German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 1757. Photo: Fritz Richard. Max Pallenberg and Else Lehmann in the stage play Der Biberpelz (1919).

Max Pallenberg (1877-1934) was an Austrian singer, actor and comedian. He was one of the most important comedians of his time and often played under the direction of Max Reinhardt. Although Pallenberg was successful as a stage comedian, he only incidentally accepted roles in films.

Max Pallenberg was born as Max Pollack in 1877 in Vienna, Austria. Max was the son of Markus Pallenberg, who immigrated to Galicia from Vienna, and his wife Kressel (also Therese) born Korsower. Pallenberg's career started in 1904 and he played in provincial theatres and with touring companies. In 1908, he joined the then famous Theater an der Wien as an operetta comedian and sang, inter alia, in the world premiere of Franz Lehár's operetta 'Der Graf von Luxemburg' (The Count of Luxembourg. He played in 1910-1911 at the Volkstheater in Vienna. From 1911 on, Pallenberg played in Munich at the Deutsches Theater. In 1914 he was committed by Max Reinhardt to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. There he achieved his artistic breakthrough. Under the direction of Max Reinhardt, he played brilliant roles such as Schluck in Gerhart Hauptmann's 'Schluck and Jau' and as Peachum in the 'Dreigroschenoper' (Threepenny Opera). Soon he became one of the most famous character comedians of his time. Pallenberg's stellar role was in Erwin Piscator's dramatic adaptation of Jaroslav Hašek's novel 'Der brave Soldat Schwejk' (The Good Soldier Švejk). In 1917 he married Fritzi Massary who became one of the operetta divas of the German stage of the 1920s. His first wife was Betty Franke (1903-1917). They had one child. Pallenberg's most important roles at the Salzburg Festival include Mephisto in Faust, Argan in Mollière's 'Der eingebildet Kranke' (The Imaginary Invalid), the Devil in Jedermann (Everyman), and Truffaldino in Turandot, all directed by Max Reinhardt.

Max Pallenberg also starred in several silent and sound films. He made his film debut in the German short Der fidele Bauer - Ich hab mein Zipfelhaubn/The Merry Farmer - I have my Zipfel hood (Franz Glawatsch, 1908) with Wilhelm Binder and Luise Kartousch. In the early 1910s, he had great success in the cinema with his figure Pampulik and appeared in such Austrian films as Pampulik als Affe/Pampulik as Ape (Alexander Kolowrat, 1912), Pampulik kriegt ein Kind/Pampulik gets a child (Alexander Kolowrat, 1912) and Pampulik hat Hunger/Pampulik is hungry (Alexander Kolowrat, 1913). During World War I followed such films as Max und seine zwei Frauen/Max and his two wives (Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers, 1915) with Martha Novelly, Der rasende Roland/The Racing Roland (Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers, 1915) and Kapellmeister Pflegekind/Conductor Pflegekind (1915). After the war he appeared in Die Nacht und der Leichnam/The night and the corpse (Adolf Abter, 1921) with Ria Jende. Pallenberg also appered in sound films. In Der brave Sünder/The Virtuous Sinner (Fritz Kortner, 1931), he co-starred with Heinz Rühmann. The film is based on the play The Embezzlers which was in turn based on a novel by the Soviet writer Valentin Kataev. Pallenberg had previously rejected all offers to appear in films based on his theatre appearances. He was finally convinced by the producer Arnold Pressburger to try and film one of his stage successes. The film also offered Kortner a chance to fulfill his ambitions to become a director. In the 1930s, Max Pallenberg and Fritzi Massary became a butt of the anti-Semitic propaganda of the upcoming Nazis. The Jewish couple went into exile in Austria. A year later Max died in an airplane crash near Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad) in today's Czech Republic. He had changed his ticket for the five o'clock flight against a ticket which left Prague already at three o'clock. The five o'clock flight arrived on time, Pallenberg's flight however crashed few minutes after the takeoff. He was 56. Pallenberg was cremated at Feuerhalle Simmering, where his ashes are also buried.

Sources: Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

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Tags:   Max Pallenberg Max Pallenberg German Actor Acteur Schauspieler Darsteller European Film Star Else Lehmann Else Lehmann Actress Actrice Schauspielerin Darstellerin Schauspiler Theater Theatre Kino Cinema Cine Film Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Sepia Vintage Postcard Postkarte Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkaart Ansichtkaart Verlag Herm. Leiser Leiser Fritz Richard Fritz Richard Der Biberpelz Biberpelz 1919

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German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm. , no. 2297. Photo: Fritz Richard.

