Richard Oswald
Richard Oswald (actually: Richard W. Ornstein , sometimes incorrectly Ostwald ; born November 5, 1880 in Vienna , † September 11, 1963 in Düsseldorf ) was an Austrian film director and screenwriter . His best-known films include Spring Awakening (1929), Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (1931), Storm over Asia (1938) and I Was a Criminal (1945).
Life
Oswald studied at the Vienna Dramatic University. He borrowed his stage name from a character from Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts . Like many directors, Oswald came to film from the theater . In 1899 he made his stage debut with the South German Novelty Ensemble in Berchtesgaden and came to Znojmo the following year . It was there that Oswald met his colleague Bernd Aldor , whom he was later to bring in front of the camera several times in leading roles during the First World War. Until 1912 Oswald appeared on stages in Preßburg , Vienna and Düsseldorf . Here he met his wife Käte Oswald and married her that same year. Also in 1912 both went to Berlin , where Oswald appeared on a tiny theater stage and also directed there.
Oswald's first film director was the film Iwan Koschula from 1914. His film The Iron Cross (1914), made at the beginning of the First World War, was confiscated and banned due to pacifist tendencies. In 1916, Oswald founded his own production company, Richard Oswald-Film GmbH, and made around 100 films. He tried out almost every genre. Richard Oswald worked with Werner Krauss , Lupu Pick and Reinhold Schünzel and discovered Lya de Putti and Conrad Veidt for the film.
Oswald is considered to be the founder of the so-called moral or educational film . With the participation of the sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld , he devoted himself to taboo topics and criminal acts towards the end of the First World War; Abortion (§ 218 StGB) and spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Let there be light! (1917/18) and homosexuality (§ 175 StGB) in Anders als die Andern (1919).
In 1919 Oswald acquired the Princess Theater at Kantstrasse 163 in Berlin , which he continued until 1926 as "Richard-Oswald-Lichtspiele". With Eerie Tales , Oswald shot an early representative of the horror film . In 1922 his company was expanded to a stock corporation . As a result, some large-scale productions did not bring the desired commercial success. The company filed for bankruptcy as early as 1926 .
Together with Heinrich Nebenzahl , Oswald founded Nero-Film AG in 1925 , for which, for example, Fritz Lang M (1931) and Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933) and Georg Wilhelm Pabst filmed Pandora's Box (1929) and Western Front 1918 (1930). The first sound film by Oswald, Vienna, du City of Songs (1930), was a hit with the public. Oswald made the leap into the age of talkies. Several more commercially successful films followed.
Richard Oswald was a Jew . The seizure of power by the National Socialists ended his career in Germany . Oswald emigrated with his wife and two children Ruth and Gerd in 1933 via Austria , France , the Netherlands and England to the USA in November 1938 . During his emigration he only made films at irregular intervals. His film I Was a Criminal , which was premiered in 1941 and which was made in 1941, attracted particular attention , an interesting and idiosyncratic variation on the Hauptmann von Köpenick material with Albert Bassermann in the lead role, which Oswald made for the first time in 1931 with great success filmed in Berlin. Oswald's last feature film was The Lovable Cheat in 1949 .
Richard Oswald died on September 11, 1963 in Düsseldorf, he was just visiting Germany.
His son Gerd Oswald worked as a film director and producer.
Filmography
- 1914: Ivan Koschula
- 1914: The story of the silent mill
- 1914: Laugh, Bajazzo!
- 1914: The Iron Cross (never listed)
- 1915: The legend of the Baskerville dog
- 1915: The Hound of Baskerville, III. Part: The creepy room
- 1915: The Baskerville Dog, Part IV: The Mysterious Dog
- 1915: And you should wander restlessly ...
