teacher and aspiring actress Romilda Villani. Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry Romilda, leaving her without support.

Romilda, Sofia and sister Maria returned to Pozzuoli to live with Sofia's grandmother. Pozzuoli was a small town outside Naples and one of the hardest hit during World War II. The family shared a two-room apartment with the grandmother and several aunts and uncles. The shy, stick thin girl regularly went hungry and had to flee from bombings.

At 14, Sofia had a voluptuous figure and entered a beauty contest. She was selected as one of the finalists, but did not win. In 1949, she was one of the contestants at the Miss Italia competition. She earned the 2nd place and was awarded ‘Miss Eleganza’.

While attending the Miss Rome beauty contest in 1950, she met judge Carlo Ponti, an up-and-coming film producer, 22 years her senior. He had helped launch Gina Lollobrigida's career, and now began grooming Sofia for stardom. He hired an acting coach to tutor her.

At 16 she was in her first film, the Totó comedy Le Sei Mogli di Barbablù/Bluebeard’s Six Wives (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1950) under the name Sofia Lazzaro. She also appeared as an extra in Luci del varietà/Lights of the Variety (Federico Fellini, 1950), the smash hit Anna (Alberto Lattuada, 1951) and Quo Vadis (Mervyn Leroy, 1951).

During the early 1950s, she secured work modelling for fumetti magazines. These comic-like magazines used actual photographs. The dialogue bubbles were called 'fumetti' - hence the popular name.

At 17, she was cast by Ponti in her first larger role as the commoner who caught the prince's eye in the filmed opera La Favorita/The Favorite (Cesare Barlacchi, 1952). The next year she earned third billing after Silvana Pampanini and Eleanora Rossi-Drago in La Tratta Delle Bianche/The White Slave Trade (Luigi Comencini, 1953) and she played, complete with blackface and an Afro, the lead in another filmed opera, Aida (Clemente Fracassi, 1953) by Giuseppe Verdi. Her singing was dubbed by Renata Tebaldi. Ponti eventually changed her name to Sophia Loren.


Belgian postcard by Bromophoto, Brussels.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 283. Photo: U.P.


Italian postcard in the series Gli Artisti di Napoli. Photo: publicity still for Miseria e nobiltà/Misery and Nobility (Mario Mattoli, 1954) with Totò.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 328. Photo: Ponti-De Laurentiis. Publicity still for La donna del fiume/Woman of the River (Mario Soldati, 1955).


Yugoslavian postcard by Naz Glas, Smederevo, no. 113.


German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 1631. Photo: Dial / Unitalia Film, Rome.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 185. Photo: dpa.

Va-va-va-voom Image

Sophia Loren appeared for the first time with Marcello Mastroianni in the romantic comedy Peccato che sia una canaglia/Too Bad She's Bad (Alessandro Blasetti, 1954). They would make 13 films together, including Tempi nostri/A Slice of Life (Alessandro Blasetti, Paul Paviot, 1954), La bella mugnaia/The Miller's Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955), and La fortuna di essere donna/What A Woman (Alessandro Blasetti, 1956).

L'Oro di Napoli/Gold of Naples (Vittorio de Sica, 1954), an anthology of tales depicting various aspects of Neapolitan life, was distributed internationally. At AllMovie, Jason Ankeny writes that in reviews "Loren was singled out for the strength of her performance as a Neapolitan shopkeeper, surprising many critics who had dismissed her as merely another bombshell".

The film established her persona as a sensuous working class earth mother. It also began a fruitful, career-long collaboration with De Sica.

Sophia’s first film to find international success was La Donna del Fiume/The River Girl (Mario Soldati, 1955), in which she danced sensually the Mambo Bacan. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Through it all, Sophia Loren looks like a million lire - and she even gets to sing and dance!".

She came to the attention of Stanley Kramer who offered her the female lead in The Pride And The Passion (Stanley Kramer, 1957) opposite Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. Sophia played a Spanish peasant girl involved in an uprising against the French. This was the turning point in her career, and the film proved to be one of the top US box office successes of the year.

Her next English-language film was Boy on a Dolphin (Jean Negulesco, 1957) with Alan Ladd, where she was memorable mostly for emerging from the water in a wet, skin-tight, transparent dress. With her va-va-va-voom image she became an international film star and got a five-picture contract with Paramount Pictures.

Among her Paramount films were Desire Under the Elms (Delbert Mann, 1958) with Anthony Perkins and based upon the Eugene O'Neill play, Houseboat (Melville Shavelson, 1958), a romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant, and the Western Heller in Pink Tights (George Cukor, 1960) in which she appeared for the first time with blonde hair (a wig). Most of these films were received lukewarmly at best.


German postcard printed by Krüger, nr. 902/304. Photo: Georg Michalke. Publicity still for La donna del fiume/The River Girl (Mario Soldati, 1955).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/446. Photo: UFA. Publicity still for La Bella Mugnaia/The Miller's Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955).


French postcard by P.I. / Korès, no. 38. Photo: Constantin Film. Publicity still for La bella mugnaia/The Miller's Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955).


German postcard by UFA, no. 1007. Photo: UFA. Publicity still for La Bella Mugnaia/The Miller's Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955).


German postcard by Terra-Color, no. F 190. Sent by mail in 1962.


Dutch postcard.


Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 4894. Photo: Hafbo. Still from El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).

The most lavish costumes ever created for the cinema

In 1960 Sophia Loren returned to Italy to star in the biggest success of her career, La Ciociara/Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960). She played a widow desperately trying to protect her daughter from danger during WW II, only to end up in a destructive love triangle with a young radical (Jean Paul Belmondo).

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "A last-minute replacement for Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren brought hitherto untapped depths of emotion to her performance in Two Women; she later stated that she was utilizing 'sensory recall,' dredging up memories of her own wartime experiences." Loren won the Best Actress Oscarfor her performance, and also the Cannes, Venice ánd Berlin Film Festivals' best performance prizes.

Next she played in Spain Samuel Bronston'sepic production of El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961) with Charlton Heston, followed by the De Sica episode of the anthology Boccaccio '70 (Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, 1962).

On the strength of her Oscar win, she also returned to English-language fare with Five Miles to Midnight (Anatole Litvak, 1963), followed a year later by The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964), for which she received $1 million.

Among Loren's other films of this period are The Millionairess (Anthony Asquith, 1960) with Peter Sellers, It Started in Naples (Melville Shavelson, 1960) with Clark Gable, Lady L (Peter Ustinov, 1965) with Paul Newman, Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Gregory Peck, and Charlie Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with Marlon Brando.

Despite the failure of many of her films to generate sales at the box office, she invariably turned in a charming performance and she wore some of the most lavish costumes ever created for the cinema.

Her best Italian films include the triptych Ieri, oggi, domani/Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow (Vittorio De Sica, 1963), a comedy that poked fun at a Catholic priest and gently mocked the Italian law on birth control, and Matrimonio all'Italiana/Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964) with Loren as the hooker who lures Mastroianni into marriage.


German postcard. Photo: UFA. Taken in Rome, Italy.


German Postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 13. Photo: Klaus Collignon.


German postcard by ISV, no. A 93. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for the British film The Millionairess (Anthony Asquith, 1960).


German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. A 102. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for The Millionairess (Anthony Asquith, 1960).


Photo.


German postcard by UFA, no. CK224. Photo: Fried Agency.

A Special Day

After several miscarriages and a highly-publicized struggle to become pregnant, Sophia Loren gave birth to son Hubert Leoni Carlo Ponti in 1968. She started to work less, and moved into her 40s and 50s with roles in films like De Sica's war drama I Girasoli/The Sunflowers (Vittorio De Sica, 1972), Il Viaggio/The Voyage (Vittorio De Sica, 1974) opposite Richard Burton, and reuniting with Marcello Mastroianni in the mob comedy La Pupa del Gangster/Get Rita (Giorgio Capitani, 1975).

An artistic highlight was Una giornata particolare/A Special Day (Ettore Scola, 1977) which earned a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Loren played a bored housewife at the day of the first meeting between Mussolini and Hitler. Left alone in her tenement home when her fascist husband runs off to attend the historic event, Loren strikes up a friendship with her homosexual neighbour (Marcello Mastroianni). As the day segues into night, Loren and Mastroianni develop a very special relationship that will radically alter both of their outlooks on life.

When a dubbed version of Una giornata particolare/A Special Day found favour with American audiences, Hollywood again came calling, resulting in a pair of thrillers, The Brass Target (John Hough, 1978) and Firepower (Michael Winner, 1979) which offered her a central role as a widow seeking answers in the murder of her chemist husband.

In 1980, Loren portrayed herself, as well as her mother, in Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (Mel Stuart, 1980), a made-for-television biopic adaptation of her autobiography. Actresses Ritza Brown and Chiara Ferrari played Loren at younger ages. She made headlines in 1982 when she served an 18-day prison sentence in Italy on tax evasion charges, a fact that didn't damage her career or popularity.

In her 60s, Loren ventured into various areas of business, including cook books, eyewear, jewellery and perfume. In honour of her lengthy career, Loren was the recipient of a special Oscar in 1991. She also made well-received appearances in her final film with Mastroianni, Prêt-à-Porter/Ready to Wear (1994), Robert Altman's take on the French fashion scene, and in the comedy hit Grumpier Old Men (Howard Deutch, 1995) playing a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. In 1995 she received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.

At the age of 72, she appeared scantily-clad in the 2007 edition of the famous calendar of Italian racing tire giant Pirelli. It made her the oldest model in the calendar's history. The photos by Dutch photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin proved that she was still a major international sex symbol.

In 2007 Carlo Ponti died. It had been controversial in her native Italy when Sophia Loren had married her mentor Ponti in 1957. Not only was he 45 to her 23, but he had been married previously, and neither the Catholic Church nor Italian government recognized his Mexican divorce. Ponti was charged with bigamy, but the charges were dropped when they had their marriage annulled. They continued living together - scandalous at the time - and remarried after his legal problems had been cleared.

Ponti and Loren made three dozen films together. They had two children, symphony conductor Carlo Ponti Jr. and film director Edoardo Ponti.

After four years off the big screen, Sophia Loren co-starred in a film version of the Broadway musical Nine (Rob Marshall, 2009). She played the mother of famous film director Guido Contini, portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis. According to Jason Ankeny at AllMovie, "Loren proved she still had movie star charisma with a role in Chicago director Rob Marshall's Nine - a lavish tribute to all things Italian."

Loren made a two-part television biopic of her early life titled La Mia Casa È Piena di Specchi/My House Is Full of Mirrors (Vittorio Sindoni, 2010), based on of the memoir written by her sister Maria Scicolone.

At 80, Sophia Loren returned to the screen in Human Voice (2014) directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. At the presentation Tribeca Film Festival in New York, 'the timeless beauty' stunned the press once again when she walked on the red carpet in a chic red pantsuit hand-in-hand with her 41-year-old son to promote the short film. Human Voice is based on the play by iconic French playwright Jean Cocteau and sees La Loren play a woman in her twilight years facing revelations from her past.

In late 2014, she also presented her first memoir, Ieri, oggi, domani. La mia vita/Today and Tomorrow: My Life as a Fairy Tale. It includes old pictures, letters and notes detailing encounters with Cary Grant and other film partners.


German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. 5096. Photo: publicity still for Boccaccio '70 (Vittorio De Sica, 1962).


East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2372, 1965. Photo: publicity still for Boccaccio '70 (Vittorio De Sica a.o., 1962).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2676, 1966.


German postcard by pwe Verlag, München (Munich). Photo: publicity still for La moglie del prete/The Priest's Wife (Dino Risi, 1970) with Marcello Mastroianni.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. 4212, 1975. This postcard was printed in an edition of 300.000 cards. The price was 5 kop.


Sophia Loren dances the Mambo Bacan in La donna del fiume (1955). Source: primocarnero07 (YouTube).


Trailer for Nine (2009). Source: HQTrailers1 (YouTube).

Sources: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Shyam Dodge (Daily Mail), Jenny (IMDb), Wikipedia, NNDB, TCM and IMDb.

Le Petit Poucet (1972)

February 20, 2015, 10:00 pm

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The classic fairy-tale story Le Petit Poucet/Little Thumb by Charles Perrault has been filmed several times. In 1972, well-known French director Michel Boisrond made Le Petit Poucet, a poetic film adaptation with the young Jean-Christophe Maillot as Little Tom Thumb and legendary French singer Marie Laforêt as the elegant Queen.


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 11. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associés. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Jean-Christophe Maillot.


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 2. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associés. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Marie Laforêt.

Lost in the wood

Le petit Poucet is one of the eight fairy-tales published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (1697), now world-renowned.

Little Tom's parents are poor and want to leave him and his brothers in the forest. But Tom Thumb (played by Titoyo aka Jean-Christophe Maillot) is clever and marks his way by white pebbles from a river.

However, the second time he is unsuccessful - he has only bread-crumbs and birds eat them. The brothers are lost in the wood.

