Alfred L. Worker

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred L. Worker on the film set

Alfred Louis improvement (* 2. December 1896 in Deadwood , South Dakota , United States ; † 28. July 1975 in Laguna Beach (California) , Orange County ,) was an American film director , an experienced creator of B-movies of the 1920s to 1950s.

Life

Alfred Louis Werker received his training in San Diego , Southern California , before moving to Hollywood in 1917 . He began his film career at Triangle Studio in Culver City. In the years to come, Werker followed the classic path from being a girl for everything to assistant director and finally to becoming a silent film director in 1925. Werker's career gradually took shape in the early 1930s. After a series of B- and C-Westerns, at the request of the production company Fox Film Corporation, the experienced worker, who is valued as reliable, edited the strip " Walking Down Broadway " shot by Erich von Stroheim , which changed significantly in 1933 under the title "Hello Sister" got into the cinemas. Out of gratitude Fox Werker then left the implementation of the family chronicle “ The Rothschilds ” in the same year - it was Alfred Werker's most elaborate and ambitious production, which even received an Oscar nomination in the category “Best Film”.

Nevertheless, Werker's career quickly ebbed, as he showed little artistic ambition that went beyond the mere routine or even had his own signature. Werker remained the reliable craftsman among Hollywood directors, an expert in solid, straightforward mass entertainment. He turned with " Kidnapped " an independent Robert Louis Stevenson -Adaption with the child star Freddie Bartholomew and the second of a series of Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone in the role of master detective ( " The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes "), beyond a rather entertaining commissioned production for the Disney group (live sequences in the largely animated film “ Walt Disney's Wonderland ”) and a Laurel & Hardy by- product (“ Dick and Doof as secret agents at the FBI ” ).

After the Second World War, Werker concentrated on tough men's fabrics: He shot thrillers and crime novels, again westerns and dramas - some of them quite exciting B-entertainment with a gloomy mood. Among his best late works are “ Steps in the Night ” (partly staged by his colleague Anthony Mann without naming his name) and “ When Parents Are Silent ”. With the tendentious, semi-documentary police and espionage thriller "Walk East on Beacon" filmed in Boston in 1951, Werker worked with anti-communist witch hunters around Senator Joseph McCarthy .

After around four decades in the film industry, Alfred Werker retired into private life at the beginning of 1957 at the age of 60.

Movies

  • 1925: Ridin 'the Wind (co-director)
  • 1927: A Bandit of Honor ( Jesse James ) (only artist. Senior management and production)
  • 1928: The Pioneer Scout (co-director)
  • 1928: The Sunset Legion (co-director)
  • 1928: Kit Carson
  • 1928: Blue Skies
  • 1929: Chasing Through Europe
  • 1929: Double Cross Roads
  • 1930: Vogelfrei - to the last man ( Last of the Duanes )
  • 1930: Fair Warning
  • 1931: Annabelle's Affairs
  • 1931: Heartbreak
  • 1931: The Gay Caballero
  • 1932: Rackety Rax
  • 1933: Walking Down Broadway / Hello Sister (co-director with Erich von Stroheim and others)
  • 1934: The Rothschilds ( The House of Rothschild )
  • 1934: You Belong to Me
  • 1935: Stolen Harmony
  • 1936: Love in Exile
  • 1937: Big Town Girl
  • 1937: City Girl
  • 1938: Kidnapped ( Kidnapped )
  • 1938: Up the River
  • 1939: News is Made at Night
  • 1939: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ( The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes )
  • 1941: Walt Disney's Wonderland ( The Reluctant Dragon )
  • 1941: Whispering Ghosts
  • 1942: Dick and Doof as secret agents with the FBI ( A Haunting We Will Go )
  • 1944: My Pal Wolf
  • 1946: Shock
  • 1946: Repeat Performance
  • 1947: The Pirates of Monterey ( Pirates of Monterey )
  • 1948: Started at night ( He Walked by Night )
  • 1949: When Parents Are Silent ( Lost Boundaries )
  • 1950: Sealed Cargo
  • 1952: Walk East on Beacon
  • 1953: The last search party ( The Last Posse )
  • 1953: Hell of the Prisoners ( Devil's Canyon )
  • 1954: Three hours ( Three Hours to Kill )
  • 1954: Canyon Crossroads
  • 1955: In Acht und Bann ( At Gunpoint )
  • 1956: The Arizona Rebel ( Rebel in Town )
  • 1957: The Young Don't Cry

literature

  • International Motion Picture Almanac 1965, p. 305
  • Ephraim Katz : The Film Encyclopedia, 4th Edition. Revised by Fred Klein & Ronald Dean Nolen, pp. 1451 f., New York 2001

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Worker, Alfred L.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Werker, Alfred Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Deadwood , South Dakota , United States
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1975
Place of death Deadwood , South Dakota , United States