Robert Siodmak
Encyclopedia
Robert Siodmak was a German born American film director
. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for the series of Hollywood film noir
s he made in the 1940s.
was necessary for him to obtain a visa in Paris
). He worked as a stage director and a banker before becoming editor and scenarist for Curtis Bernhardt
in 1925. At twenty-six he was hired by his cousin, producer Seymour Nebenzal
, to assemble original silent movies from the stock footage of old ones. Siodmak worked at this for two years before he persuaded Nebenzal to finance his first feature, the silent chef d'oeuvre, People on Sunday
(Menschen am Sonntag) (1929). The script was written by his younger brother Curt Siodmak
, later the screenwriter of The Wolf Man (1941).
With the rise of Nazism
he left Germany for Paris and then Hollywood. Siodmak arrived in Hollywood in 1939, where he made 23 movies, many of them widely popular thrillers and crime melodramas, which critics today regard as classics of film noir.
in 1943. As house director, his services were often used to salvage troublesome productions at the studio. On Mark Hellinger's production Swell Guy (1946), for instance, Siodmak was brought in to replace Frank Tuttle
only six days after completing work on The Killers
.
At Universal, Siodmak made yet another B-film, Son of Dracula
(1943), the third in a trilogy of Dracula movies (based on his brother Curt
's original story). His second feature, and first A-film, was the Maria Montez
-Jon Hall
vehicle, Cobra Woman
(1944), made in garish Technicolor
.
But his first all-out noir was Phantom Lady (1944), for staff producer Joan Harrison, Universal's first female executive and Alfred Hitchcock
's former secretary and script assistant. Following the critical success of Phantom Lady, Siodmak directed Christmas Holiday
(1944) with Deanna Durbin
. And for the first time in Hollywood, his work attained the stylistic and thematic characteristics that are evident in his later noirs. His black and white stylisations and urban backdrop together with his light and shadow designs formed the basic structure of classic noir films. Christmas Holiday was Deanna Durbin's most successful feature, and she considered it her only good film. During Siodmak's tenure, Universal made the most of the noir style, but the capstone was The Killers
in 1946. A critical and financial success, it earned Siodmak his only Oscar nomination for direction in Hollywood (his German production The Devil Came at Night
(Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam) would be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film
in 1956). Robert Siodmak was considered an actor's director, discovering Burt Lancaster
and skillfully directing actresses such as Ava Gardner
, Olivia de Havilland
, Dorothy McGuire
, Yvonne de Carlo
, Barbara Stanwyck
and Ella Raines
.
, Siodmak had directed some of the era's best film noirs, more than any other director who worked in that genre, twelve in all. But his identification with film noir, generally unpopular with American audiences, may have been more of a curse than a blessing.
He often expressed his desire to make pictures "of a different type and background" than the ones he had been making for ten years. Nevertheless, he ended his Universal contract with one last noir, the disappointing Deported (1951) which he filmed partly abroad (Siodmak was among the first refugee directors to return to Europe after making American films).
Those "different types" of films he had made - The Great Sinner (1949) for MGM, Time Out of Mind (1947) for Universal (which Siodmak also produced), The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951) for Columbia Pictures
- all proved ill suited to his noir sensibilities (although The Crimson Pirate, despite the difficult production, was a surprising and pleasant departure).
The five months he collaborated with Budd Schulberg
on a screenplay tentatively titled A Stone in the River Hudson, an early version of On the Waterfront
was also a major disappointment for Siodmak. In 1954 he sued producer Sam Spiegel
for copyright infringement. Siodmak was awarded $100,000, but no screen credit. His contribution to the original screenplay has never been acknowledged.
After returning to the Federal Republic of Germany
, he made The Rats
(Die Ratten) which went on to win the Golden Berlin Bear
at the 1955 Berlin Film Festival
, and The Devil Came at Night
(Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam, 1957) which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
and is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke
.
was another disappointment. Siodmak fared better in Europe, especially with the British film The Rough and the Smooth (1959), another noir, but much meaner and gloomier than anything he had made in America.