Tom climbs up a tree and spots a distant light. The boys walk towards it. They come at last to a house, and learn that it belongs to an ogre (Jean-Pierre Marielle) who has a princess in his entrapment. Tom is determined to free the princess (Marianne Ridoret).


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 3. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associes. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Jean-Luc Bideau as the King, Marianne Ridoret as the princess and Marie Laforêt as the Queen.


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 9. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associés. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Jean-Christophe Maillot.


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 10. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associés. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Jean-Christophe Maillot.

Horrifying music

The fairy-tale of Little Thumb has been filmed several times. This little shown 1972 version is a cult film for many French people who grew up in the 1970s.

Due to its great success in France was that the magazine Lisette followed the film by Michel Boisrond in an illustrated adaptation. The story was published in 16 chapters from September to November 1972.

The quite horrifying music was composed by Francis Lai. The cast included well-known actors as Jean-Luc Bideau, Marie Laforêt, and Jean-Pierre Marielle.

Jean-Christophe Maillot, credited as Titoyo, was 12 at the time. Le Petit Poucet was his only film.

Maillot became a dancer and choreographer. At the moment he is the director of the Ballets de Monte-Carlo.


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 12. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associés. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Jean-Christophe Maillot.


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 13. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associés. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Jean-Christophe Maillot in the title role.


French postcard by Librairie Hachette, Paris, no. 17. Photo: Parc Film Navarre & associés. Publicity still for Le Petit Poucet/Tom Thumb (Michel Boisrond, 1972) with Jean-Pierre Marielle.

Sources: Jan Lipsansky (IMDb), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

12 European Oscar Winners

February 21, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Tonight is the 87th Academy Awards ceremony. The Academy Awards, better known as The Oscars, were first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and are seen now as the most prestigious cinema awards ceremony in the world. This year, the Brits Benedict Cumberbatch (for his portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game) and Eddie Redmayne (for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything) are nominated as Best Actor in a Leading Role. As Best Actress in a Leading Role are nominated French Marion Cotillard (for Two Days, One Night), British Felicity Jones (for The Theory of Everything) and British Rosamund Pike (for Gone Girl). Through the years many European Film Stars have won an Oscar: so today at EFSP 12 postcards of European winners from the past.


1927-1928: Emil Jannings won for both The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Foreign, no. 99/1. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928). Jannings received the award at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony ever held. In the first three years of the awards, actors were nominated as the best in their categories. At that time, all of their work during the qualifying period (as many as three films, in some cases) was listed after the award.


1929-1930: George Arliss won for Disraeli. Vintage postcard. Photo: publicity still for Disraeli (Alfred E. Green, 1929). During the 3rd ceremony held in 1930, only one of the films was cited in each winner's final award, even though each of the acting winners had two films following their names on the ballots. For Arliss it was The Green Goddess. Both films were based on hit stage plays in which Arliss had starred. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing award system was replaced by the current system in which an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film.


1939: Vivien Leigh won for Gone with the Wind. Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Gone with the Wind (Victor Flemyng, 1939). Gone with the Wind brought Leigh immediate attention and fame. The film won 10 Academy Awards including a Best Actress award for Leigh, who also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She won another Oscar for her role as Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951).


1942: Greer Garson won for Mrs. Miniver. British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, nr. W 361. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Mrs. Miniver (1942) with Helmut Dantine. As one of MGM's major stars during the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award nominations, including a record five consecutive nominations, winning the Best Actress award for Mrs. Miniver (1942).


1943: Paul Lukas won for Watch on the Rhine. British Art Photo postcard, no. 115. Photo: Universal. In Watch on the Rhine (Herman Shumlin, 1943), Lukas played a man working against the Nazis, a role he originated in the Broadway premiere of the play of the same name in 1941. His portrayal of Kurt Mueller, a German émigré with an American wife, played by Bette Davis, was universally lauded by critics. He won out over luminary efforts as Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, and Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls.


1944: Ingrid Bergman for Gaslight. Small card. Photo: MGM. Photo: still for Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944) with Charles Boyer. Bergman won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and the Tony Award for Best Actress. In 1944, she won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944), a film in which George Cukor directed her as a wife driven close to madness by co-star Boyer.


1948: Laurence Olivier won for Hamlet. British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 695b. Photo: London Films. Hamlet was part of a trilogy of Shakespeare films Olivier made as actor-director: Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955). Hamlet became the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.


1955: Anna Magnani won for The Rose Tattoo. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4136. Photo: Bud Fraker. Magnani won the Oscar along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo (Daniel Mann, 1955), based on the play by Tennessee Williams. It co-starred Burt Lancaster, and was Magnani's first English speaking role in a mainstream Hollywood movie.


1959: Simone Signoret for Room at the Top. East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1412. Signoret was the only French cinema actress to receive an Oscar until Juliette Binoche in 1997 (Supporting Actress) and Marion Cotillard in 2008 (Best Actress), and the first woman to win the award appearing in a foreign film, Room at the Top (1959). In her lifetime, Signoret also received a César, three BAFTAs, an Emmy, Cannes Film Festival recognition, the Silver Bear for Best Actress awards and a Golden Globe nomination.


1961: Maximilian Schell for Judgement at Nuremberg. German postcard by Friedr. W. Sander-Verlag, Minden/Kolbri-Karte, no. 2005. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961). For Schell, his part as an attorney in Judgment at Nuremberg, a fictionalized re-creation of the Nuremberg War Trials, was his second acting role in Hollywood. In 1959, he had already played the same role on TV in an edition of Playhouse 90 a live TV production of Judgment at Nuremberg. His performance in the TV drama was considered so good that he was selected to play the same part in the film version. His Oscar was the first win for a German-speaking actor since World War II.


1961: Sophia Loren for La ciociara/Two Women. American postcard by Movieland Wax Museum, Buena Park. Photo: Mike Roberts. Wax figures of Sophia Loren and Eleonor Brown in La ciociara/Two Women (1960). Loren donated the tattered dress she wore during filming of La ciociara for her figure to wear at Movieland. Loren's performance as Cesira in Vittorio De Sica's La ciociara  made her the first artist to win an Oscar for a foreign-language performance. She holds the record for having earned six David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress, the most ever received: La ciociara/Two Women(Vittorio De Sica, 1960), Yesterday, Ieri, oggi, domani/Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow (Vittorio De Sica, 1963), Matrimonio all'Italiana/Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964) for which she was nominated for a second Oscar, I Girasoli/The Sunflowers (Vittorio De Sica, 1972), Il Viaggio/The Voyage (Vittorio De Sica, 1974) and Una giornata particolare/A Special Day (Ettore Scola, 1977).


1964: Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins. French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, no.107. Photo: Walt Disney Productions. Still from Mary Poppins (1964). British Julie Andrews made her feature film debut in Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964). The following year, she received her second Academy Award nomination for The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965), and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

Since its inception, the Best Actor award has been given to 77 actors. Daniel Day-Lewis has received the most awards in this category with three Oscars. Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were nominated on nine occasions, more than any other actor. There have been two years in which all four of the top acting Academy Awards were presented to Europeans. At the 37th Academy Awards (1964), the winners were Rex Harrison (British), Julie Andrews (British), Peter Ustinov (British), and Lila Kedrova (Russian-born French). At the 80th Academy Awards (2007), the winners were Daniel Day-Lewis (British and Irish), Marion Cotillard (French), Javier Bardem (Spanish), and Tilda Swinton (British).

Source: Wikipedia.

Leny Marenbach

February 22, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Lady-like Leny Marenbach (1907–1984) was one of the leading Ufa stars in the Nazi era. The German actress appeared in several popular comedies with Heinz Rühmann, like the hit Der Mustergatte/The Model Husband (1937). After the Second World War, she only played in a few films for the DEFA.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 138, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Photo-Atelier.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3132/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

A dream couple of the German cinema

Leni Marenbach was born in Essen in the German Empire in 1907. At the age of 16, she had her debut at the Schauspielhaus Essen, where she played Clara in Goethe’s Egmont and Luise in Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe.

She then spent three years at the Schauspielhaus Zurich, followed by engagements in Darmstadt, at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna and at the Kammerspiele in Munich.

In 1935, she made her film debut in Prague as Jana in the German-language film Jana, das Mädchen aus dem Böhmerwald/Jana, the Girl from the Bohemian Forest (Robert Land, 1935).

The following year, she played Heinz Rühmann’s wife in the comedy Wenn wir alle Engel wären/If We All Were Angels (Carl Froelich, 1936). Rühmann was Germany's number one box-office star in these years.

The film was her breakthrough and for a time she and Rühmann were a dream couple of the German cinema. Also privately, they were a couple.

She played the female lead in the adventure film Alarm in Peking (Herbert Selpin, 1937) opposite Gustav Fröhlich, and Peter Voß. This propaganda film is set against the backdrop of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China. German filmmakers had frequently used China as a setting since the 1910s, but from 1931 onwards they made a series of films with political overtones. After the war the film was forbidden.

A huge success was the comedy Der Mustergatte/The Model Husband (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1937), in which she co-starred with Heinz Rühmann and Hans Söhnker. The comedy was screened at the Venice Film Festival where it won an award, and in the 1950s it was remade twice.

Marenbach and Rühmann were again a couple in the comedy Fünf Millionen suchen einen Erben/Five Million Look for an Heir (Carl Boese, 1938).

Her next film, Ziel in den Wolken/Target in the Clouds (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1939) is a drama featuring Albert Matterstock as the German aviation pioneer Walter von Suhr, an officer in the pre-First World War German army who saw the potential for military aircraft.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 186, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Photo-Atelier / Tobis.


German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 2808/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Terra.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3860/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.

Sympathetic naturalness

Leny Marenbach was loved by the German public for her sympathetic naturalness. I.S. Mowis describes her at IMDb as ‘Germany's answer to Irene Dunne’: “She seemed to have little artifice about her and was therefore ideally suited to play gentle, impeccably well-mannered model wives or brave battlers against the forces of adversity. In more emancipated mode, she added a much-needed sparkle to assorted mainstream melodramas and could also occasionally display a deft talent for comedy.”

Leny showcased her versatility as a dramatic actress in her dual role in Frau nach Maß/Woman-to-measure (Helmut Käutner, 1940) opposite Hans Söhnker. The film was written under pseudonym by Erich Kästner.

During the war years, she got star billing even if she played only a supporting part such as in Friedemann Bach (Traugott Müller, Gustaf Gründgens, 1941). This biopic depicts the life of Johann Sebastian Bach's gifted son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (Gustav Gründgens), who tries to escape his father's shadow.

In Ein Zug fährt ab/A train leaves (Johannes Guter,1942) her co-star was Ferdinand Marian, in the comedy Die Wirtin zum Weißen Rößl/The landlady of the White Horse Inn (Karl Anton, 1943) she appeared opposite Karl Schönböck, and in the comedy Wildvogel/Wild-Bird (Johannes Meyer, 1943) with Volker von Collande.

In 1944 she appeared with Carl Raddatz and Hansi Knoteck in the Heimatfilm Das war mein Leben/That was my life (Paul Martin, 1944). The family comedy Wie sagen wir es unseren Kindern?/How do we say so to our children? (Hans Deppe, 1945) with Mathias Wieman, only reached the cinemas after the war, in 1949.

After World War II, Marenbach’s popularity declined. In 1949 she appeared with Willy Fritsch in the musical comedy Hallo – Sie haben Ihre Frau vergessen/Hello – You have forgotten your wife (Kurt E. Walter, 1949).

In 1952, she received a contract by the DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft), the state-owned film studio in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Among her East-German films are the spy thriller Geheimakten Solvay/Secret Files of Solvay (Martin Hellberg, 1953) and the comedy Wer seine Frau lieb hat/Who loves his wife (Kurt Jung-Alsen,1955) with Albert Garbe.

Geheimakten Solvay aroused criticism in the West for its blatant propagandist content. Because of her East-German work, she was not offered film roles in West-Germany.

Marenbach played theatre in Berlin. On West-German TV, she could be seen in a few series like Am grünen Strand der Spree/On the green beach of the river Spree (Fritz Umgelter, 1960).

At the end of the 1960s, she retired from show business. She was briefly married with the cameraman Walter Pindter and had a son with him.

Leny Marenbach died of heart failure in West-Berlin, West-Germany in 1984.


German postcard, no. A 3643/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3751/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Star-Foto-Atelier.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3132/1, 1941-1944.

Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line – German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Film-Zeit.de (German), Defa-stiftung (German), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Carmen Boni

February 23, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Italian silent film star Carmen Boni (1901-1963) had a successful career in the Italian cinema of the early 1920s, before moving to Germany where she made one film after another till the sound era.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 535-A.


French postcard by Europe, no. 300. Photo: Cineromans / Films de France.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3034/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Oertel, Berlin.

The European Clara Bow

Carmen Boni was born as Maria Carmela Bonicatti in 1901 in Rome, Italy. She was the sister of cinematographer Mario Bonicatti.

In 1919, she made her first film appearance under her own name for Nova Film in La pecorella/The sheep (Pio Vanzi, 1920) with Ignazio Lupi.

