Sascha film industry

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Former headquarters of Sascha-Film in Siebensterngasse in Vienna - new building .

The Sascha-Film AG was the largest Austrian film production company the silent era and early sound era. The company was founded in 1910 by Alexander Joseph "Sascha" Count Kolowrat-Krakowsky as Sascha-Filmfabrik in Pfraumberg in Bohemia and moved to Vienna in 1912 . On September 10, 1918, after the merger with the film distributor Philipp & Pressburger , the company was transformed into Sascha-Filmindustrie AG . In 1933 the German Tobis Tonbild Syndicate entered the company. The new name was Tobis-Sascha-Filmindustrie AG . In 1938, as part of the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, the company passed into the possession of the National Socialists and was re-established as Wien-Film GmbH .

With monumental films such as Alexander Korda's Prince and Beggar Boy (1920) and Michael Curtiz 's Sodom and Gomorrah (1922) and The Slave Queen (1924), the company rose to become one of the most successful European film producers.

history

First years

Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowsky (left) around 1915/1916.

When Sascha-Filmfabrik was re-established in Vienna in 1912, the film company was one of the first companies of its kind in Austria. An Austrian film industry did not yet exist - only Wiener Kunstfilm , which had been operating under various names since 1910, was already doing noteworthy pioneering work. With the money from the Sascha Kolowrat-Krakowskys family, “Sascha-Film” was able to quickly gain a foothold in the Austrian film and cinema market, which was still heavily influenced by French film companies. Sascha-Film's first production was the short documentary film "The extraction of ore on the Styrian Erzberg in Eisenerz" .

Soon followed movies, such as Austria's first historical feature film: " Emperor Joseph II. " . He produced this in the open-air theater in Engerthstrasse and in Klosterneuburg . Little is known about the film, however. Only the name of one actress: Else Heller from the “ Bürgertheater ”, who had already played in 1911 in Der Müller und seine Kind . The fact that Sascha-Film did pioneering work in the film sector was more the exception than the rule. It was mostly the Viennese art film that was the first to try out a new film genre or a new film genre in Austria - be it the first documentary film, the first newsreel, the first feature film, the first comedian film, or the first art film in the sense of the French film d ' Art .

However, it was Sascha-Film who did not have to spare any expense or effort in their film productions and who quickly achieved series of successes, but could also easily cope with failures, while Wiener Kunstfilm had to manage the balancing act between artistically demanding and commercially successful film and was doing it could hardly allow financial risks. In the course of the First World War, when the entire Austrian market opened up for domestic film producers because the film companies from the now hostile France had to leave the country, Sascha-Film was therefore gradually able to overtake Viennese art film in productivity and success. While Wiener Kunstfilm was able to build up a dominant market position from its founding in 1910 until the end of 1914, this had to be increasingly shared with Sascha-Film during the First World War. After 1918 Sascha-Film was the market leader in Austria, while Wiener Kunstfilm fell back and went bankrupt before 1920. As a Vita-Film , it was successfully reactivated again in order to throw itself into the battle with Sascha-Film for the most elaborate and largest productions that Austria had ever seen: the monumental films of the early 1920s.

At the end of 1914, only a little later than Wiener Kunstfilm, Sascha-Film entered the market together with “Philipp und Pressburger” and the “Austrian-Hungarian Cinema Industry Society” with the publication of the first war newsreel. This was initially called the "Austrian weekly cinema report from the northern and southern theater of war" . Despite the dissolute title, this newsreel was more successful. In 1915 it was renamed "Cinematographic War Reporting" , then referred to as "Sascha War Weekly Report" . The “Sascha Messter Week” was also published at the same time .

On April 4, 1916, the previously loose collaboration between Kolowrat-Krakowsky and Oskar Meßter became the "Oesterreichisch-Hungarian Sascha-Meßter-Film Gesellschaft mbH", later Sascha-Meßter-Film, as a daughter of Sascha-Film and Meßter-Film emerged. At the same time, Messter-Film acquired shares in Sascha-Film. In the same year, Sascha-Film built the first large studio in Vienna- Sievering . With the takeover of Meßter-Film by the German Universum Film AG (UFA), the shares in Sascha-Film also changed hands.

During the war years, the focus of activities was almost exclusively on the production of propaganda films and newsreel reports . Magda Sonja was built as a film star as a counterpart to Liane Haid at the direct competitor Wiener Kunstfilm . In 1918 Sascha-Film merged with the film distributor and producer Philipp & Pressburger . Later the film distributor "Collegia" was bought up, whereby Sascha-Film came into the possession of cinemas.

In 1918 Paramount was represented for Austria. In 1918 the Beethoven biography "The Martyr of His Heart" was produced with Fritz Kortner as the main actor, who subsequently rose to become an important representative of the expressionist art of acting.

