Franz Antel

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Franz Josef Antel (born June 28, 1913 in Vienna ; † August 12, 2007 there ) was an Austrian film director , producer and author . More than 100 feature films were made under his direction. In some international co-productions he used the stage name François Legrand .

Life

Franz Antel came from a family of civil servants, his father was a civil servant in the Austro-Hungarian Post and Telegraph Administration. After fourth grade he left high school and worked for two years in the Technological Trade Museum . In 1931 he entered the sound film academy, which had just opened at Bauernmarkt 24. Hans Theyer taught here , and Antel first appeared in a film as his second camera assistant in Karl Leiters Wienerwald .

As early as 1933, during his studies, he made his first film as a director with Theyer's son Hans Heinz Theyer as cameraman, a sports film with five actors, which he never finished for lack of money. But the whitewater shots from the Enns were so spectacular that they could be sold to a dozen newsreels.

In the following years he gained experience as a director and production assistant, while also writing short stories for various newspapers. From 1936 he worked as a production manager in Berlin ; from 1937 to 1960 Antel had German citizenship. He spent the war years as a soldier. In between he was released again and again for films and troop support. In 1945 he returned from a Soviet captivity .

In 1947, his first film was The Singing House in the cinemas . From then on he was a sought-after filmmaker for entertainment films in Austria and Germany , primarily for Heimatfilms and films from the Austrian Empire (the so-called "K.-u.-k.-Films"). From the mid-1960s he was one of the first producers of erotic films. His Frau Wirtin… films, shot in Hungary, and Casanova & Co. in 1976 with world star Tony Curtis in the leading role became famous here . Antel worked with many popular Austrian actors of his time, such as Hans Moser , Paul Hörbiger , Rudolf Prack , Oskar Sima , Waltraut Haas , Oskar Werner , Ewald Balser , Heinrich Schweiger , Klausjürgen Wussow , Peter Weck and Herbert Fux . The young Mario Girotti, better known by his stage name Terence Hill , was one of the main characters in Call of the Forests (1965), one of his few films with a serious background. Other actors who worked with Antel were, among others, Curd Juergens , Karl Merkatz , Edwige Fenech , Carroll Baker , Arthur Kennedy , Britt Ekland , Andréa Ferréol , George Hilton . A decades-long collaboration connected Antel with Carl Szokoll ( inter alia as production manager) and Gunther Philipp (as actor and screenwriter).

In 1956, Antel called the Austrian journalist Hans Weigel a “lousy Jew” in the course of the “slap affair” involving Käthe Dorsch . He was then accused of being a Nazi. In a rage he replied that he was "proud" of that. Antel was then accused of anti-Semitism in the Munich evening newspaper .

Labeled for a long time as a director of inconsequential entertainment, he only gained general recognition as a filmmaker in old age. His film Der Bockerer and its three successors played a major role in this . It tells the life story of the Viennese butcher Karl Bockerer (played by Karl Merkatz) during times steeped in history: during the Second World War (part 1), the occupation period (part 2), the Hungarian uprising (part 3) and the Prague Spring (part 4) . The series became popular in both Austria and Germany.

Franz Antel was last seen as the oldest active director in his country. His last film was in 2003, the fourth part of the Bockerer saga , which premiered that year . In total he shot or produced around 90 films, including some for television . He also often wrote the script for his productions.

Vienna Central Cemetery - honorary grave of Franz Antel

Franz Antel's first wife was Hilde Louise Wittke from Berlin from 1938 to 1948. In 1949 he was engaged to the actress Maria Andergast , but the wedding did not take place, although it was already announced in some newspapers. Between 1953 and 1958 he was married to the actress Hannelore Bollmann , whom he and Andergast often used in his films. His third wife became Elisabeth Freifrau von Ettingshausen in 1970, who died on October 7, 1976 in a mountain accident in the Bludenz district .

With his last wife Sibylla, geb. Thin, a former secretary of Curd Juergens , he was married from 1978 to 1989 and then again from 1995. Antel was one of the most prominent supporters of First Vienna FC ; on October 13, 1964, the club elected him its president.

Franz Antel died on August 12, 2007 at the age of 94 in a nursing home in Vienna, to which he had gone to care almost exactly one year earlier after a fall. On August 23, 2007 he was buried in an honorary grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 40, number 80).

In 2009 the Antelweg in Vienna- Döbling (19th district) was named after him.

Awards

Filmography (selection)

movie theater

Production Manager

Director

watch TV

Director

Fonts

Non-fiction

  • Franz Antel, Christian F. Winkler: Hollywood on the Danube. History of the Vienna Film in Sievering. Verl. Of the Österr. Staatsdr., Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7046-0230-2 .

Autobiographies

  • Franz Antel, Peter Orthofer (adaptation): Twisted, in love, my life. Amalthea, Vienna and Munich 2001, ISBN 3-85002-464-4 .
  • Franz Antel, Ingrid Pachmann (editing) and Peter Orthofer: “Servus Franz, greet you!” Anecdotes from 75 years of filmmaking by Franz Antel. The Antel in pictures and anecdotes. Molden, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85485-170-7 .
  • Franz Antel, Bernd Buttinger: Franz Antel. A life for the film. Concordverlag, Mariahof 2006, ISBN 3-9501887-9-7 or ISBN 978-3-9501887-9-0 .

literature

  • Susanne Walther (ed.), Josef Brunner, Franz Antel (illustrations): Everything canvas. Franz Antel and the Austrian film. June 7 to September 16, 2001, Historical Museum of the City of Vienna. (Special exhibition of the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, No. 274.) Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, Vienna 2001, 98 pages, ISBN 3-9501465-0-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "... and even acquired German citizenship in 1937, which he retained until 1960"; derStandard.at, August 12, 2007
  2. ↑ Gerhard Bronner : Mirror in front of the face . Munich 2004.
  3. ^ "Franz Antels wife crashed" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 9, 1976, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  4. ^ "Franz Antels wife has fatally crashed" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 9, 1976, p. 5 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  5. ^ Register: Franz Antel . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1964, pp. 156 ( online ).
  6. ^ "Antel as football president"; POS. Column 3 . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 14, 1964, p. 12 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  7. ↑ wien.orf.at | Farewell to Franz Antel
personal data
SURNAME Antel, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Antel, Franz Josef (full name); Legrand, François (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian film director, producer and author
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 2007
Place of death Vienna