Then she played in the Italian silent drama Ave Maria (Memmo Genua, Diana Karenne, 1920). For this film, she was still credited with her birth name. Diana Karenne suggested her to change her name, so enter Carmen Boni.

That year, the young actress also played leads in Miss Dorothy (Giulio Antamoro, 1920) with Lia Formia and Diana Karenne, Il fiore del Caucaso/The flower of the Caucasus (Augusto Camerini, 1920), and Monella di strada/Monella Street (Umberto Fracchia, 1920) opposite Romano Calò.

In the early 1920s, Boni had a successful career in the Italian cinema. She worked with director Guglielmo Zorzi at La preda/The prey (1921), La piccola ignota/The little unknown (1923), and Il riscatto/The redemption (1924) opposite André Habay and Lido Manetti.

A success was the comedy La dama de Chez Maxim's (Amleto Palermi, 1923) in which she co-starred with Pina Menichelli. It is an adaptation of the 1899 play La Dame de chez Maxim by Georges Feydeau.

With director Augusto Genina, she made La moglie bella/The beautiful wife (1924) with Ruggero Ruggeri, Il focolare spento/The hearth turned off (1925) with Lido Manetti, her international breakthrough L'ultimo lord/The last lord (1926) with Oreste Bilancia and Addio giovinezza!/Goodbye Youth (1927).

Addio giovinezza!/Goodbye Youth was adapted from the 1911 play of the same name by Nino Oxilia and Sandro Camasio. The film is set in Turin at the beginning of the Twentieth century, where a student (Walter Slezak) begins a romance with a seamstress Dorina (Boni). However, he is lured away by a sophisticated older woman (Elena Sangro) leaving Dorina distressed. Genina had previously directed an earlier version of the play in 1918. It was remade as a sound film of the same title in 1940.

These films were produced by Genina Film. Genina was both her Pygmalion and her husband. Together they moved to Germany when the Italian film industry got in a crisis in the mid 1920s and there were no possibilities anymore for Genina Film.


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, no. 480. Photo: Film Genina. Carmen Boni in L'ultimo lord/The last lord (Augusto Genina, 1926).


Italian postcard, no. 242. Card mailed in Italy in 1930. Photo: FotoEbung. Probably a publicity still for L'ultimo lord/The last lord (Augusto Genina, 1926).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Ed., no. 688. Photo: Films Genina. Probably a publicity still for L'ultimo lord/The last lord (Augusto Genina, 1926).


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 953. Photo: Verleih Engel & Welter.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1783/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Arthur Ziehm, Berlin.

Suicide Attempt

Berlin was the European film capital at the time and Carmen Boni made one film after another during the late 1920s. Her German films include Venus im Frack/Venus in Tails (Robert Land, 1927) with Georg Alexander and Henri de Vries, Gehetzte Frauen (Richard Oswald, 1927) starring Asta Nielsen as Boni's mother, and Scampolo (Augusto Genina, 1928) in which she played a young Roman orphan.

Reviewer Luke-28 at IMDb: "An unpretentious but amazingly witty little comedy, Scampolo confirms Genina's special 'touch': a mix of subtle irony and social satire akin to Lubitsch's own bittersweet vision of the world. Scampolo also serves as a perfect vehicle for Carmen Boni's verve and comic skills."

With her verve and comic skills, Boni managed to switch from big laughter to genuine emotion with uncommon natural ease. Carmen Boni had a modern type of beauty, and she became the European equivalent of Hollywood stars like Clara Bow, Colleen Moore and Louise Brooks.

The last postcard in this post mentions the Karl Grune Film. This company only made one film with Carmen Boni: Katharina Knie (Karl Grune, 1929), based on the 1928 play of the same title by Carl Zuckmayer. Carmen Boni played the title role as the circus princess, with Eugen Klöpfer as her father. It was her last film in Germany.

After some more films in Italy, La Grazia/The Grace (Aldo De Benedetti, 1929), she moved to France where she performed in several Italian versions of Paramount films in the early 1930s, shot at the Paramount studio's in Joinville.

These films included the dramas Il richiamo del cuore/Appeal of the Heart (Jack Salvatori, 1930) and La vacanza del diavolo/The Devil's Holiday (Jack Salvatori, 1931).

In France, she also made with her husband the comedy La femme en home/The Woman Dressed As a Man (Augusto Genina, 1932) with Armand Bernard, and Ne sois pas jalousie/Don't be jealous (Augusto Genina, 1934). When Genina divorced her, she tried to commit suicide.

Then she focused on other things instead of cinema. In 1938 she married the French actor Jean Rigaux .

She returned in only two more French films. The first was the Swashbuckler Le comte de Monte Cristo, 2ème époque: Le châtiment/The Count of Monte Christo, Part II (Robert Vernay, Ferrucio Cerio, 1943) featuring Pierre Richard-Willm, and based on the classic novel by Alexandre Dumas père. Her final film was D'Homme à homme/Man to Men (Christian-Jaque, 1948), about the founder of the Red Cross, Henri Dunant, played by Jean-Louis Barrault.

In 1963 Carmen Boni was killed in Paris by a reckless car driver, while crossing a zebra path. She was 62.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3610/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3696/1, 1928-1929. Photo Lichtenstein, Berlin / Greenbaum Film.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4185/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4344/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Orplid Messtro Film.


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5351. Photo: Gaumont-Film. Publicity still for Prinzessin Olala/Princess Olala (Robert Land, 1928) with Walter Rilla.


French postcard by Europe, no. 717. Photo: Karl Grune Film. Publicity still for Katharina Knie (Karl Grune, 1929).

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio - Italian), Luke-28 (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and Italian) and IMDb

Arthur Grimm

February 24, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Arthur Grimm (1908–ca. 1990) was a German photographer. He was one of the most prominent photojournalists in the Nazi era, and after the war he worked for cinema and television and made many portraits for German film star postcards.


Maria Schell. German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 420. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.


Sonja Ziemann. German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 168. Photo: CCC / Arthur Grimm.


Peter Garden. German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-87. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.


Oliver Grimm - a nephew of Arthur Grimm. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-29. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.


Bibi Johns. German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-91. Sent by mail in Germany in 1962. Photo: Arthur Grimm.

Anti-Semitic ‘photojournalism’

Arthur Grimm was born in Rehau, Germany, in 1908. His older brother was the director Hans Grimm, and his sister Betti was married since 1938 with the director and producer Kurt Hoffmann.

In 1933 Grimm was a member of the NSDAP group in Rehau. The following year, he moved to Berlin. Before the Second World War, Grimm made press photos of numerous political events of the Nazis.

In 1936, he was responsible for the stills and some of the set photographs during the filming of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia (1936). He accompanied Riefenstahl and her team to Greece.

In the same year he recorded the Spanish Civil War as a photojournalist for a French news agency. In March 1939, he photographed the mob from the roadside when the Germans marched into Prague.

In the fall of 1939, Grimm worked in the Warsaw Ghetto. His anti-Semitic ‘photojournalism’ appeared on 5 December 1939 in the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung.

From May 1940 to 1945 he worked as a special agent in a propaganda company for the magazine Signal. There appeared his photo stories about the war in France, the Balkan and especially in the Soviet Union.


Helmuth Schneider. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 1268. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Central Europa Film / Prisma. Publicity still for Die Schützenliesel/Schützenliesel (Rudolf Schündler, 1954).


Michèle Morgan. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris (Licency holder in France for Ufa), no. FK 17A. Offered by Les carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.


Maria Frau. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 455. Photo: Arthur Grimm / CCC-Film / Allianz. Publicity still for Stern von Rio (Kurt Neumann, 1955).


Christian Wolff. Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 3846. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Bavaria /Schorcht Film. Gebr. Spanjersberg was the licence holder for the Netherlands of the postcards by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhoff.


Dawn Addams and Peter van Eyck. German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 2852. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Alfa / Prisma. Publicity still for Geheimaktion Schwarze Kapelle/The Black Chapel (Ralph Habib, 1959).

Fritz Lang

Around 1945 Arthur Grimm moved his studio to Wernigerode in the Harz Mountains. In the immediate post-war years, he trained young photographers including the later known photographer Horst Lang.

At some point he returned to West Berlin and from 1951 until 1984 he worked successfully as still photographer for film and television.

Films for which made film stills were Sündige Grenze/Illegal Border (Robert A. Stemmle, 1951) with Inge Egger, the crime thriller Die Spur führt nach Berlin/Adventure in Berlin (František Čáp, 1952) and the adventure film Stern von Rio/Star of Rio (Kurt Neumann, 1954) with Maria Frau.

In 1955, the former Nazi propaganda photograph even made the stills for the war film Der 20. Juli/The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (Falck Harnack, 1955).

For the drama Die Ratten/The Rats (Robert Siodmak, 1955) with Maria Schell and Curd Jürgens, Grimm was credited as the ‘star photographer’. Later he also made the stills for Fritz Lang’s Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse/Diabolical Dr. Mabuse (1960).

When the German television took over the cinema, the ZDF station became one of his regular clients. One of his last feature films was Herrliche Zeiten im Spessart/Glorious Times in the Spessart (Kurt Hoffmann, 1967) with Liselotte Pulver.

His studio was located in the Englerallee in Berlin-Dahlem. The last years of his life he lived in Hamburg. In 1971 he handed over parts of his archive to the Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Heritage Image Archive) in Berlin. Additional material from his collection was in 1983 bought by the kPa-Fotoarchiv which passed again in 1998 in the possession of the Agency Content Mine International AG in Cologne.

Where and when exactly Arthur Grimm died is unclear.


Johanna von Koczian. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-64. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Central Europa Film.


Nadja Tiller. German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-123. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.


Susanne Cramer. German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft) Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-114. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm.


Toni Sailer. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-314. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.


Conny Froboess, Rex Gildo, Peter Kraus and Rolf Pinegger. German postcard by ISV, no. E 13. Photo: Constantin / Grimm.

Check out our other posts on film star photographers. See the links at right under the caption 'The Photographers'.

Sources: Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

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Firmin Gémier

February 25, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Firmin Gémier (1869-1933) was actor, director and theatre manager at the French stage. He was a promoter of theatre for the people and founder of the first Théâtre National Populaire in Paris in 1920. From the 1910s to the 1930s, Gémier also acted in silent and sound French films.


French postcard in the series Nos artistes dans leurs expressions, no. 1019, by Paris sur scene.

Refused at the Conservatory

Firmin Gémier was born as Firmin Tonnerre in Aubervilliers, France, in 1869. His father was a tanner, his mother came from a family of carpenters.

Living in the Parisian workers quartier of Belleville, he was able to go to the upper primary school Turgot thanks to a scholarship. Twice refused to study at the Conservatory, he studied acting in neighbourhood theatres, including the Théâtre de Belleville and that of Bouffes du Nord.

In 1892 (some sources say 1891), he entered the famous Théâtre Libre of André Antoine, where he worked as an actor and as a stage manager. While working for Antoine, Firmin Gémier discovered his desire to offer quality theatre at a cheap price. His debut role was that Ubu in the first performance of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry, at the Nouveau-Théâtre.

He then left Antoine with some other members of the troupe and played at the Théâtre du Gymnase for one season. Then he directed the Théâtre de la Renaissance, where he tried out popular theatre for the first time with the staging of Quatorze Juillet by Romain Rolland in 1902. Many plays at the Renaissance followed that year. In order to pay for the contractual debts at the Renaissance, he became actor in 1903.

He associated with Camille de Sainte-Croix in order to create a popular Parisian theatre, which was backed by the committee of the Chambre des Députés (House of Commons) in 1906, but refused by the Paris City Council. At the Odéon, he also staged La Rabouilleuse after Honoré de Balzac, in which he played Philippe Bridau.


French postcard by F.C. & Cie, no. 46-2. Photo: Henri Manuel.

Beautiful, emotional, artistic - and aristocratic - sights

Between 1906 and 1919, Firmin Gémier was the head of the Théâtre Antoine. He alternated popular hits with new authors to balance the revenues.

Influenced by Romain Rolland and his ‘théâtre pour le peuple’ (theatre for the people) and by the Théâtre du Peuple at Bussang, Gémier created the Théâtre National Ambulant (1911-1912), with the help of Joseph Paul-Boncour. This was a removable auditorium with seating for 1650 persons.

With several trucks for the transport of the auditorium, he travelled across France to present the pieces he had staged with the Théâtre Antoine in Paris, such as Anna Karenina, La Rabouilleuse and Les Gaîtés de l'escadron.

Despite its big popular success, the revenues of the Théâtre National Ambulant were insufficient, and the experience was quickly abandoned.

In 1917 Gémier founded the Société Shakespeare and created The Merchant of Venice. Like Antoine, Gémier sought to renew the mise-en-scène: he made the auditorium part of the stage, used the effects of crowds, continued Antoine’s work on light by removing the ramp, and worked with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze to integrate music in the representation.