Age of monumental films

In the Vienna Prater , west of the rotunda, the company had "Old London" built in 1920, similar to the backdrop city " Venice in Vienna ", but smaller. There director Alexander Korda shot for the Sascha film "Prince and Beggar Boy", based on a novel by Mark Twain . In 1922, Alexander Korda's Sascha film production “A Sunken World” even received a film award in Milan .

In " Samson and Delila " from 1922, the wife of the director Alexander Corda , Maria Corda , played the leading role. The powerful Samson was played by Alfredo Gal . Another major project in those years was “Harun al Raschid”, which was part of the Fritz Lang film “ Dr. Mabuse, the player “was modeled after. Michael Kertész also directed The Slave Queen . The monumental film premiered in the company's own Eos cinema, which was presented in ancient Egyptian style especially for the occasion and decorated with images of gods and warrior statues. In addition to the Eos, the Stafa cinema was also part of Sascha Film. The penultimate monumental film was made by Sascha-Film in co-production with a French company in 1925 with “Salammbô - The Battle for Carthage” . The recordings took place in Vienna and in the Sascha film studio in Sievering . The leading actress was the French Jeanne de Balzac , who appeared in elaborate, martial costumes in the film set at the time of the Punic Wars . The film music was written by Florent Schmitt , and the film review emphasized that "the music came closer to the novel than the film itself" . The last monumental film, "The Pharaoh's Revenge" , came from Sascha-Film. Changed public tastes made further monumental film productions unattractive.

Years of crisis and late bloom

After the crisis in the Austrian film industry - between 1923 and 1925 the majority of Austrian film producers had to close due to cheap foreign film imports - Sascha-Film was the only remaining large film company with the capital of its founder in the background. In 1927, Kolowrat-Krakowsky, who had meanwhile suffered from cancer, discovered Willi Forst and Marlene Dietrich as the main actors for Café Elektric . It was directed by the former cameraman Gustav Ucicky , who, supported by Kolowrat-Krakowsky, directed it for the second time after Die Pratermizzi .

The replacement of silent films by talkies plunged the company into a serious crisis, which in 1930 led to a leveling out. In 1932 the Pilzer group (the brothers Oskar , Kurt, Severin and Viktor) took over Sascha-Film. Oskar Pilzer became the new president. In the spring of 1933, Tobis-Tonbild-Syndikat AG was won as an investor and the company was renamed "Tobis-Sascha-Filmindustrie AG".

At the end of 1933 the first recordings were made in the newly adapted Rosenhügel studios , where the film " Masquerade " was completed in 1934 under the direction of Willi Forst and with the main actors Hans Moser , Paula Wessely and Adolf Wohlbrück , which became the flagship of the "Viennese film" should be. It was also the last film that Tobis-Sascha shot. The studios have since been rented out. Tobis-Sascha shifted his activities to the distribution of films, for which purpose a separate company was founded.

Incorporation into the National Socialist film industry

Since the Nazis in Germany forbade the transfer of proceeds from Germany to Austria in 1935, the well-off company came under great pressure. The film production came to a standstill due to lack of money in Austria. One million Reichsmarks were in a frozen account in Germany, but they could not be transferred. The house bank, Creditanstalt (CA), which also had a small share in the company, did not grant any further loans .

Since attempts to negotiate Oskar Pilzer's money transfer with the National Socialists failed because they no longer wanted to negotiate with "non-Aryans", Pilzer was forced to leave the company. On January 23, 1937, he sold his shares “with a nominal value of 33,333.33 Schillings” for only 1,000 Schilling to the CA. However, he did not even receive this.

A little later the Creditanstalt concluded a syndicate agreement with the German Tobis AG, which was already owned by the National Socialist trust company Cautio . The company was dissolved and re-established as Wien-Film GmbH in 1938 .

post war period

In order not to lose the distribution and sales business to foreign companies after the end of the war, the Sascha-Film-Verleih und Vertriebsgesellschaft was founded in Vienna on September 13, 1946.

After the end of the war, especially in the 1950s and 1960s until 1966, Sascha-Film again produced a number of entertainment films under its own name.

Employee

The Hungarian directors Michael Curtiz (as Michael Kertész) and Alexander Korda were among the best-known employees of Sascha-Film during the 1920s . Her monumental films , above all Sodom and Gomorrah and The Slave Queen , are among the largest and most elaborate film productions ever made in Austria. The architects Artur Berger , Emil Stepanek and Julius von Borsody were responsible for the elaborate backdrops in these and other films . The commercial matters and the rental were directed by Anton Schuchmann

Films (selection)

literature

See also

Web links