Paul Graetz (film producer)

Paul Graetz (born April 3, 1899 in Leipzig , Germany , † February 5, 1966 in Neuilly-sur-Seine , France ) was a German-American film producer and film distributor.

Life

Born in Leipzig, he worked in a leading position at the Berlin production company Terra Film until 1933 and, because of his Jewish beliefs, fled the Nazis to Paris that year . There he founded the companies Transcontinental Film and Paris Export Film and soon began with the production and within the framework of his own company AFE also with the distribution of films. In the following five years, until shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939 , Graetz had made film contacts in the USA again and again.

Shortly after the German victory over Poland, when France no longer appeared safe from the Wehrmacht , Graetz left his new home in Rotterdam and on October 26, 1939 he reached the United States, which he considered safer, where he continued his work as a film distributor. At the end of the war in 1945, the US citizen Paul Graetz , who had been naturalized since July 20, 1944, returned to Paris and in the following year resumed his production activities with the Gérard Philipe film classic " Teufel im Leib ". The Parisian by choice only produced films very sporadically and concentrated entirely on dignified mainstream entertainment. His last and at the same time most ambitious work was the star-studded, almost three-hour long monumental epic about the liberation of the French capital in the summer of 1944, “ Is Paris on fire? ". Paul Graetz did not live to see the premiere of this film.

Filmography (complete)

• 1937: Altitude 3200
• 1939: La charette fantôme
• 1940: Untel père et fils
• 1946: Stormy youth / devil in the body (Le diable au corps)
• 1950: God needs people (Dieu a besoin des hommes)
• 1951: It happened point 11 (Roma ora 11)
• 1953: Favorite Women (Knave of Hearts)
• 1955: A Whole Life (Les hommes en blanc)
• 1956: The law of the street (La loi des rues)
• 1957: Bitter was the victory (Bitter Victory)
• 1958: Sometimes this - sometimes that (Faibles femmes)
• 1960: When life beckons (La giornata balorda)
• 1961: view from the bridge (Vu du pont)
• 1963: gangsters, gold and brisk girls (L'appartement des filles)
• 1965: is Paris on fire? (Paris brûle-t-il?)

literature

• Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 3: F - H. Barry Fitzgerald - Ernst Hofbauer. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 349.
• Kay Less: 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 207

Web links

• Paul Graetz in the Internet Movie Database (English)