Gémier founded the Théâtre National Populaire in 1920 in Paris at the Palais de Chaillot. According to critic Régis Messac, Firmin Gémier found ‘the exact formula of the Popular Theatre. [...] Gémier has thought of offering the people sights that are beautiful, emotional, artistic - and aristocratic. He presents old and new masterpieces of our drama, with the best actors. [...] Excellent orchestras play Beethoven or Mozart. [...] The people press to these magnificent performances. People with taste expressed to be enchanted and delighted. "

Gémier also simultaneously ran one of France's national theatres, the Théâtre de l'Odéon (1921-1929, some sources say 1922-1930). In 1924, he organised the ceremonial transfer of the remains of French Socialist leader Jean Jaures to the Panthéon, the secular mausoleum in Paris containing the remains of distinguished French citizens.


French postcard. Photo: Michaud. Publicity still of Firmin Gémier in the stage production Oedipe, roi de Thèbes. Written: "Chers camarades de Pont-aux-Dame. A' bientôt! Retenez-moi une chambre. 24 Octobre 1919. F. Gémier." (Dear fellows of P. See you soon! Keep a room for me.)

Sincerity, emotion, interiority, naturalness

Incidentally, Firmin Gémier was also a film actor and director. His cinema debut was for Pathé Frères in L'Homme qui assassina/The man who murdered (Henri Andréani, 1913). Earlier he had directed a short film for Pathé, Le père Milon/Father Milon (Firmin Gémier, Henry Houry, 1909), an adaptation of a story by Guy de Maupassant about the Franco-Prussian War.

In 1917 he played Emile Berliac, one of the leads in Abel Gance’s Mater Dolorosa/Sorrowful Mother/The Torture of Silence, opposite Emmy Lynn as Manon Berliac and Armand Tallier as François Rolland.

In the 1920s he acted in La Branche morte/The dead branch (Giuseppe Guarino, 1926) with Dolly Davis, and played Dr. Porhoet in Rex Ingram’s The Magician (1926), a MGM production shot in Paris and Nice and based on a novel by Somerset Maugham. The Magician starred Alice Terry as a female sculptor who has an affair with a surgeon (Iván Petrovich) who saves her. However, another doctor and hypnotist (Paul Wegener) is doing experiments for which he needs female blood…

In the 1930s, Gémier acted in a few sound films. First he was Heinrich Martin in Un homme sans nom/A man without a name (Roger Le Bon, Gustav Ucicky, 1932), based on Balzac’s Le Colonel Chabert. Gémier had the lead as a German industrial who 15 years after the war returns to Germany but cannot cope with his identity as he is officially declared death. He changes his name, leaves his wife to his assistant who also has taken over direction of the firm, and starts a new life. A simultaneously made German version of the film, Mensch ohne Nahmen, had Werner Krauss in the lead.

Gémier also had the lead in the only film he directed himself, Le Simoun (Firmin Gémier, 1933). Originally Rex Ingram would have filmed Le Simoun, with exteriors in North Africa and interiors in his studio in Nice. After the flop of Ingram's film Baroud, his loss of control at the Nice studio, and his old crew leaving him alone, Rex Ingram quited the project and film making at all. Le Simoun was released four weeks after Gémier’s death. It was not a financial success.

Then Gémier had his last film part as in La Fusée/Grandeur and Decadence (Jacques Natanson, 1933). Gémier played Etienne Girbal, a factory owner who loses his wife (Marcelle Géniat) and is ruined because of the crisis, so he has to start all over again.

In 2004, Nathalie Coutelet stated in the French film historical journal 1895: "Gémier exemplifies the transition made by most theatre artists to cinema at the beginning of the 20th century. He participated in silent films, then talkies… taking up certain of his former roles with success. An emblematic figure in adapting theatre acting to the cinema, he turned to his usual creative techniques: sincerity, emotion, interiority, naturalness. The close relationship between the cinema and theatre was evident for Gémier. Yet, he conceived of cinematographic interpretation as a potential means for modernising acting and actor training, as well as a means for artistic poly valence and international collaboration."

Firmin Gémier died of heart failure in 1933 in Paris. An ardent admirer of Shakespeare, at the time of his death he was in the process of adapting The Merchant of Venice for the cinema.

As an homage, the Théâtre Firmin Gémier was founded in 1967 in Ville d'Antony in the region Île-de-France.


French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 161. Paul Wegenerin The Magician (Rex Ingram, 1926).


French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 343.

Sources: Nathalie Coutelet (1895 - French), Leonhard Gmür (Rex Ingram: Hollywood's Rebel of the Silver Screen), Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.

Renate Ewert

February 26, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Renate Ewert (1933-1966) was a German actress, who appeared in several European films and TV series of the 1950s and 1960s. Her suicide started a family tragedy.


German postcard by ISV, no. M 10. Photo: Europa Film / Czerwonski.

Seductive, mysterious girl

Renate Ewert was born in Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia), in 1933. Her father was a respected grain trader, her mother came from Poland. During the Second World War, mother and daughter fled Königsberg when the Russian front came closer. They settled in Hamburg. Her father followed, after spending four years as a prisoner of war.

Renate convinced her father not to let her finish school and instead went to acting classes by Ida Ehre. She applied for the Hamburger Kammerspiele but was rejected. She played in some roles on stage and did synchronizing jobs for foreign films.

When director Paul May was casting the role of Barbara Bruks in the third part of the successful series 08/15 – In der Heimat/08/15 - In the homeland (Paul May, 1954), he chose the then 20-year-old Ewert. The film series was based on Hans Hellmut Kirst's novel.

From then on, Ewert appeared in many post-war films as the seductive, mysterious girl but never got the dramatic parts she was eager to play. Ewert gained a reputation for lateness and for not always being too reliable on set. She also became fodder for the tabloids, when she had several affairs with such celebrities as actors Erik Schumann and Harald Juhnke, Wörthersee playboy Gerhard Berndt, and beverage dealer Hans-Hermann Weyer.

While filming the comedy Mikosch im Geheimdienst/Mikosch in Secret Service (Franz Marischka, Franz Josef Gottlieb, 1958), she started an affair with married producer Franz Marischka. He was 19 years her senior and the tabloids went wild. There were rumors she was the cause for Marischka’s divorce from his wife, Inge.

Later, she, Marischka, and Inge, now his ex, lived in the same apartment house in Munich-Schwabing, only two stories apart. She also had an affair with actor Paul Hubschmid while he was on the Vienna stage in My Fair Lady. Renate became the cause for a first suicide attempt by his wife, Ursula von Teubern. When Ursula Hubschmid eventually committed suicide, Renate felt guilty and started taking drugs.


German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 1499. Photo: Divina / Gloria / Bayer. Publicity still for 08/15 III. Teil/08/15 at Home (Paul May, 1955).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2026. Photo: Rhombus / Herzog-Film / Czerwonski. Publicity still for Lumpazivagabundus (Franz Antel, 1956).


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4048. Photo: Arca / Cinepress. Publicity still for Liebe kann wie Gift sein/Love can be like poison (Veit Harlan, 1958).

Pills and alcohol

In 1960 Renate Ewert starred in the West German/Danish crime film Der rote Kreis/The Crimson Circle (Jürgen Roland, 1960). Scotland Yard detectives pursue a ruthless league of blackmailers known as The Crimson Circle. It was one of the many German Edgar Wallace adaptations of the 1960s, in this case of the 1922 novel The Crimson Circle. Der rote Kreis was the second film in the Wallace series produced by Rialto. The film's success encouraged the producers to meet with Penelope Wallace and secure the film rights for all available Wallace novels.

That same year, Renate also starred in Schlagerparade 1960 (Franz Marischka, 1960) and in the follow-up Schlagerparade 1961 (Franz Marischka, 1961). In France she made the films L'appartement des filles/Girl's Apartment (Michel Deville, 1963) with Mylène Demongeot, and Échappement libre/Backfire (Jean Becker, 1964) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Another thriller was Hotel der toten Gäste/Hotel of the dead guests (Eberhard Itzenplitz, 1965) starring Joachim Fuchsberger, Karin Dor, and Elke Sommer. It was based on a novel by Heather Gardiner, an Australian mystery author who died in a car crash after just publishing two novels. In the film, which was shot in Bavaria, the police are called to a hotel, filled with visitors in town for a music festival, where one of the guests has been murdered.

Ewert also had a supporting part in Angélique, marquise des anges/Angélique (Bernard Borderie, 1964), the first part of the series of romantic costume films based on the popular novels by Anne and Serge Golon. Despite the success of this film, an international career did not establish.

On 10 December 1966, Renate Ewert was found dead on the floor of the bedroom of her apartment in Munich. She was found by actress Susanne Cramer, a friend who lived in the US and wanted to visit her. Ewert had died of pills and alcohol several days earlier, only 33. Dressed in a nightgown and weakened by pills, she starved to death and was nothing but skin and bones. In death her weight was only 34 kilos.

A month earlier her friend, Franz Marischka had left for Berlin, and shortly afterwards, her telephone service was cut because of non-payment. Distraught at the death of his daughter, her father Paul Ewert, who had insisted on an autopsy to determine the cause of death, took his life in 1967 with sleeping pills. In his suicide note he asked his wife to forgive him. His wife Helene poisoned herself in 1969.


German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 2633. Photo: Joe Lilo.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempeldorf, no. FK 3113. Photo: Joe Niczky / Ufa.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 300. Photo: Bavaria / Terrascope / Schorcht.

Sources: Holger Haase (Hallo, hier spricht...), F. Wassermann (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Mädchen in Uniform (1931)

February 27, 2015, 10:00 pm

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The German film Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich, 1931) is a ground-breaking classic. The film made of its two lead actresses, Hertha Thiele and Dorothea Wieck, international stars - and lesbian idols.


Dutch Postcard by M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam, Z., no. 104 e. Photo: Fim Film, Amsterdam. Publicity still for Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich, 1931).

Spirited and independent

Manuela von Meinhardis (Hertha Thiele), a spirited and independent 14-year old schoolgirl, is sent to a boarding school for daughters of officers in Northern Germany, when her mother dies. The girls at this Catholic boarding school are slight, pale creatures - hungry for food and comfort.

The authoritarian head mistress, Fraülein von Nordeck zur Nidden (Emilia Unda), runs the school with an iron hand. She believes that daughters of Prussian soldiers must be taught discipline and deprivation, not luxury.

Ilse (Ellen Schwannecke) is the school trouble-maker, leader, and clown. Witty and outspoken, she repeatedly entertains the other girls, binding them together in secret comradery against their oppressive elders.

Like the rest of the girls, Manuela yearns for the attention of the fair and beautiful Elizabeth Von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck), a young teacher who believes it's important to be the children's trusted friend. Manuela is ecstatic when Fraülein von Bernburg presents her with a gift, one of her slips, to replace the girl's own tattered underwear.

Relief from the regimentation of school life comes when the girls stage a theatrical production for students, staff and trustees of the boarding school. Manuela's performance as Don Carlos is accomplished and praised by students and staff.

At a party following the play, Manuela is the only student who can tolerate the taste of the punch given to them as a reward. Her friends pass their cups on to her and she soon gets herself quite drunk. In a semi-conscious state she announces her feelings for Fraulein von Burnberg to the entire school along with the infuriated Headmistress.


Dorothea Wieck. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6846/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.


Hertha Thiele. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6997/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa.

At speed and on a low budget

German actress Hertha Thiele began her professional acting career in 1928 as a stage actress in Leipzig.

There she had her breakthrough two years later with the play Ritter Nérestan (Knight Nérestan) by Christa Winsloe.

Thiele and Claire Harden played the lead roles in this tale set in a Prussian boarding school for girls. The play, directed by Leontine Sagan, was an immediate success at its premiere in 1930.

After Leipzig the play was produced on stage in Berlin as Gestern und heute (Yesterday and Today), with a different cast and a more prominent lesbian theme. Again it was a huge success.

This success prompted Carl Froelich to adapt it for film. Reportedly he toned the lesbian theme somewhat down. He invited Leontine Sagan, for whom it was her first film. to join. The direction was split into direction of the cast and mise-en-scene by Sagan and overall direction by Carl Froelich, the Künstleriche Oberleitung.

After many screen tests, author Christa Winsloe insisted that Hertha Thiele played the lead role. Director Sagan preferred Gina Falckenberg who had done the role on stage in Berlin.

Thiele had already played a young lesbian in Ferdinand Bruckner's stage play Die Kreatur (The Creature) and although twenty-three years old when filming began, she was considered to be more capable of portraying a fourteen-year-old. The role of the adored teacher Fräulein von Bernburg was given to Swiss actress Dorothea Wieck.

Having mostly played the same roles on stage, the all-female cast was able to produce the film at speed and on a low budget of RM55,000. It was largely shot at the Potsdam military orphanage, now a teacher training college for women. Carl Froelich's studio in Berlin-Tempelhof was also used.


British card in the series Film Shots by Film Weekly. Photo: Deutsche. Publicity still for Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich, 1931) with Ellen Schwannecke and Dorothea Wieck.