He ended his career with a six-hour, two-part toga and chariot epic, Der Kampf um Rom (1968), oddly more campy (perhaps intentionally, one hopes) than Cobra Woman had been. There was a brief and profitable foray into television in Great Britain with the series O.S.S. (1957–58). Siodmak was last seen publicly in an interview for Swiss television at his home in Ascona
in 1971. He died alone in 1973, seven weeks after his wife's death.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for the series of Hollywood film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
s he made in the 1940s.
Early life
Siodmak was born to a Polish Jewish family in Dresden, Germany (the myth of his American birth in Memphis, TennesseeMemphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
was necessary for him to obtain a visa in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
). He worked as a stage director and a banker before becoming editor and scenarist for Curtis Bernhardt
Curtis Bernhardt
Curtis Bernhardt was a German film director born in Worms, Germany, under the name Kurt Bernhardt. Some of his American films were called "woman's films" including the Joan Crawford film Possessed . Bernhardt trained as an actor in Germany, and performed on the stage, before starting as a film...
in 1925. At twenty-six he was hired by his cousin, producer Seymour Nebenzal
Seymour Nebenzal
Seymour Nebenzal was a German film producer. He produced 46 films between 1927 and 1961.He got into film production through his father Heinrich Nebenzahl who in the early 1920s worked with German action star Harry Piel. In 1926 Heinrich Nebenzahl and director-producer Richard Oswald founded the...
, to assemble original silent movies from the stock footage of old ones. Siodmak worked at this for two years before he persuaded Nebenzal to finance his first feature, the silent chef d'oeuvre, People on Sunday
People on Sunday
People on Sunday is a 1930 German silent drama film directed by Curt and Robert Siodmak from a screenplay by Billy Wilder. It follows the lives of a group of residents of Berlin on a summer's day during the interwar period. Hailed as a work of genius, it is a pivotal film not only in the...
(Menschen am Sonntag) (1929). The script was written by his younger brother Curt Siodmak
Curt Siodmak
Curt Siodmak was a novelist and screenwriter. He made a name for himself in Hollywood with horror and science fiction films, most notably The Wolf Man and Donovan's Brain...
, later the screenwriter of The Wolf Man (1941).
With the rise of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
he left Germany for Paris and then Hollywood. Siodmak arrived in Hollywood in 1939, where he made 23 movies, many of them widely popular thrillers and crime melodramas, which critics today regard as classics of film noir.
Hollywood career
Beginning in 1941, he first turned out several B-films and programmers for various studios before he gained a seven-year contract with Universal StudiosUniversal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
in 1943. As house director, his services were often used to salvage troublesome productions at the studio. On Mark Hellinger's production Swell Guy (1946), for instance, Siodmak was brought in to replace Frank Tuttle
Frank Tuttle
Frank Tuttle was a Hollywood film director and writer who directed films from 1922 to 1959 ....
only six days after completing work on The Killers
The Killers (1946 film)
The Killers is a 1946 American film noir directed by Robert Siodmak. It is based in part on the short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film features Burt Lancaster in his screen debut, as well as Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, and Sam Levene...
.
At Universal, Siodmak made yet another B-film, Son of Dracula
Son of Dracula (1943 film)
Son of Dracula is a 1943 American horror film directed by Robert Siodmak - his first film for Universal studios - with a screenplay based on an original story by his brother Curt. The film stars Lon Chaney, Jr. and his frequent co-star Evelyn Ankers. Notably it is the first film where a vampire...
(1943), the third in a trilogy of Dracula movies (based on his brother Curt
Curt Siodmak
Curt Siodmak was a novelist and screenwriter. He made a name for himself in Hollywood with horror and science fiction films, most notably The Wolf Man and Donovan's Brain...
's original story). His second feature, and first A-film, was the Maria Montez
María Montez
María Montez was a Dominican-born motion picture actress who gained fame and popularity in the 1940s as an exotic beauty starring in a series of filmed-in-Technicolor costume adventure films. Her screen image was that of a hot-blooded Latin seductress, dressed in fanciful costumes and sparkling...