During his long career, German stage actor Paul Hartmann (1889-1977) made over 100 films, both in the silent and the sound period. Despite his commitment to the Nazi regime, he could continue his career quite smoothly into the 1950s and 1960s.

Paul Wilhelm Constantin Hartmann was born in Fürth, Germany in 1889. He was the son of Wilhelm Hartmann, the manager of a toy-export company, and his wife Maria Hartmann-Betz. From 1907 on, he studied acting with Adalbert Czokke, and in 1908 he had his first engagement at the Stadtheater Zwickau. In the following years, he played at the Bellevue-Theater in Stettin, the Stadttheater Zürich, and from November 1913 at the Deutsche Theater in Berlin under the direction of the legendary Max Reinhardt. He also started to work for the cinema. He made his film debut as a jeune premier in 1915 in Zofia - Kriegs-Irrfahrten eines Kindes/Zofia – the War Odysseys of a Child (Hubert Moest, 1915) with Ernst Pittschau and Hedda Vernon. Soon followed more films like Der Trick/The Trick (Fred Sauer, 1915) with Aud Egede Nissen, Die verschleierte Dame/The Veiled Lady (Richard Oswald, 1915), Ein Blatt Papier/A Page of Paper (Joe May, 1916), Feenhände/Hands of a Fairy (Rudolf Biebrach, 1916) with Henny Porten, the Harry Deebs detective Das Geheimnis der leeren Wasserflasche/The Secret of the Empty Water Bottle (Joe May, 1917) starring Harry Liedtke, Christa Hartungen (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917), and Es werde Licht!/Let There Be Light! (Richard Oswald, 1918). That same year, he appeared in Der Trompetter von Säkkingen/The Trumpeter of Säckingen (Franz Porten, 1918), based on a popular opera (1884) by Viktor Nessler, which in turn was based on a romantic book by Joseph Victor von Scheffel, published in 1854. The story is set in Heidelberg and Säckingen during the 17th century, after the Thirty Years War. Law student, later trumpeter Werner Kirchhof falls in love with Margareta, a baron's daughter, but her mother wants to marry her to the cowardly Damian. Werner proves to be a hero and a compassionate pope makes him marquis of Camposanto. Then, after five years of separation nothing can prevent a happy ending. Hartmann's stage and film career suffered a short break when he was called into the military service in 1917. After that he continued his film career smoothly. In the 1920s he played romantic and melancholic characters in films like Katharina die Grosse/Catherine the Great (Reinhold Schünzel, 1920) with Lucie Höflich, Anna Boleyn/Anne Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) with Emil Jannings and Henny Porten, Schloss Vogelöd/The Haunted Castle (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1921) with Olga Tschechova, Der Roman der Christine von Herre (Ludwig Berger, 1921) with Heinrich George, Luise Millerin (Carl Froelich, 1922) with Lil Dagover, Alt-Heidelberg/The Student Prince (Hans Behrendt, 1923) with Eva May, Zur Chronik von Grieshuus/The Chronicles of the Gray House (Arthur von Gerlach, 1925) and the silent film operetta Der Rosenkavalier/The Knight Of The Rose (Robert Wiene, 1925) with Jaque Catelain. In 1924 he worked at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Wien (Vienna), and in 1925 he moved over to the Burgtheater. From 1927 he turned away from the film business and devoted his career exclusively to the Burgtheater.