British card in the series Film Shots by Film Weekly. Photo: Deutsche. Publicity still for Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich, 1931) with Dorothea Wieck and Hertha Thiele.

Goodnight kiss

From its premiere at the Capitol cinema in Berlin until 1934 Mädchen in Uniform grossed some RM 6,000,000. It was a success throughout much of Europe. The film won the audience referendum for Best Technical Perfection at the Venice Film Festival in 1932 and received the Japanese Kinema Junpo Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1934.

The international success made of both Wieck and Thiele major stars. The goodnight kiss Thiele received from Wieck was especially popular: one distributor even asked for more footage of other kisses like it to splice into prints of the film.

Mädchen in Uniform was ground-breaking as one of the earliest narrative films to explicitly portray homosexuality. The two stars received thousands of fan letters, mostly from women, and both became lesbian idols. This made the film also very controversial.

Author Christa Winsloe was a lesbian. She was educated in the Empress Augusta boarding school, where Mädchen in Uniform was set. Reportedly there really was a Manuela, who remained lame all of her life after she threw herself down the stairs. She came to the premiere of the film and for Winsloe this experience was one she had to write from her heart.

Jan Onderwater at IMDb: "The play as well as the later novel emphasizes the sexual/lesbian love theme, but the film adaptation was toned down; the original sad end was replaced by a happy end. Though the film goes as far as it can in its theme of (awakening) lesbian feelings and sexual feelings of young girls in general, shifting emphasis automatically meant concentrating on the theme of the cold and inhumane authoritarian (Prussian) way of life and upbringing, a way of thinking still present in the Weimar republic and in 1931 already considered a danger to the young republic. Then audiences were more interested in this aspect than in the sexual one."

In the US, the film was first banned, but First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt saw the importance of it and the film got a limited American release in 1932-1933.

In Germany, an alternate ending which subtly pandered to pro-Nazi ideals enabled continued screening in German cinemas, but eventually even this version of the film was banned as 'decadent' by the Nazi regime, which reportedly attempted to burn all of the existing prints.

Leontine Sagan and many others associated with the film fled Germany soon after the banning. Many of the cast and crew were Jewish, including Emilia Unda and Ellen Schwannecke, and those who could not escape from Germany died in the camps. When assistant director Walter Supper realized his Jewish wife would be arrested, he shot her, himself and his dog.

Despite its later banning, Mädchen in Uniform was followed by several German films about intimate relationships among women, such as Acht Mädels im Boot/Eight Girls in a Boat (1932), Ich für dich, du für mich/Me for you, you for me (Carl Froelich, 1934) and Anna und Elisabeth/Anna and Elisabeth (Leontine Sagan, 1933), which also starred Wieck and Thiele but was banned by the Nazis soon after its opening night.

After the war, Mädchen in Uniform is said to have inspired the 1949 novel Olivia by Dorothy Bussy, which treats very similar themes, and which was made into the French film Olivia (Jacqueline Audry, 1951). And there was a German remake, Mädchen in Uniform, (Géza von Radványi, 1958) starring Lilli Palmer, Romy Schneider, and Therese Giehse.

The Nazis had attempted to burn all of the existing prints, but several had been dispersed around the world and survived the war. The screened film versions were heavily censored until the 1970s, and it was not shown again in Germany until 1977 when it was screened on television there. A year later, the film was re-released in the US. It's now an international cult classic, but according to Wikipedia even this and later released versions probably miss some brief scenes.


British card in the series Film Shots by Film Weekly. Photo: Deutsche. Publicity still for Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich, 1931) with Dorothea Wieck and Emilia Unda.


British card in the series Film Shots by Film Weekly. Photo: Deutsche. Publicity still for Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich, 1931) with Dorothea Wieck and Emilia Unda.


Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht (printed by 't Sticht), no. AX 3879, posted by mail in 1959. Photo: Grimm / C.C.C. / Gloria. Publicity still for Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Géza von Radványi, 1958) with Romy Schneider.

Sources: Heide Schlüpmann & Karola Gramman (Screening the past), Jan Onderwater (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Mary Marquet

February 28, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Mary Marquet (1895-1979) was a grande dame of the French stage, but she was also active as a screen actress. She appeared already in Sarah Bernhardt’s silent film La voyante (1923) and one of her final film roles was Donald Sutherland's mother in Fellini’s Casanova (1976).


French postcard in the series Nos artistes dans leur loge by Ed. La Fayette, no. 99. Photo: Comoedia.

Stage struck

Micheline Marie Marguerite Delphine Marquet was the granddaughter of Delphine Marquet of the Comédie Française, niece of star dancer Louise Marquet, and daughter of stage actors Marcel Marquet and Louise Loisel.

She was born in 1895 in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, where her parents were under contract. In the early 20th century, the Marquets returned to live in Paris.

In 1909, the girl made her stage debut next to her parents under the name of Mary Marquet. The play was Anthony by Alexandre Dumas père.

In 1915 the young actress was hired by Sarah Bernhardt to act in her Paris theatre La tour de Nesles. She then acted in over 200 performances of L’aiglon by Edmond Rostand as the young Duke of Reichstadt. It was a triumph and Mary openly lived her affair with the great author.

In 1921 she divorced her first husband, stage actor Maurice Escande, in order to follow her new love Firmin Gémier at the Théâtre Antoine. From this meeting the creation of plays by Claude Farrère and Pierre Frandaie sprang up.

In 1923 Marquet entered the Comédie-Française and after five years, she became a Sociétaire. She was one of its most revered actresses for over twenty years. Mary also worked at the Théâtre Français.

While stage struck, Marquet was less active in film. In silent cinema she probably debuted in the short film Les frères ennemis/Enemy brothers (Henri Pouctal, 1913), a Le Film d'Art production.

This was followed by several other silent films such as Dalila (1916) with Jean Yonnel and Andrée Pascal, La ferme du Choquart/The Choquart farm (Jean Kemm, 1922) starring Geneviève Félix, and Sarah Bernhardt’s last film La voyante/The Clairvoyant (Léon Abrams, Louis Mercanton, 1923).

In the 1930s, Marquet appeared only in Sapho/Sappho (Léonce Perret, 1933) and Les perles de la couronne/The Pearls of the Crown (Sacha Guitry, 1939) - and this despite a bright and tumultuous marriage with the famous film (and stage) actor Victor Francen.


Maurice Escande. French postcard by Collection Chantal, Paris, no. 88.


Victor Francen. French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 973. Photo: Pathé Natan.

Casanova's Mother

During the Second World War, Mary Marquet continued to act on stage. She also gave 200 poetry recitals and like many other actors of the time, she participated in mundane manifestations under the Regime.

According to Philippe Pelletier at CinéArtistes, Marquet tried in 1943 to prevent that her son François, whom she had had with Firmin Gémier, was deported for working in the Resistance. It was in vain. François died in Buchenwald in January 1944.

Christophe Greseque at IMDb tells a different version: "During her trial, she admitted contacting the Vichy police in 1943 and asking them to prevent her son François from joining the Resistance. Despite a severe warning by the police, he still managed to flee to Spain but was arrested and deported to Buchenwald where he died in January 1944."

In 1944, Mary Marquet was arrested and sent to Fresne prison, near Paris: she was accused of collaborating with the Germans during the war as well as being instrumental to her son's arrest by the Gestapo. She was acquitted in January 1945 but was not allowed to return to the Comédie Française.

In 1946 she went back to the stage, but now of the boulevard theatre. (Light comedies are called 'comédies de boulevard' in French.) She also reappeared on screen for the comedies Interdit au public/Forbidden to the Public (Fred Pasquali, 1949) and Le quatre-vingt-quatre prend des vacances/The eighty-four takes a vacation (Léo Joannon, 1949) starring Rellys.

As a consequence, the tragedy actress turned into a comic actress, also in cinema. Her presence and height of 1.80 cm made her a remarkable actress in the next 25 years, acting in some 35 films.

Among her most striking parts were those of the Marquise de Maintenon in Si Versailles m’était conté/Royal Affairs in Versailles (1953) by Sacha Guitry, Queen Mother Elisabeth of Moldavia in Arsène Lupin contre Arsène Lupin/Arsene Lupin Contra Arsene Lupin (Edouard Molinaro, 1962), the Mother Superior in La grande vadrouille/The Big Runaround (Gérard Oury, 1966) with Louis de Funès and Bourvil and the old duchess in La merveilleuse visite/The Marvelous Visit (Marcel Carné, 1973).

Marquet also acted in drama and series on TV, such as in the title role of the TV film La visite de la vieille dame/The Visit of the Old Lady (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1971), based on the dark comedy by Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

One of her last roles was as Casanova's mother in the masterpiece Il Casanova di Federico Fellini/Casanova (Federico Fellini, 1976), starring Donald Sutherland as the famous Venetian libertine.

After a life of tragedy but also of spectacular successes, the Grand Old Lady of the French stage and screen died of a heart attack in 1979 in Paris (according to IMDb of the effects of a fall). She was 84. Mary Marquet lies buried at the cemetery of Montmartre.


Scene from Casanova (1976).Donald Sutherland's Casanova is reunited with his mother. Source: Fan 90042 (YouTube).

Sources: Philippe Pelletier (CinéArtistes), Christopher Greseque (IMDB), Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

Bransby Williams

March 1, 2015, 10:00 pm

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British comic actor and writer Bransby Williams (1870-1961) was on stage from the 1890s and often worked as a monologist and impersonator. From 1911 on, he played roles in more than 20 films. He is best known for his portraying various Charles Dickens characters.


British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 1191. Photo: Hana.

A quick change artist

Bransby Williams was born Bransby William Pharez in London, England in 1870. His parents were William Meshech Pharez and Margaret Giles (née Booth).

He began his working life as a tea taster, clerk and designer of wallpapers. He appeared as an amateur actor before turning professional doing impersonations of Dan Leno, Gus Elen, and other music hall stars in working men's clubs.

His first appearance in a music hall was in 1896. In his music hall performances his specialism was as a quick change artist and mimic. He gave impersonations of the leading actors of that time, including Henry Irving in The Bells, Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali from the popular play Trilby.

In 1897 Williams first created a variety of characters, including many from the works of Charles Dickens such as Uriah Heep, Bill Sikes and Fagin. In 1898 he appeared as Sydney Carton in The Noble Deed, based on A Tale of Two Cities at the Oxford Theatre.

Williams became a great success performing in monologues, recitations and sketches. A fine example of this is given in The Stage Door Keeper where Bransby uses the storyline to introduce a superb variety of artistes. In 1905 and 1907 he toured in the United States.

In 1911 he made his film debut in the short Royal England, a Story of an Empire's Throne (A.E. Coleby, Leo Stormont, 1911), a history of England's royalty, from Alfred the Great to Edward VII. In the following years he appeared in silent films like The Street Watchman's Story (Charles Vernon, 1914) and Bernardo's Confession (Charles Vernon, 1914).

He also played the lead opposite Ivy Close in Adam Bede (Maurice Elvey, 1918), based on a novel by George Eliot. Williams appeared in several adaptations of the novels by Charles Dickens, including The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick (Thomas Bentley, 1921) with Frederick Volpe as Samuel Pickwick. The film business was a side-line for Williams but his few silent films in the 1920s were very successful.


British postcard by Hana, London.


British postcard by Rapid Photo co., London, no. 3122 Photo: R. Thiele & Co.,. Publicity still for a stage production of David Copperfield. with Bransby Williams as Uriah Heep. Caption: "Curse him - how I hate him."

Blacklisted

Bransby Williams played Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge in the early sound film Scrooge (1928). This short film was the first talkie adaptation of any portion of A Christmas Carol, though it lasts only 9 minutes. It is now believed to be lost.

His impressive stage career came to an abrupt end in the early 1930s when he didn't keep to a five-year contract because of an accident of his wife. As a result he was blacklisted and hardly got work. Within no time he changed from one of the best paid actors to a man living near poverty.

In 1933, Williams had a supporting part in the musical comedy Soldiers of the King (Maurice Elvey, 1933) with Cicely Courtneidgeand Edward Everett Horton. Williams played a horse and cart driver for the Local Authority in The Song of the Road (John Baxter, 1937).

During the war period, he was seen in the drama The Common Touch (John Baxter, 1941) with Greta Gynt, the comedy Those Kids from Town (Lance Comfort, 1942) and the war drama Tomorrow We Live (George King, 1943) with John Clements.

After the war, he returned as Ebenezer Scrooge in the TV film A Christmas Carol (1950). Later in his career Williams was a regular on radio and television. His final film role was in the crime drama Judgment Deferred (John Baxter, 1952).

Bransby Williams died in 1961 in London. Williams was married to Emilie Margaret Dent since 1892. He was survived by his daughters, Winnie, Ida and Betty, and by his son, the actor Eric Bransby Williams. His eldest son, Captain William George Bransby Williams, was killed during World War I. His body was never found.


British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 1101 E. Photo: Bransby Williams as Shylock.