-Jon Hall
Jon Hall
Jon Hall was an American film actor.-Biography:Born Charles Felix Locher in Fresno, California, and raised in Tahiti by his father, the Swiss-born actor Felix Locher, he was a nephew of James Norman Hall, one of the authors of Mutiny on the Bounty...
vehicle, Cobra Woman
Cobra Woman
Cobra Woman is a 1944 American melodrama/adventure film of the South Seas genre, directed by Robert Siodmak. It was mad in and starring Jon Hall, Sabu, Mary Nash, Lon Chaney, Jr. and, in a dual role, Maria Montez...
(1944), made in garish Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
.
But his first all-out noir was Phantom Lady (1944), for staff producer Joan Harrison, Universal's first female executive and Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's former secretary and script assistant. Following the critical success of Phantom Lady, Siodmak directed Christmas Holiday
Christmas Holiday
Christmas Holiday is a 1944 American drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. The black-and-white film noir is loosely based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Producer Felix Jackson chose this project as a dramatic vehicle for Deanna Durbin. The screenplay was adapted by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who...
(1944) with Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....
. And for the first time in Hollywood, his work attained the stylistic and thematic characteristics that are evident in his later noirs. His black and white stylisations and urban backdrop together with his light and shadow designs formed the basic structure of classic noir films. Christmas Holiday was Deanna Durbin's most successful feature, and she considered it her only good film. During Siodmak's tenure, Universal made the most of the noir style, but the capstone was The Killers
The Killers (1946 film)
The Killers is a 1946 American film noir directed by Robert Siodmak. It is based in part on the short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film features Burt Lancaster in his screen debut, as well as Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, and Sam Levene...
in 1946. A critical and financial success, it earned Siodmak his only Oscar nomination for direction in Hollywood (his German production The Devil Came at Night
The Devil Came at Night
The Devil Came at Night is a 1957 West German film directed by Robert Siodmak. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke....
(Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam) would be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
in 1956). Robert Siodmak was considered an actor's director, discovering Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
and skillfully directing actresses such as Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
, Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
, Dorothy McGuire
Dorothy McGuire
Dorothy Hackett McGuire was an American actress.-Career:Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she began her acting career on the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse...
, Yvonne de Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...
, Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
and Ella Raines
Ella Raines
Ella Wallace Raines was an American film and television actress.-Life and career:Born Ella Wallace Raubes near Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, Raines studied drama at the University of Washington and was appearing in a play there when she was seen by Howard Hawks...
.
Return to Europe
Before leaving Hollywood for Europe in 1952, following the problematic production The Crimson Pirate for Warner Bros., his third and last film with Burt LancasterBurt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
, Siodmak had directed some of the era's best film noirs, more than any other director who worked in that genre, twelve in all. But his identification with film noir, generally unpopular with American audiences, may have been more of a curse than a blessing.
He often expressed his desire to make pictures "of a different type and background" than the ones he had been making for ten years. Nevertheless, he ended his Universal contract with one last noir, the disappointing Deported (1951) which he filmed partly abroad (Siodmak was among the first refugee directors to return to Europe after making American films).
Those "different types" of films he had made - The Great Sinner (1949) for MGM, Time Out of Mind (1947) for Universal (which Siodmak also produced), The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951) for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
- all proved ill suited to his noir sensibilities (although The Crimson Pirate, despite the difficult production, was a surprising and pleasant departure).
The five months he collaborated with Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay for A Face in the...
on a screenplay tentatively titled A Stone in the River Hudson, an early version of On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...
was also a major disappointment for Siodmak. In 1954 he sued producer Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel was an Austrian-born American independent film producer.-Life and career:Spiegel was born in Jarosław, Galicia, Austria-Hungary as Samuel P. Spiegel to a German-Jewish father and Polish mother and educated at the University of Vienna. His brother was Shalom Spiegel, a professor of...
for copyright infringement. Siodmak was awarded $100,000, but no screen credit. His contribution to the original screenplay has never been acknowledged.
After returning to the Federal Republic of Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, he made The Rats
Die Ratten
Die Ratten is a 1955 West German drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. It is an adaptation of the play by Gerhart Hauptmann which transferred the story in the early fifties, shortly after the Second World War...
