The company was founded on January 6, 1932 as "Union-Tonfilm", and in March it received its final name: "Cine-Allianz Tonfilm GmbH". The two founders Arnold Pressburger and Gregor Rabinowitsch were not newcomers to the film business: Pressburger had already founded an “Allianz Tonfilm GmbH” in Berlin in 1930 and Rabinowitsch had launched a “Ciné Alliance” in Paris in 1926 . Since the new Cine-Allianz Tonfilm GmbH served the international markets with multi-language versions, it developed into one of the most successful German film production companies in the 1930s. Its directors and stars included well-known film artists such as Marcel Carné , René Clair , Marta Eggerth , Arnold Fanck , Willi Forst , Carmine Gallone , Brigitte Helm , Jan Kiepura , Fritz Lang , Max Ophüls , Reinhold Schünzel and Detlef Sierck .
After the seizure of power , the company was transferred to a liquidation company under pressure from the Reichsfilmkammer in 1935 and the two Jewish producers were expropriated in 1937. The “Aryanized” company continued to exist and used the well-established brand name “Cine-Allianz” for the production of light entertainment films . It was not until 1940 and 1941 that the propagandistic films Request Concert and Six Days at Home were made . In the course of the concentration of the film industry, the Cine-Allianz GmbH then merged with Ufa .
Pressburger and Rabinowitsch went their separate ways in exile, but continued their film work.
www.cinegraph.de (review of the book by Jan Distelmeyer; see below)
www.cinegraph.de (Foreword to Jan Distelmeyer's book "Allies for Film")
literature
Jan Distelmeyer (Red.): Allies for the film. Arnold Pressburger, Gregor Rabinowitsch and the Cine Alliance. Munich (edition text + kritik) 2004, ISBN 3-88377-779-X