- 1915: The veiled lady
- 1915: Hampel's adventures
- 1915: The truck
- 1915: Schlemihl
- 1915: The find in the new building
- 1916: Hoffmann's stories
- 1916: The revenge of the dead
- 1916: The silver ball
- 1916: his last mask
- 1916: The eerie house
- 1916: Friday the 13th The Eerie House, Part 2
- 1916: circus blood
- 1916–1918: Let there be light! (four parts)
- 1917: The Portrait of Dorian Gray (Director, Screenplay, Production)
- 1917: The curse of gold
- 1917: Royal beggars
- 1917: The Lord of Hohenstein Castle
- 1917: racing fever
- 1918: the eternal doubt
- 1918: The Dreimäderlhaus
- 1918: The living corpse
- 1918: The Diary of a Lost Woman
- 1918: Dida Ibsen's story
- 1918: Jettchen Gebert's story (two parts)
- 1918: The sign of Cain
- 1919: prostitution (two parts)
- 1919: The Ark
- 1919: The trip around the world in 80 days
- 1919: Different from the others
- 1919: Scary Stories
- 1919: The last people
- 1920: Night figures
- 1920: The dance
- 1920: the fourth commandment
- 1920: Manolescu's Memoirs (Director, Screenplay, Production)
- 1920: Eternal Electricity (Production)
- 1920: Kurfürstendamm
- 1920: The Secrets of London
- 1921: The Liaisons of Hector Dalmore
- 1921: The house on Dragonergasse
- 1921: Lady Hamilton
- 1922: Lucrezia Borgia
- 1924: Carlos and Elisabeth
- 1924: rags and silk
- 1925: The woman of 40 years
- 1925: half silk
- 1925: front building and rear building
- 1926: May we be silent?
- 1926: In the white Rößl
- 1926: When I came back
- 1926: We are from K. u. K. Infantry Regiment
- 1926: a great night
- 1927: Feme
- 1927: harassed women
- 1927: radio magic
- 1927: Dr. Bessel's transformation
- 1928: Rothausgasse
- 1928: Villa Falconieri
- 1929: Cagliostro
- 1929: Spring awakening
- 1929: The mistress and her servant
- 1929: The Baskerville Hound
- 1929: Marriage in need
- 1930: mandrake
- 1930: Vienna, you city of songs
- 1930: The affectionate relatives
- 1930: Dreyfus
- 1931: 1914, the last days before the world fire
- 1931: Schubert's spring dream
- 1931: The captain of Köpenick
- 1931: As poor as a church mouse
- 1931: Victoria and her hussar
- 1932: Countess Mariza
- 1932: Eerie stories
- 1933: crooks honor
- 1933: The Flower of Hawaii
- 1933: A song goes around the world
- 1933: Adventure at the Lido
- 1933: When you are young, the world is yours
- 1934: The Bleeke Bet
- 1934: My Song Goes Round the World
- 1936: Today is the best day of my life
- 1938: Storm over Asia (Tempête sur l'Asie)
- 1942: Isle of Missing Men
- 1945: I Was a Criminal
- 1949: The Lovable Cheat
- 1951: The Last Half Hour: The Mayerling Story (TV)
literature
- Helga Belach, Wolfgang Jacobsen (Ed.): Richard Oswald. Director and producer. Edition text + criticism, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-88377-369-7 .
- Wolfgang Jacobsen: Oswald, Richard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 637 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Jürgen Kasten, Armin Loacker (Ed.): Richard Oswald. Cinema between spectacle, education and entertainment, Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-901932-68-2 .
- 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. 379 ff.
Web links
- Richard Oswald in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Richard Oswald at filmportal.de
- Bio-filmography on cinegraph.de
- Biography on film-zeit.de
- Biography of the German Film Institute
Individual evidence
- ^ Gerhard Lamprecht: German Silent Films 1913-1914 . Deutsche Kinemathek eV, Berlin 1969, p. 532 .
- ↑ Burkhard Sülzen (responsible): Prinzess-Theater Lichtspiele (cinema) Kantstr. 163 (Berlin) on plakatkontor.de
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Oswald, Richard |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ornstein, Richard W. |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian film director and screenwriter |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 5, 1880 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
DATE OF DEATH | September 11, 1963 |
Place of death | Dusseldorf |