(Die Ratten) which went on to win the Golden Berlin Bear
Golden Bear
According to legend, the Golden Bear was a large golden Ursus arctos. Members of the Ursus arctos species can reach masses of . The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are North American subspecies of the Brown Bear....
at the 1955 Berlin Film Festival
5th Berlin International Film Festival
The 5th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 24 to July 5, 1955.-Films in competition:* Carmen Jones by Otto Preminger* Continente perduto by Enrico Gras, Giorgio Moser* Die Ratten by Robert Siodmak...
, and The Devil Came at Night
The Devil Came at Night
The Devil Came at Night is a 1957 West German film directed by Robert Siodmak. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke....
(Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam, 1957) which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
and is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke
Bruno Lüdke
Bruno Lüdke was an alleged German serial killer. Nazi police officials connected him to at least 51 murder victims, mainly women, killed in a 15-year period, which began in 1928 and ended with his arrest in 1943....
.
Later career
His return to Hollywood film-making in 1967 to make the wide-screen western Custer of the WestCuster of the West
Custer of the West is a 1967 American Western film directed by Robert Siodmak. It tells a highly fictionalised version of the life and death of George Armstrong Custer. It was directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Robert Shaw as Custer, Robert Ryan and Mary Ure...
was another disappointment. Siodmak fared better in Europe, especially with the British film The Rough and the Smooth (1959), another noir, but much meaner and gloomier than anything he had made in America.
He ended his career with a six-hour, two-part toga and chariot epic, Der Kampf um Rom (1968), oddly more campy (perhaps intentionally, one hopes) than Cobra Woman had been. There was a brief and profitable foray into television in Great Britain with the series O.S.S. (1957–58). Siodmak was last seen publicly in an interview for Swiss television at his home in Ascona
Ascona
Ascona is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.It is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore.The town is a popular tourist destination, and holds a yearly jazz festival, the Ascona Jazz Festival....
in 1971. He died alone in 1973, seven weeks after his wife's death.
Filmography
- Menschen am Sonntag (1929)
- AbschiedAbschiedAbschied is a 1930 German romantic comedy film directed by Robert Siodmak and written by Emeric Pressburger. The film starred Brigitte Horney and Aribert Mog.-Plot:...
(1930) - Der Kampf mit dem Drachen oder: Die Tragödie des Untermieters (1930)
- Der Mann, der seinen Mörder Sucht (1931)
- Voruntersuchung (1931)
- Sturme der Leidenschaft (1932)
- Quick (1932)
- Brennendes Geheimnis (1933)
- Le Sexe Faible (1933)
- La Crise est finie (1934)
- La Vie Parisienne (1935)
- Mister Flow (1936)
- Cargaisons Blanches (aka Le Chemin de Rio) (1937)
- MollenardMollenardMollenard is a 1938 French drama film directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Harry Baur, Gabrielle Dorziat and Pierre Renoir. It was also known as Capitaine Corsaire.-Cast:* Harry Baur as Captain Mollenard...
(1938) - Pieges (1939)
- West Point Widow (1941)
- Fly-by-Night (1942)
- My Heart Belongs to Daddy (1942)
- The Night Before the Divorce (1942)
- Someone to Remember (1943)
- Son of DraculaSon of Dracula (1943 film)Son of Dracula is a 1943 American horror film directed by Robert Siodmak - his first film for Universal studios - with a screenplay based on an original story by his brother Curt. The film stars Lon Chaney, Jr. and his frequent co-star Evelyn Ankers. Notably it is the first film where a vampire...
(1943) - Phantom Lady (1944)
- Cobra WomanCobra WomanCobra Woman is a 1944 American melodrama/adventure film of the South Seas genre, directed by Robert Siodmak. It was mad in and starring Jon Hall, Sabu, Mary Nash, Lon Chaney, Jr. and, in a dual role, Maria Montez...
(1944) - Christmas HolidayChristmas HolidayChristmas Holiday is a 1944 American drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. The black-and-white film noir is loosely based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Producer Felix Jackson chose this project as a dramatic vehicle for Deanna Durbin. The screenplay was adapted by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who...