With the introduction of the sound film Paul Hartmann returned to the cinema. He played tough and adamant heroes, like the constructor and captain next to Hans Albers in the deluxe German/British production F.P.1 antwortet nicht/F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (Karl Hartl, 1932), or as the self sacrificing engineer in Der Tunnel/The Tunnel (Kurt aka Curtis Bernhardt, 1933). Other popular films were Der Läufer von Marathon/The Marathon Runner (Ewald André Dupont, 1933), Salon Dora Green/The House of Dora Green (Henrik Galeen, 1933) with Alfred Abel, and Mazurka (Willi Forst, 1935) with Pola Negri. From 1935 on he was a company member of the Preußischen Staatstheater in Berlin, where he stayed till the end of WW II. In 1934 he was named Staatsschauspieler (Stage Artist of the State), and from May 1937 he was part of the UFA Art Committee. He also appeared in such propaganda films as Pour le mérite (Karl Ritter, 1938), the biography Bismarck (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1940) and Ich klage an/I Accuse (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1941). In April 1942 he became the president of the Reichstheaterkammer. His commitment to the Nazi regime did not really harm his career or his popularity after the war. After being banned from the theatre in 1945 Hartmann could only return to the stage in 1948 as Faust in a production of the Goethe play in Bonn. During the 1950s he was engaged by the Schauspielhaus in Düsseldorf, the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, and the Burgtheater in Vienna. He also returned to the cinema. The ageing star now mainly worked as a character actor in supporting roles, such as in Die Dame in Schwarz/The Lady in Black (Erich Engels, 1951) with Mady Rahl, Der grosse Zapfenstreich/The Sergeant's Daughter (George Hurdalek, 1953) with Johanna Matz, Regina Amstetten (Kurt Neumann, 1954), Die Barrings/The Barrings (Rolf Thiele, 1955) with Dieter Borsche and Nadja Tiller, Der Fuchs von Paris/The Fox of Paris (Paul May, 1957), Buddenbrooks (Alfred Weidenmann, 1959), and Rosen für den Staatsanwalt/Roses for the Prosecutor (Wolfgang Staudte, 1959). He finished his film career in the 1960s with productions like the TV-film Hermann und Dorothea (Ludwig Berger, 1961), the Heimatfilm Waldrausch (Paul May, 1962), and the international war film The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, 1962), an all-star re-creation of the D-Day invasion, personally orchestrated by Darryl F. Zanuck. Hartmanns last appearance was in the TV-film Demetrius (Ludwig Berger, Heribert Wenk, 1969). In 1964 he was awarded the Filmband in Gold for his continuing and outstanding contributions to the German Film. Paul Hartmann died in 1977 in München (Munich). He was married twice. During WWI he had married a Slavic ballet dancer, who died in 1952. In 1955 he married the painter Elfriede Lieberun.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

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German postcard by Verl. Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 9138. Photo: Fritz Richard. Werner Krauss as St. Just in the stage play 'Dantons Tod'.

German stage and film actor Werner Krauss (1884-1959) became a worldwide sensation as the demonic Dr. Caligari in the classic of the German expressionist cinema, Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919). He appeared in several silent masterpieces, but his magnificent film career was later overshadowed by his appearance in one of the most notorious propaganda films of the Third Reich.

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German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 1880. Photo: Fritz Richard. Emil Jannings in 'Kollege Crampton' by Gerhart Hauptmann.

If Weimar cinema had one film star, then it was Emil Jannings (1884-1950) for sure. He was a great actor in the silent era and won the first Oscar for Best Actor. Priceless are his performances as Louis XV in Lubitsch' Madame Dubarry (1919), as the doorman in Murnau's Der Letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924) and as Mephisto in Faust (1926), as the jealous acrobat in Dupont's Variété/Variety (1925) and as the professor in Von Sternberg's Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930).

Emil Jannings was born Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz in Rorschach, Switzerland, in 1884. He grew up in Leipzig and Görlitz. He left grammar school prematurely and worked as a ship's mate. In 1900, he started to work at the Görlitz Stadttheater, after which he played in several provincial theatres and with travelling companies. Occasionally he directed plays too. In 1914, he reached Berlin where he was engaged in 1915-1916 at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. In between, he played on stage elsewhere and had his first film role in the war propaganda film Im Schützengraben/In the Trenches (Walter Schmidthässler, 1914). Until 1920 Jannings continued to play on stage, getting bigger and bigger roles.

From 1916 on, Emil Jannings played more and more in film, mostly in quickly staged melodramas and crime stories. In 1919 he had his big breakthrough as Louis XV in the lavish period piece Madame DuBarry, directed by his former theatre colleague Ernst Lubitsch. The film was such an international hit that former war adversaries such as the United States embraced German cinema. Jannings and his co-star Pola Negri became instant celebrities. For a while, he continued to play debauched rulers such as Henry VIII in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), Amenes in Das Weib des Pharao/Pharoah's Wife (Ernst Lubitsch, 1922) and Czar Peter the Great in Peter der Grosse (Dimitri Buchowetzki, 1922). Other strong historical characters were the title roles in Danton/All for a Woman (1921) and Othello (1922), directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki.