In his biography 'An actor's story', Bransby Williams described how he played Shylock, the character from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice: "In Shylock I enter with the words, " There in Antonio I have another bad match," etc., and go through that speech to make it a complete sketch, and to get an exit I use sentences from other scenes. Thus, at the end of the above speech I speak, " And I tell thee — that if every ducat in six thousand ducats were in six parts and each part a ducat — I would have my bond — Antonio called me dog, before he had a cause — Well, as I am a dog, let him beware my fangs — I'll hear no more speaking — I'll have my bond — my bond, I swear ! " At this I make my exit, storming — so that I have used parts of other scenes to make a complete scene for presentation solus."


British postcard by Reprograph Studios, London.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Georges Biscot

March 2, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Georges Biscot (1886-1945) was a popular French music-hall and revue singer and actor, who also knew a career in French silent and sound film.


French postcard in the Series Nos Artistes dans leur loge by Editions La Fayette, no. 270. Photo: Comoedia.

A star of the Folies-Bergères

Georges Biscot was born Gaston Georges Bouzac in Courbevoie, near Paris, in 1886 (some sources say 1889). He studied at the Lycée Jean-Baptiste-Say in Paris and l’Ecole Estienne. Destined to become photogravure maker, he executed this profession for three years.

He then became projectionist at Pathé in Joinville near Paris. In 1904 he was hired by the Concert Bobino de Montparnasse where he gathered the functions of film projectionist and comedian for the theatrical programme.

In 1906 he launched himself in an artistic career in the Parisian cafés-concerts, singing La valse brune and Si mon cœur avait des roulettes, while moving on roller skates.

Georges Biscot debuted on the silver screen on 1913 in filmed songs, produced by Georges Lordier.

Soon he became a star of the music-hall of the Folies-Bergères, in particular when acting in La revue galante (1914) next to Musidora, then in À la parisienne (1916) where he did an imitation of Charles Chaplin.

In the same year he returned to film in the crime serial parody Le pied qui étreint/The clutching foot (Jacques Feyder, 1916). Impressed by his comic talent, Feyder recommended Biscot to Louis Feuillade.

Feuillade used him in Vendémiaire (Louis Feuillade, 1918) with René Cresté, and in the 7-hour mystery serial Tih Minh (Louis Feuillade, 1918) with Mary Harald. He succeeded Marcel Lévesque in the parts of jocular characters in the Feuillade films.

Subsequently, Biscot had notable comic parts in the serials Barrabas (Louis Feuillade, 1919) with Blanche Montel,Les deux gamines/The Two Girls (Louis Feuillade, 1921) with Sandra Milovanoff. With Milovanoff, he acted again in L’orpheline/The orphan (Louis Feuillade, 1921), Parisette (Louis Feuillade, 1921) and Le fils du filibustier/The son of the pirate (Louis Feuillade, 1922).

His final collaboration with Feuillade was with Vindicta/Vengeance (Louis Feuillade, 1923), a classic melodrama in which he played a simple guy, Césarin de Rétameur, who knows all but doesn’t talk.


French postcard in the series Les Vedettes de Cinéma by A.N., Paris, no. 66. Photo: Henri Manuel.

A rugby man turned prankster

In the early 1920s at the Eldorado, Georges Biscot launched the revue Bibi-la-purée by Alexandre Fontanes and André Mouésy-Éon. The play was such a giant hit that quickly a film version was staged, Bibi-la-Purée (1925), directed by Maurice Champreux.

In the same year Biscot peaked as the amateur cyclist in Le roi de la pédale/The Pedlar (Maurice Champreux, 1925). In 1926, he was a rugby man turned prankster in Le p’tit parigot/The Small Parisian One (René Le Somptier, 1926).

Biscot returned to Champreux for his last silent film Les cinq sous de Lavarède/The Five Cents of Lavarede (Maurice Champreux, 1927), but also for his first sound film Hardi les gars!/Hardi guys! (Maurice Champreux, 1930) with Mona Goya in the female lead.

In the 1920s Biscot also created other chansons, such as La Môme Biclo (a song about the Tour de France with words by Cazalis and music by Dufas and Gardoni), Fernande (1922, words by Nazelles, music by Mauprey), Elle sait conduire une automobile, Cécile (1926, words by Nazelles, music by Chantrier), created for the revue La foire aux fiancés at the Théâtre du Châtelet, and the songs Emilienne - c’est y toi? and C’est pa.., pa…, c’est parisien, made for the film La bande à Bouboule/Bouboule's gang (Léon Mathot, 1931).


French postcard by Ed. Cinémagazine, no. 268. Photo: Film Gaumont. Publicity still for Le roi de la pédale (Maurice Champreux, 1925).


Georges Biscot sings Elle sait conduire une automobile. Source: Damien Chemillé (YouTube).

The most beautiful guy of France

During the 1930s, Georges Biscot remained a popular star of the Paris stage.

He played in only four films: Le clochard/Clochard (Robert Péguy, 1932), Six cent mille francs par mois/600,000 francs a month (Léo Joannon, 1933), a new adaptation of Bibi-la-purée (Léo Joannon 1934), and finally Le plus beau gosse de France/The most beautiful man in France (René Pujol, 1937) with Bernard Lancret in the title role, and also with Pauline Carton and Josseline Gaël.

During the Second World War, Biscot returned to the screen in major roles in three films: Un tel père et fils/The Heart of a Nation (Julien Duvivier, 1940) with Raimu, Michèle Morgan and Louis Jouvet, La cage aux rossignols/A Cage of Nightingales (Jean Dréville, 1943) with Noël-Noël, and La route du bagne/The road from prison (Léon Mathot, 1944) with Viviane Romance.

A few months after the release of these last two titles, Georges Biscot died in 1945 in Paris. He lies buried at the cemetery of Montrouge.


French postcard by Ed. Cinémagazine, no. 138.


French postcard by Ed. Cinémagazine, No. 319. Photo Studio V. Henry.

Sources: Philippe Pelletier (CinéArtistes - French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.

Dick van Maarseveen

March 3, 2015, 10:00 pm

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The Dutch photographer Dick van Maarseveen (1905-1990) was in the 1930s famous for his star portraits and film stills. After the war, he concentrated on corporate photography, but Van Maarseveen also moved in the field of advertising and fashion photography. In his spare time, he did nude photography. A special section of his oeuvre are the pictures he made as a prisoner of war in camp Muhlberg during World War II.


Esther de Boer-van Rijk. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / M.H.D. Film. Publicity still for Op Hoop van Zegen (Alex Benno, Louis Saalborn, 1934). Collection Egbert Barten.


Fien(tje) de la Mar. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Nationaal Film. Publicity still for Op stap/On the Move (Ernst Winar, 1935).

The international glamour portrait style

Dirk Willem Bastiaan (Dick) van Maarseveen was born in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1905. In 1923 he went to work in the art trade firm of his parents as a list maker and seller of photo products. He got a slap IAG camera from his mother and started to photograph himself.

Moreover, he could take over a studio camera and some of the negative archives of photographer Adolphe Zimmermans, deceased in 1923. He got his first assignment by oil company Texaco.

In 1927, he moved into a studio on the Theresiastraat in The Hague, which he used especially for portrait photography. He worked as a photojournalist for the French magazine La Danse Theatre. Van Maarseveen won an honorable mention in 1930 on the anniversary exhibition of the Photographers Association of America and also won several awards in the following years.

In September 1931, Van Maarseveen moved to a new, luxury studio at the Bezuidenhout. Here he made a name as an artificial expert. He photographed many artists with whom he came into contact when he took care of the Amsterdam studio of portrait photographer Godfried de Groot during his holidays.

Rob van den Berg at ScherpteDiepte: "In the studio of Godfried de Groot, he developed technical skills in portraiture. There he met the international glamour portrait style, whose influence was visible in his work." Under the influence of the glamour photography that blew over the fashion and film industry, he always used back lighting, which strongly emerged the subject.

He produced photographs for the dance group of Darja Collin, who led a famous dance studio in The Hague. The quality of his pictures was so that many artists in the following years, preferred to be photographed by him.

Through his contacts with actors, he entered the film industry. After a cautious start in 1931, Van Maarseveen became the leading Dutch still photographer in the years 1933-1936. During the heyday of 'Hollands Hollywood’, he was the main still photographer.

Van Maarseveen was also engaged in advertising photography. Business was so good that Van Maarseveen had four staff members employed. These years formed a peak and almost simultaneously a conclusion of his most creative period.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Clara Vischer-Blaaser, Aaf Bouber, Sylvain Poons, Corry Vonk,Fien de la Mar and Jopie Koopman in the Dutch tragicomedyBleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934).


Jopie Koopman. Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still for Bleeke Bet (Alex Benno, Richard Oswald, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Johan Elsensohn, Jopie Koopman, Clara Vischer-Blaaser, Corry Vonk, Fien de la Mar and Jan van Ees in the Dutch tragicomedy Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934).


Aaf Bouber. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Monopole Film. Publicity still for Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch Postcard by Monopole Film, Rotterdam. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag (The Hague). Publicity still for Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934).

A big step back

Dick van Maarseveen worked on the set of such well-known Dutch films as Op stap/On the Move (Ernst Winar, 1935) starring Fien de la Mar, and Op hoop van zegen/The Good Hope (Alex Benno Louis Saalborn, 1934) with Esther de Boer van Rijk. He made popular portraits of these two stars. Van Maarseveen himself played a small supporting role in Op stap/On the Move (1935).

Van Maarseveen made more beautiful stills for films like Het mysterie van de Mondscheinsonate/The Mystery of the Moonlight Sonata (Kurt Gerron, 1935) and Rubber (Gerard Rutten, 1936). Van Maarseveen’s sharp image exposure was used gratefully for illuminating the set of the film Jonge harten/Young hearts (Charles Huguenot of Linden, 1936).

But the economic slump in portrait photography and a backlash in the film industry caused Van Maarseveen to take a big step back in 1937. He dismissed three of the four members of his staff, sold the studio furniture and moved to a smaller studio at the Bezuidenhout. He took a job as a consultant at Kodak. In 1938, Van Maarseveen married with A.J. Bergenhenegouwen.

In the summer of the next year, Van Maarseveen had to go into the army because of the mobilization. After the capitulation by the Netherlands on 15 May 1940, he was interned for several days as a prisoner, but then he could return to his film studio. He was still employed by Kodak.

In the film area Van Maarseveen’s ambitions reached beyond still photography. He wanted to be a cameraman. With his friend the artist Alfred Mazure, he made two short films, which stayed unfinished: De gasman/The gasman (Alfred Mazure, 1942) and Vals geld/Counterfeit (Alfred Mazure, 1942) both with Maurice van Nieuwenhuizen as Dick Bos. He also made two enthusiastically received ‘job films' for Schoevers Institute in The Hague.

The stricter control of the Germans on the Dutch film industry blocked for Van Maarseveen a career in this field. On 29 April 1943, the German occupiers decided to take all Dutch soldiers from May 1940 in captivity. Van Maarseveen was deported to Germany.

He spent the bulk of his time in Mühlberg on the Elbe. His camp, Stalag IVB, was a model camp where the Germans wanted to show the world how well they treated their prisoners of war. In June 1944, after about a year of camp life, he could work as a photographer for the camp. Along with some other prisoners, including his Dutch colleague Cor van Weele, Van Maarseveen was instructed to photograph all kinds of official events in the camp, such as religious activities, theater evenings and sport and to make passport photos of the new arrivals. He also made clandestine photos.

Mühlberg camp was liberated by the Russians on 23 April 1945. Maarseveen brought photographs and glass negatives back home. In The Hague, his studio at the Bezuidenhout was in a section of the street that passed the war, but it was ‘purged’ during the bombardment of March 1945, leaving his archive partially lost.


Esther de Boer-van Rijkand Frits van Dongen (Philip Dorn). Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z / M.H.D. Film. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still for Op hoop van zegen/The Good Hope (Alex Benno, 1934).


Esther de Boer-van Rijk. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z / M.H.D. Film. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still for Op hoop van zegen/The Good Hope (Alex Benno, 1934).


Jan van Ees and Esther de Boer-van Rijk. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag/M.H.D. Film. Publicity still for Op Hoop van Zegen (1934, Alex Benno, Louis Saalborn). Collection Egbert Barten.


Esther de Boer-van Rijk. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z / M.H.D. Film. Photo: Maarseveen, Den Haag. Publicity still for Op hoop van zegen/The Good Hope (Alex Benno, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag/M.H.D. Film. Publicity still for Op Hoop van Zegen (Alex Benno, Louis Saalborn, 1934) with Esther de Boer-van Rijk, Coen Hissink and Willem v.d. Veer. Collection Egbert Barten.

Cecil Beaton

Dick van Maarseveen rebuilt his heavily damaged studio. After several years in which he gave the artistic portrait photography much attention, he concentrated largely on freelance work for industry and advertising. Already in 1925, he had laid contact with Texaco (from about 1947 to 1967 along with Chevron united in the operating company Caltex) which lead to a lengthy contract.