(1944) - The SuspectThe SuspectThe Suspect is a 1944 film noir directed by Robert Siodmak, set in Victorian times. It is based on the novel This Way Out, by James Ronald. Released by Universal Pictures, it tells the story of Philip Marshall , a kind but henpecked bank teller who strikes up an innocent friendship with a young...
(1945) - The Strange Affair of Uncle HarryThe Strange Affair of Uncle HarryThe Strange Affair of Uncle Harry is a 1945 film noir directed by Robert Siodmak, starring George Sanders as an aging bachelor who looks after his two sisters, one of whom tries to sabotage his romance with his co-worker...
(1945) - The Spiral Staircase (1945)
- The KillersThe Killers (1946 film)The Killers is a 1946 American film noir directed by Robert Siodmak. It is based in part on the short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film features Burt Lancaster in his screen debut, as well as Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, and Sam Levene...
(1946) - The Dark Mirror (1946)
- Time Out of Mind (1947)
- Cry of the CityCry of the CityCry of the City is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Robert Siodmak based on the novel by Henry Edward Helseth, The Chair for Martin Rome. Veteran film noir-writer Ben Hecht worked on the film's script, but is not credited...
(1948) - Criss CrossCriss Cross (1949 film)Criss Cross is a 1949 film noir, directed by Robert Siodmak from a novel of the same name by Don Tracy. This black-and-white film was shot partly on location in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles. The film was written by Daniel Fuchs. Franz Planer's cinematography creates a black-and-white...
(1948) - The Great Sinner (1949)
- The File on Thelma JordonThe File on Thelma JordonThe File on Thelma Jordon is a 1950 film noir directed by Robert Siodmak from a screenplay by Ketti Frings. It stars Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey.-Plot:...
(1949) - Deported (1950)
- The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951)
- The Crimson PirateThe Crimson PirateThe Crimson Pirate is a 1952 American adventure film directed by Robert Siodmak. It stars Burt Lancaster, who also co-produced the film, as Captain Vallo, the eponymous pirate, and is set in the Caribbean late in the 18th century, on the fictional islands of Cobra and San Pero...
(1952) - Le Grand Jeu (1954)
- Die RattenDie RattenDie Ratten is a 1955 West German drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. It is an adaptation of the play by Gerhart Hauptmann which transferred the story in the early fifties, shortly after the Second World War...
(1955) - Mein Vater, der Schauspieler (1956)
- Nachts, wenn der Teufel kamThe Devil Came at NightThe Devil Came at Night is a 1957 West German film directed by Robert Siodmak. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke....
(1957) - Katia (1959)
- Dorothea Angermann (1959)
- The Rough and the Smooth (1959)
- Der Schulfreund (1960)
- L'Affaire Nina B. (1961)
- Escape from East BerlinEscape from East BerlinEscape from East Berlin is a 1962 film directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Don Murray.- Plot :The story occurs in East Berlin soon after the Berlin Wall is built, and is based on an actual escape on January 28, 1962. Kurt Schröder is a chauffeur to East German Major Eckhardt and his seductive...
(1962) - Der Schut (1964)
- Der Schatz der Azteken (1964)
- Die Pyramide des SonnengottesDie Pyramide des SonnengottesDie Pyramide des Sonnengottes is a 1965 West German and Italian western film adventure directed by Robert Siodmak, based on a book by Karl May.-Cast:*Lex Barker ... Dr. Karl Sternau*Michèle Girardon ... Josefa...
(1965) - Custer of the WestCuster of the WestCuster of the West is a 1967 American Western film directed by Robert Siodmak. It tells a highly fictionalised version of the life and death of George Armstrong Custer. It was directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Robert Shaw as Custer, Robert Ryan and Mary Ure...
(1967) - Kampf um Rom IKampf um Rom IKampf um Rom I is a 1968 West German historical drama film directed by Robert Siodmak, about Justinian's attempts to repel barbarian incursions and reclaim those parts of the empire already lost. Before screening it in the US in 1973 both parts were combined to one and shortened from over three...
(1968) - Kampf um Rom II (1969)