Heller began his professional career as a projectionist in Prague. During the First World War he was hired by the Austro-Hungarian Army as a cameraman and after the death of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1916 he was involved in the recordings of the funeral ceremony.
In 1918 he made his first feature film and worked with the actor and director Karel Lamač from the start . Since 1927 he also worked frequently in Berlin studios, mostly in film comedies .
From 1935 on, Heller avoided Nazi Germany and commuted between Prague, Amsterdam , London and Paris . He was also in Paris when the Second World War broke out, where he directed the recordings of Von Mayerling bis Sarajewo by director Max Ophüls .
The invasion of the Wehrmacht in France in 1940 caused him to flee to England. There he joined the air force of the Czech army in exile. From the end of 1941 he worked again as a cameraman in London , mainly for anti-Nazi strips.
Heller, a British citizen since 1945, remained a very productive picture designer even after the end of the war, whose oeuvre ranged from literary adaptations to adventure material to spy thrillers and again comedy films. In 1959, the shocker Augen der Angst with Karlheinz Böhm received special attention . In 1965 he received the British Film Academy Award for Ipcress - Top Secret . A few months before his death, Heller retired into private life.
Filmography (selection)
1920: The little wire tie ( Drátenícek )
1921: The secret of the old book / The blurred writing ( Setrelé písmo )
1921: Song of Gold ( Zpev zlata )
1921: Poisoned light ( Otrávené svetlo )
1921: The Comer from Darkness ( Príchozí z temnot )
↑ Date and place of death according to IMDb. Filmportal.de gives February 17, 1970 as the date of death, Kay Less: The film's large dictionary of persons names Middlesex as the place of death .