He worked part time for Kodak in London, where he learned to deal basically with color photography according to the new Ektachrome. He then spread the knowledge through courses in the Netherlands. In 1950, Van Maarseveen assisted British photographer Cecil Beaton, who was commissioned by Vogue magazine to portray the Dutch royal family.

In 1950s and 1960s he photographed 'herrijzend Nederland’ (resurgent Netherlands) and especially for Texaco he was regularly on the road. His activities ranged from making passport photos to 'stunt work' on oil rigs and high cranes in ports. Thanks to good relations in several church boards, he also photographed a number of interiors of churches.

In the 1960s, he was a board member of the Foundation Fotovakschool which emerged in the School of Photography and Photo Technology in The Hague and he was regularly in the examination committee. The oil crisis in 1973 made an end to his work for Texaco, but Van Maarseveen continued to work as a freelance photographer until 1978.

In 1978 he brought his collection of film stills under at the Dutch Filmmuseum in Amsterdam (now Eye Institute). In 1980, Van Maarseveen sold a part of his archive – his portraits, nudes and corporate photography - at the Prentenkabinet of the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Print Room of the University of Leiden). After an interview in 1982, his photographs from the camp period were rediscovered and housed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

In 1990, Dick van Maarseveen died in his hometown Rijssen in the Netherlands.


Frits van Dongen and Fien de la Mar. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag / Nationaal Film. Publicity still for Op stap/On the Move (Ernst Winar, 1935).


Johan Elsensohn. Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag/Monopole Film. Publicity still for Bleeke Bet (Richard Oswald, Alex Benno, 1934). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Hansje Andriesen. Dutch postcard by Monopole Film N.V. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still for De Big van het Regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Johan Kaart. Dutch postcard by Monopole Film N.V. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still for De Big van het Regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935). Collection: Egbert Barten.


Dutch postcard by Monopole Film NV. Photo: Dick van Maarseveen. Still for De Big van het Regiment (Max Nosseck, 1935). Collection: Egbert Barten.

Check out our other posts on film star photographers. See the links at right under the caption 'The Photographers'.

Sources: Rob van den Berg (ScherpteDiepte - Dutch), Rijksmuseum (Dutch), Eye, RKD, Fotografen.nl and IMDb.

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Laurence Olivier

March 4, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Sir Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He played a wide variety of roles on stage and screen from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare and Restoration comedy to modern American and British drama. The Brit got fourteen Oscar nominations, with two wins for Best Actor and Best Picture for Hamlet (1948), and two honorary awards.


Belgian Postcard by Les Editions d’Art L.A.B., Brussels, no. 1533. Photo: United Artists. Publicity still for Fire Over England (William K. Howard, 1937).


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 695b. Photo: London Films.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 228. Photo: Two Cities.


German postcard by Netter's Star Verlag, Berlin. Photo: London Film.

The Next Ronald Colman

Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, England, in 1907. He was raised in a severe, strict, and religious household, ruled over by his father, Gerard Kerr Olivier, an Anglican minister. Larry took solace in the care of his mother, Agnes Louis née Crookenden, and was grief-stricken when she died when he was only 12.

A year later, he went to St. Edward's School in Oxford and appeared in school drama productions. At 15, he played Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew to rave reviews. Another success was his Puck in A Midsummer's Night Dream.

His father, who was an unabashed theatre lover, decided that Larry would become an actor. He entered the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Arts in London at the age of 17. One of his instructors was Claude Rains.

Upon graduation in 1926, he joined The Birmingham Repertory Company, where he would play Hamlet and Macbeth. He married actress Jill Esmond in 1930, but the marriage was not happy.

At first, Olivier's athleticism and elegant features typecast him as a young innocent hero. Although he appeared in a spate of London successes, such as Journey's End, The Last Enemy and Private Lives, he still struggled for serious recognition.

The good looking Olivier made his film debut opposite Lilian Harveyin The Temporary Widow (Gustav Ucicky, 1930). He went to Hollywood as the ‘next Ronald Colman’ but initially he held the cinema in little regard.

He played a lead in The Yellow Ticket (Raoul Walsh, 1931), and was chosen to play Antonio in Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933) but was rejected by the star, Greta Garbo.

He returned to London and played opposite Gloria Swanson in Perfect Understanding (Cyril Gardner, 1933). In 1935 he had his stage breakthrough in Romeo and Juliet, alternating the roles of Romeo and Mercutio with John Gielgud.

This resulted in an invitation to be the star at the Old Vicin 1937/1938. His tenure had mixed artistic results, but by the season's end he was one of the major Shakespearean actors in England. He made his first Shakespeare film adaptation, As You Like It (Paul Czinner, 1936), but he decided that Shakespeare did not work well on film.


Yugoslavian postcard. Photo: Victory Rank. Publicity still for Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, 1948).


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 214. Photo: Victory Rank. Publicity still for Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, 1948).


British postcard by Rotary Photo, London, no. F.S.5. Photo: Laurence Olivier directs a scene in Hamlet (1948).


Spanish card by F. Molina, Madrid. D.L.M. 7.803/59. Photo: still from Hamlet (1948).

Turning Point

Laurence Olivier saw Vivien Leigh in The Mask of Virtue in 1936, and a friendship developed after he congratulated her on her performance. They played lovers in the film Fire Over England (William K. Howard, 1937). In private the (both married) actors also began an affair.

After the shooting of the film, Olivier travelled to Hollywood to play Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939). Leigh followed soon to be with him ánd to persue her dream of playing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939).

The filming of Wuthering Heights proved to be a turning point for Olivier; both in his success in the USA, which had eluded him until then, but also in his attitude to film, which he had regarded as an inferior medium. He began to moderate his performance and began to appreciate the possibilities film offered.

Wuthering Heights was a hit and Olivier was nominated for an Oscar. Leigh won the Oscar for Gone with the Wind, and the couple suddenly found themselves to be major celebrities. They were married in 1940.

Oliviers film career flourished with highly regarded performances in Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) and Pride and Prejudice (Robert Z. Leonard, 1940). In That Hamilton Woman (Alexander Korda, 1941), he played Horatio Nelson and Leigh Emma Hamilton.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1099. Photo: publicity still for Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955) with Claire Bloom.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 438.


British postcard in the Royal Shakespeare Company series, no. 27. Photo: Angus McBean. Publicity still for the stage production of MacBeth at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1955.


British postcard in the Royal Shakespeare Company series, no. 28. Photo: Angus McBean. Publicity still for the stage production of Twelfth Night at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1955.

In Character

When Britain engaged in World War II, the Oliviers returned to England. In 1944 he made his film directing debut with an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V. James C. Robertson writes in Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors: "With a lavish budget for the time, Henry V is beautifully filmed in Technicolor, draws on an excellent cast, and benefits from William Walton's stirring but unobtrusive music. Olivier's central performance is impeccable, while the battle sequences provide a spectacular climax."

After being knighted in 1947, Olivier adapted Hamlet (1948), again for his own film company Two Cities. James C. Robertson writes: "He drastically shortened Shakespeare's text but with much less visual action, the film appealed less to audiences than the flamboyant Henry V. Even so, Desmond Dickinson's imaginative monochrome cinematography, which helps create a brooding atmosphere of suppressed tension, is impressive, and Olivier assembles a fine cast and gives a memorable performance himself as Hamlet.".

Hamlet is still the only Shakespeare adaptation to win the Best Picture Oscar. However, the failure of Olivier's Richard III (1955) to make back its money caused that he would never direct another Shakespearean film.

He was Oscar nominated again for his lead as the seedy, pathetic vaudevillian Archie Rice in The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960). The role of Rice's daughter - both in the play and in the film - was played by Joan Plowright. Soon after the release of The Entertainer he divorced Vivien Leigh, and married Plowright.

Years later, after Olivier's death, biographer Donald Spoto claimed that Olivier was bisexual. Plowright confirmed this and said he was once attached to Danny Kaye. Biographer Terry Coleman suggested that he also had had a relationship with Edwardian actor Henry Ainley.

During the 1960s, Olivier began appearing more frequently in films, usually in character parts, as in Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960), Bunny Lake Is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965) and Oh! What a Lovely War (Richard Attenborough, 1969).

He received Oscar nominations for his reclusive mystery writer in Sleuth (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972), the sadistic Nazi dentist in Marathon Man (John Schlesinger, 1976) and the kindly but determined Nazi-hunter The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978).

When he was forced out as director of the Royal National Theatre in 1973, he chose to do short film appearances on a ‘pay cheque’ basis. He later admitted that he particularly despised Inchon (Terence Young, 1982), in which he played General McArthur.

His final performance was a wheelchair-bound old soldier in War Requiem (Derek Jarman, 1989). Later that year Laurence Olivier died of cancer in Steyning, England, aged 82.

Fifteen years after his death, he returned to the cinema. Through the use of computer graphics footage of him was integrated into Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Kerry Conran, 2004) in which Olivier 'played' the villain.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. V 176. Photo: Warner Brothers. Publicity still for The Prince and the Showgirl (Laurence Olivier, 1957).


British card. Photo: publicity still for the stage play Uncle Vanya in 1963.


Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Khartoum (Basil Dearden, Eliot Elisofon, 1965) with Charlton Heston and Richard Johnson.


British postcard by Dixon-Lotus/Spitfire Productions Ltd, no. L6/8699, 1969. Photo: Robert Penn. Still for Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969).

Sources: James C. Robertson (Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Dale O'Connor (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Susan Denberg

March 5, 2015, 10:00 pm

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German-born Austrian Susan Denberg (1944) was a Bluebell dancer and Playboy Playmate before she had a brief acting career in the 1960s. One of her few roles was as Peter Cushing’s beautiful new creation in the Hammer horror Frankenstein Created Woman (1967).


German postcard by ISV, Sort. 19/6.


Susan Denberg. Source: Vlad Quigley (Flickr).

Star Trek

Susan Denberg was born Dietlinde Ortrun Zechner in Bad Polzin, Germany (now Polczyn-Zdrój, Poland) in 1944. She was the eldest of three children of Austrian-German parents, and grew up with her two brothers, Reinhard and Ulrich, in Klagenfurt in Austria. Her father operated several electrical shops there.

At 18, she travelled to England to work as an au-pair. In 1963 she met a dancer of the Bluebell Girls and did an audition in Paris. She was hired for the chorus line and in 1964 and 1965, she performed in the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. There she met and married Latino singer Tony Scotti in 1965.

She deserted the Bluebells for a movie career in Hollywood, and landed a co-starring role as a German girl on the TV series 12 O'Clock High (1964-1967). This ABC drama set during World War II was the television version of the Oscar winning classic Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949) starring Gregory Peck.

The following year, Zechner made her feature film debut with a supporting role in An American Dream (Robert Gist, 1966). This trashy melodrama, based on a Norman Mailer novel, starred Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh.

While working on this film, Warner Bros. held a nationwide contest to find Dietlinde a new screen name. They offered a $500 award to whoever came up with the best one. There were 5,000 entries, including ‘Norma Mailer’, but all were ultimately rejected. She herself came up with Susan Denberg.

Susan was featured Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine's August 1966 issue. In her profile, Denberg stated that she had ambitions to become an actress. Denberg was later one of the finalists for the title of 1967s Playmate of the Year, though the title ultimately went to Lisa Baker.

Denberg's best known screen appearance was in the Star Trek episode Mudd’s Women (Harvey Hart, 1966). She played one of the three mysterious and stunningly beautiful women of the title, who have an odd effect on all the male crew of the Starship Enterprise (except Spock, who looks on bemused), causing involuntary arousal.


Spanish postcard by Editorial Filkasol.


Original French film poster for Frankenstein Created Woman (1967). Source: Vintage Movie Posters (Flickr).

Close To Something Sublime

Susan Denberg moved to England to play in Hammer's cult science fiction/horror film Frankenstein Created Woman (Terence Fisher, 1967). It is the fourth film in Hammer's Frankenstein series with Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein and Denberg as his new creation. Where Hammer's previous Frankenstein films were concerned with the physical aspects of the Baron's work, the interest here is in the metaphysical dimensions of life, such as the question of the soul, and its relationship to the body.

Frankenstein Created Woman is one of the most critically acclaimed Hammer films. Nick Faust at IMDb: “Within the confines of a Hammer movie's melodrama, Fisher, a classical stylist and at times a superb artist, often created magic. This is one of those times. The performances are all equally compelling. Cushing gives the Baron more texture here than in any of the other films, I think. Thorley Walters is a good foil, and his befuddled affection and respect for the Baron makes some of this really rather touching. Arthur Grant's photography has never been better. I urge viewers to watch the film with an open mind. This is not the usual horror film; it's more a fantasy, a fairy tale.”

Martin Scorsese picked the film as part of a 1987 National Film Theatre season of his favourite films, saying "If I single this one out it's because here they actually isolate the soul... The implied metaphysics are close to something sublime." However, Denberg's voice in the film was dubbed as her Austrian accent was considered too strong.