The Italo-German coproduction Quo Vadis was shot in Rome with an international cast including Lilian Hall-Davis, Alphons Fryland, Elga Brink, Elena Sangro, Rina de Liguoro, Raimondo Van Riel and Jannings. The producer was grand old man Arturo Ambrosio of the Unione Cinematografica Italiana, a Universal-like merger of many Italian prewar companies. The film had its Roman premiere in March 1925. Quo Vadis tried to equal the earlier version of 1913, adding enormous sets, designed by sculptor Brasini, and streaks of sadism and nudity. Still, it didn't have the worldwide success of Enrico Guazzoni's earlier version. People were a bit bored with epic films and the censor ordered cuts. The producer almost went bankrupt over copyright claims. It didn't help that the lion tamer Alfred Schneider was convicted because one of his circus lions had killed an extra. But Quo Vadis is a fascinating film, especially for Jannings's performance of the evil emperor. Eye Filmmuseum in the Netherlands restored the film, based on various existing copies. This restored version had its 're-premiere' at the Bologna film festival Cinema Ritrovato in 2002.

Emil Jannings managed to get away from his historical characters with two major films. In Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924) he is a proud hotel doorman who loses his self-esteem and the esteem of others when he is reduced to a toilet man, working in the basement of the hotel. In Varieté/Variety (Ewald André Dupont, 1925), he is the strong acrobat, who kills his rival out of jealousy. Jannings magnificently expressed the fears and doubts of proud and big-hearted men, who are cheated by their surroundings. Murnau directed him in two more silent classics Tartüff/Tartuffe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1925) with Lil Dagover, and Faust (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926) as Mephisto opposite Gösta Ekman as Faust.

The success of these films earned Emil Jannings a 3-year contract with Paramount. In Hollywood, he again played men who had a social position and then ended in misery such as in The Way of All Flesh (Victor Fleming, 1927) and The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928). The two films earned him the first Oscar ever distributed to an actor. Together with Ernst Lubitsch, he tried to repeat their German successes in The Patriot (Ernst Lubitsch, 1928). When sound came, Jannings left Hollywood and returned to Berlin, where he was launched in his first sound film Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg and based on a novel by Heinrich Mann, 'Professor Unrat'. Jannings is the local university professor Immanuel Rath who falls in love with cabaret singer Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich). Once married to him, she shamelessly exploits and humiliates him. When the film came out, Dietrich's popularity overshadowed Jannings. The film was her ticket to Hollywood. Jannings returned to play on stage, until 1936.

With his sound films of the early 1930s, Emil Jannings could not compete with his earlier successes. Only after the Nazis came to power, his star rose again. He played rulers, just like in the early 1920s, but this time, not the decadent versions anymore. He performed historical characters such as Friedrich Wilhelm I in Der Alte und der junge König/The Making of a King (Hans Steinhoff, 1935), Geheimrat Clausen in Der Herrscher/The Ruler (Veit Harlan, 1937), the title roles in Robert Koch (Hans Steinhoff, 1939) and Ohm Kruger/Uncle Kruger (Hans Steinhoff, 1941), and Bismarck in Die Entlassung/The Dismissal (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1942). All were predecessors to Adolph Hitler, to be understood. In 1936 he became a board member of Ufa and in 1938 he was chairman there. He was allowed to direct his own films and thus was the main responsible for Ohm Kruger, one of the most expensive films of the Nazi era. His historical films contributed to the legitimisation of modern politics. In January 1945, he broke up work to the film Wo ist Herr Belling?/Where Is Mr. Belling? (Erich Engel, 1945), because of an illness. The film, never finished, was his last work. In 1946, Emil Jannings was denazified and in 1950, he died in Strobl am Wolfgangsee, Austria.

Sources: Filmportal.de and IMDb.

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German postcard by Verl. Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm, no. 9937. Photo: Fritz Richard. Publicity still for a stage production of Othello by William Shakespeare.

German actor, writer, and film director Paul Wegener (1874-1948) is one of the true fathers of the horror and fantasy genre, particularly remembered for his three silent films centered around the Jewish legend of the Golem. Wegener was one of the pioneers of the German cinema who realized the potential of the new medium and used the possibilities of cinematic trick photography as a method for presenting fantastic tales in a serious matter.

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