Denberg had become immersed in the drugs and sex life style of the 1960s. She divorced Tony Scotti in 1968. He later married singer/actress Sylvie Vartan.

She left show business and returned to Austria. Newspapers reported at the time that Denberg was suicidal and stayed in mental homes. During the 1970s she also performed in Viennese nightclubs.

Nowadays, Susan Denberg lives in Klagenfurt, Austria, under her real name, Dietlinde Zechner.


Trailer for Frankenstein Created Woman (1967). Source: Steven Duret (YouTube).

Sources: Ted Newsom (IMDb), Memory Alpha (IMDb), Nick Faust (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Dave and Dusty (1946-1949)

March 6, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Dave and Dusty (1946-1949) is a series of short British films chronicling the friendship between a young boy and his shaggy dog. The two friends get into trouble and have various adventures, meeting a host of colourful characters along the way. Raphael Tuck & Sons published a series of black and white postcards of the popular duo, apparently in aid of The Tailwaggers animal charity.


British postcard by Raphael Tuck & Sons. Photo: Pathé Pictorial. Publicity still for Dave and Dusty (1946-1949).


British postcard by Raphael Tuck & Sons. Photo: Pathé Pictorial. Publicity still for Dave and Dusty (1946-1949).

Cinemagazine

Between 16 December 1946 and 9 May 1949, Dave and Dusty were the cute stars of New Pictorial, a weekly cinemagazine by British Pathé.

They were also featured in the weekly newspaper The People. For a while Dave and Dusty were ‘Britain's Most Popular Film Pair’, according to a book which was published about them in 1948.

The series started on 16 December 1946 with the short film Dave Meets Dusty.

Dave stands outside a pet shop window and looks in at a little shaggy dog. The dog looks back and licks the glass between them. Dave goes inside and asks to have a look at the dog. A girl fetches the pup and puts it in Dave's arms.

Dave counts out his savings and finds he hasn't quite enough to pay for the dog. The woman at the counter says she will pay the balance. Dave decides to call the dog Dusty. He ties a piece of string to Dusty's collar and walks out of the shop with him.

Dusty looks a trifle reluctant to be led. Outside the shop Dave picks up his new dog and gives him a cuddle as he walks down the street.


British postcard by Raphael Tuck & Sons. Photo: Pathé Pictorial. Publicity still for Dave and Dusty (1946-1949).

Tailwaggers

Where the first film was shot is unknown: “Location of events unknown probably somewhere in London’, writes the British Pathé site, where all the Dusty and Dave adventures can be seen.

A further adventure takes place in the beach town Brighton in East Sussex.

Dave and Dusty are lying on the beach, Dave is asleep. The waves start to roll up the beach. Dusty looks concerned as the waves come nearer, but Dave sleeps peacefully. When the waves come up to his feet, Dusty licks his face to wake him up.

Dave looks shocked at how far the water has come up and runs off with Dusty. Dave was played by little David Warner.

One of the black and white postcards by Tuck’s shows him sitting on a bench with Dusty on his lap. The postcard is captioned: "Dusty's a faithful dog, and when he gets on Dave's knees, he thinks he's in the lap of luxury."

On some of the postcards there is an advertisement for The Tailwaggers animal charity.


British postcard by Raphael Tuck & Sons. Photo: Pathé Pictorial. Publicity still for Dave and Dusty (1946-1949).

Pathé Pictorial

First released in March 1918, Pathe Pictorial was the longest running series in the history of the British cinemagazine, in continuous production for over fifty years.

It established the general format of the genre, focusing on stories of general interest, acting as a supplement to the company’s newsreel Pathe Gazette. Its longevity can partly be explained by its willingness to adapt and re-brand itself although to the audience it was always Pathe Pictorial.

In October 1931 (issue no. 704) it finally absorbed sound to transform into Pathe Sound Pictorial. In 1936 it became New Series Pictorial, which was shortened to New Pictorial in 1944. As well as producing regular news stories, British Pathé often included in the New Pictorial additional forms of entertainment mixed in to add a bit of variety.

These could be entirely fictional pieces such as Dave and Dusty. Production manager at the time was Howard Thomas and the editor was Terry Ashwood.

As competition from television became more heated in the mid 1950s, colour was introduced in January 1955 to mark its topical stories out from its rival.

By the introduction of colour television in the mid 1960s the days of the cinemagazines were numbered. Pathe Pictorial finally ceased production in March 1969.


Dave Meets Dusty (1946). Source: British Pathé (YouTube).


Dave And Dusty (1948). Source: British Pathé (YouTube).

Sources: British Universities Film & Video Council, The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, and British Pathé.

Peter Garden

March 7, 2015, 10:00 pm

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German actor, singer and TV-show presenter Peter Garden (1924) was the ‘beautiful man’ in films of the Wirtschaftswunder era. Like his Hollywood equivalent Rock Hudson, he often posed shirtless for beefcake photos. He was at the height of his popularity in the late 1960s, when he presented two TV shows. But 'Black Peter' had a dark past which abruptly finished his showbiz career.


German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-87. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.

Women's Hero

Peter Garden was born as Karlheinz Rothmayer in München (Munich), Germany, in 1924. He was the son of the singer Karl Rothmayer.

After his military service he attended the Musikhochschule Salzburg (the college of music in Salzburg) and in 1947, he went to the Volksoper München (the People's Opera Munich).

In the early 1950s he worked at the Bayerischen Staatsoperette (Bavarian state operetta). He also made his film debut at that time. After two years at the Stadttheater Bern (the Municipal theatre in Bern) he finished his stage career and returned to Munich to devote himself intensely to his film career.

He appeared in such comedies as Ein Herz bleibt allein/My Leopold (Géza van Bolváry, 1955), Ball im Savoy/Ball at the Savoy (Paul Martin, 1955) and Der Falsche Adam/The False Adam (Géza von Cziffra, 1955).

He posed shirtless for beefcake photos, and was groomed to become a romantic leading man like Rock Hudson in Hollywood. Garden grew to bigger roles in light entertainment films like Dany, bitte Schreiben Sie/Dany, Please Write (Eduard von Borsody, 1956) with Sonja Ziemann, Schön ist die Welt/Fair Is the World (Géza von Bolvary, 1957), and Egon, der Frauenheld/Egon, the Women's Hero (Hans Albin, 1957).

In 1959, he divorced his first wife, actress Christiane Jansen.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Berolina-Constantin-Wesel.


German postcard by Ufa-Film/foto, Berlin/Tempelhof, no. 3694. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm.

Krimis

In the early 1960s the German cinema declined, and there were no more film roles for Peter Garden. He kept working for stage and TV.

As a singer he appeared in several TV-operettas like Viktoria und ihr Husar/Viktoria and her Hussar (1965) at the side of such stars as Johannes Heesters and Rudolf Schock.

He played in Krimis (the typical German crime series) like Das Kriminalmuseum (1963-1964), and in the musical Polenblut/Polish Blood (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1966).

He often performed together with his second wife, Margit Nünke, Miss Germany 1955 and Miss Europe 1956.

In the late 1960s, he was seen in dubious film comedies like Pudelnackt in Oberbayern/Completely Naked in Upper Bavaria (Hans Albin, Hans Billian, 1969) and Hugo der Weiberschreck/Hugo, the Woman Chaser (Hans Albin, 1969).

He fared better on television. As a TV host he had his own shows like Die Peter Garden Party (1969-1970) and Schwarzer Peter/Black Peter (1970).

He also worked as a singer and recorded the lp Herzlichst Ihr Peter Garden. He sang a duet with Margit Nünke, Jede Woche, die hat 7 Tage (Every Week Has Seven Days).


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. T 631. Photo: Berolina / Constantin-Film / Wesel. Publicity still for Mein Leopold/My Leopold (Géza von Bolváry, 1955).


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3052. Photo: Rolf Lantin / Ceo-Prisma Film. Publicity still for Danny, bitte schreiben Sie/Danny, please write (Eduard von Borsody, 1956).

Gestapo-confident

In the late 1960s, Peter Garden was at the height of his popularity, but parallel to his rising television popularity his past caught up with him.

German Wikipedia writes that already in 1967 penal preliminary proceedings were opened in Berlin against him because of his behaviour during the Nazi period. There were several press reports about a dark, unknown past of the 'Sunny boy'. In 1944, Garden/Rothmayer had been active in Salzburg as a paid Gestapo confident.

One of his victims, Alexander Anders, was quoted in the German magazine Der Spiegel: Garden/Rothmayer had thrown "a row of outstanding Salzburg citizens and families in trouble and misery". As a result of Garden's denunciation, Anders himself was arrested in Salzburg by the Gestapo and was condemned by a special court to three-year prison because of listening to foreign radio stations.

Anders and the Salzburg actor Herbert Fux started a petition in Salzburg and other places with the aim to reach a dismissal of Garden as a TV-host by the ZDF (the Second German Television Channel). After this the ZDF and their 'Black Peter' separated their ways.

Garden disappeared nearly completely from the public view and tried his luck as an inventor. In the 1970s he patented strange inventions like extendable shoes and folding ski in the US.

Peter Garden and his wife Margit Nünke live in München (Munich), Germany.


German postcard by JLB/Agfa, no. 512. Photo: Hoela / Panorama.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2017. Photo: Gloria / Bayer. Publicity still for Kirschen in Nachbars Garten/Cherries in the neighbour's garden (Erich Engels, 1956).

Sources: Der Spiegel (German), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Gardy Granass

March 8, 2015, 11:00 pm

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Gardy Granass (1930) is a retired German actress, who appeared in around forty films and television series. During the 1950s, she starred in many popular but forgettable comedies and Heimat films.


German postcard by Ufa, no. FK 3662. Photo: Wesel / Berolina / Gloria. Publicity still for Hoch droben auf den Berg/High up the mountain (Géza von Bolváry, 1957).


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK-3134. Photo: Czerwonski / HD-Film / NF.

A Circus Film Noir

Hildegard Erika Charlotte Granass was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1930.

She was six years old when she started to have ballet lessons with Tatjana Gsovsky. Gardy occurred in children ballet and in 1946, she got her first engagement at the Städtische Oper Berlin. After acting lessons with Herma Clement, she played theatre in Baden-Baden and Wiesbaden.

She made her screen debut in the Italian-West German crime film Tromba (Helmut Weiss, 1949), starring René Deltgen, Angelika Hauff and Gustav Knuth. Tromba, a circus film with elements of film noir, was one of the most popular West German films of the year, suggesting audiences supported a shift away from the very popular Heimat (rubble) films.

Granass played a supporting part as a sports student. Soon followed leading parts, such as in the comedy Kein Engel ist so rein/No angel is so pure (Helmut Weiss, 1950) with Fita Benkhoff and in the romance Heidelberger Romanze/A Heidelberg Romance (Paul Verhoeven, 1951) starring Liselotte Pulver and O.W. Fischer.

The latter film set a template for portraying German-American relations. While accompanying his daughter (Pulver) on a trip to Heidelberg, a wealthy American businessmen (Hans Leibelt / Gunnar Möller) recounts a romance he had with a local girl (Granass) forty years before. Gardy Granass was honoured for her role in Heidelberger Romanze with the German Film Award Goldene Dose (Golden Box) as best young actress.


German postcard by Netter's Star Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Berolina / Constantin. Publicity still for Die Christel von der Post (Karl Anton, 1956).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no 2323. Photo: Berolina / Constantin. Publicity still for Die Christel von der Post (Karl Anton, 1956).

Christel of the post office

In 1953 Gardy Granass appeared opposite Curd Jürgens in another Verhoeven film, Praterherzen/Sideshow (Paul Verhoeven, 1953) based on a Hans Schubert play. In total she worked five times together with this director, who should not be confused with his more famous Dutch colleague with the same name.

One of Granass most popular films was Die Christel von der Post/Christel of the post office (Karl Anton, 1956) in which she starred as the generous and fresh post mistress opposite Hardy Krüger.

Other successful films include the Heimat film Schwarzwaldmelodie/Black Forest Melody (Géza von Bolváry, 1956) with Claus Biederstaedt, the comedy Der Mustergatte/The Model Husband (Erik Ode, 1956) and the comedy Drei Mann auf einem Pferd/Three men on a horse (Kurt Meisel, 1957) with Nadja Tiller and Theo Lingen.

Later she mainly appeared on television, such as in the popular crime series Das Halstuch/The Scarf (Hans Quest, 1962), based on a novel by Frances Durbridge.

In 1982 she made her final screen appearance in an episode of the TV-series Unheimliche Geschichten/Sinister Stories (Joachim Hess, 1982).

Gardy Granass was married to author and TV managing director Werner Hess from 1979 till his death in 2003. Granass lives in München (Munich).


Austrian postcard by Verlag Hubmann (HDH Verlag), Wien, no. 4974. Photo: Union Film, Wien, no. 360. Publicity still for Ein Herz bleibt allein/Mein Leopold/A heart remains alone (Géza von Bolváry, 1955).


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no 132. Photo: Berolina / Constantin / Wesel.

Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line - German), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.