Lothar Mendes
Lothar Mendes (19 May 1894 – 24 February 1974) was a German-born screenwriter and film director. His two best known films are '' Jew Süss'' (1934) and ''The Man Who Could Work Miracles'' (1936), both productions for British studios. Career Born in Berlin, Mendes began his career as an actor in Vienna and Berlin in Max Reinhardt's company. After directing his first two films in Berlin, he settled in the United States in the early 1920s and remained there until 1933, directing more than a dozen features, mostly frothy comedies, while under contract to Paramount. His films included the last silent film made in the USA, ''The Four Feathers'' (1929), and the murder mystery '' Payment Deferred'' (1933) starring British actor Charles Laughton. After Adolf Hitler came to power, Mendes, who was Jewish, traveled to Britain to work at Gaumont-British Pictures, directing films with Michael Balcon producing. Under that banner, he directed '' Jew Süss'' (1934) starring Conrad Veidt, who ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, most populous city, as measured by population within city limits having gained this status after the United Kingdom's, and thus London's, Brexit, departure from the European Union. Simultaneously, the city is one of the states of Germany, and is the List of German states by area, third smallest state in the country in terms of area. Berlin is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and Brandenburg's capital Potsdam is nearby. The urban area of Berlin has a population of over 4.5 million and is therefore the most populous urban area in Germany. The Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan reg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gaumont-British
The Gaumont-British Picture Corporation produced and distributed films and operated a cinema chain in the United Kingdom. It was established as an offshoot of the Gaumont Film Company of France. Film production Gaumont-British was founded in 1898 as the British subsidiary of the French Gaumont Film Company. It became independent of its French parent in 1922 when Isidore Ostrer acquired control of Gaumont-British. In 1927 the Ideal Film Company, a leading silent film maker, merged with Gaumont. The company's Lime Grove Studios was used for film productions, including Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of '' The 39 Steps'' (1935), while its Islington Studios made Hitchcock's '' The Lady Vanishes'' (1938). In the 1930s, the company employed 16,000 people. In the United States, Gaumont-British had its own distribution operation for its films until December 1938, when it outsourced distribution to 20th Century Fox. In 1941 the Rank Organisation bought Gaumont-British and its sister c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (; – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. A favorite of concert audiences around the world, his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media, as possibly did his status as a freemason, and charitable work of his second wife, Helena Paderewska. During World War I, Paderewski advocated an independent Poland, including by touring the United States, where he met with President Woodrow Wilson, who came to support the creation of an independent Poland in his Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, which led to the Treaty of Versailles.Hanna Marczewska-Zagdanska, and Janina Dorosz, "Wilson – Paderewski – Masaryk: Their Visions of Independence and Conceptions of how to Organize Europe," ''Acta Poloniae Historica'' (1996), Iss ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moonlight Sonata (film)
''Moonlight Sonata'' is a 1937 British drama film directed by Lothar Mendes and written by E. M. Delafield and Edward Knoblock. The film stars Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Charles Farrell, Marie Tempest, Barbara Greene and Eric Portman. The film was released on 11 February 1937, by United Artists and re-released in 1943 as ''The Charmer'' (shortened). Plot In Sweden, Eric Molander (Charles Farrell) professes his love for Ingrid (Barbara Greene), the beautiful young granddaughter of baroness Lindenborg (Marie Tempest). Meanwhile, in the nearby countryside, a plane with Paderewski and two other passengers on board is forced to land due to mechanical problems. The travellers take refuge at the baroness's country estate; one of them, worldly Mario de la Costa (Eric Portman), steals the naive young Ingrid away from her lover. With Paderewski's help – he plays a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" which soothingly calms the flighty-minded Ingrid and allows ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He worked in films throughout most of his career, and played more than sixty cinema roles. From an artistic but not theatrical background, Richardson had no thought of a stage career until a production of ''Hamlet'' in Brighton inspired him to become an actor. He learned his craft in the 1920s with a touring company and later the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. In 1931 he joined the Old Vic, playing mostly Shakespearean roles. He led the company the following season, succeeding Gielgud, who had taught him much about stage technique. After he left the company, a series of leading roles took him to stardom in the West End and on Broadway. In the 1940s, together with Olivier and John Burrell, Richardson was the co-director of the Old Vic company ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roland Young
Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was military governor of the Breton March, responsible for defending Francia's frontier against the Bretons. His only historical attestation is in Einhard's ''Vita Karoli Magni'', which notes he was part of the Frankish rearguard killed in retribution by the Basques in Iberia at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. The story of Roland's death at Roncevaux Pass was embellished in later medieval and Renaissance literature. The first and most famous of these epic treatments was the Old French ''Chanson de Roland'' of the 11th century. Two masterpieces of Italian Renaissance poetry, the ''Orlando Innamorato'' and ''Orlando Furioso'' (by Matteo Maria Boiardo and Ludovico Ariosto respectively), are even furt ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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London Films
London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda and from 1936 based at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, near London. The company's productions included ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933), '' Things to Come'' (1936), ''Rembrandt'' (1936), and '' The Four Feathers'' (1939). The facility at Denham was taken over in 1939 by Rank and merged with Pinewood to form D & P Studios. The outbreak of war necessitated that '' The Thief of Bagdad'' (1940) be completed in California, although Korda's handful of American-made films still displayed Big Ben as their opening corporate logo.Kulik, Karol ''Alexander Korda:The Man Who Could Work Miracles''. Virgin Books, 1990. After a restructuring of Korda's UK operations in the late 1940s, London Films were made at Shepperton. One of these was '' The Third Man'' (1949). The company's film '' The Sound Barrier'' (1952) won the Academy Award for Best Sound. More than ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956) BFI Screenonline. was a Hungarian-British film director, producer and screenwriter, who founded his own film production studios and film distribution company. Born in Kingdom of Hungary, Hungary, where he began his career, he worked briefly in the Austrian and German film industries during the era of silent films, before being based in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood from 1926 to 1930 for the first of his two brief periods there (the other was during World War II). The change led to a divorce from his first wife, the Hungarian film actress María Corda, who was unable to make the transition from silent films to "talkies" because of her strong Hungarian accent. From 1930, Korda was active in the Br ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stephen Samuel Wise
Stephen Samuel Wise (March 17, 1874 – April 19, 1949) was an early 20th-century American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader in the Progressive Era. Born in Budapest, he was an infant when his family immigrated to New York. He followed his father and grandfather in becoming a rabbi, serving in New York and in Portland, Oregon. Wise was also a founding member of the NAACP. Early life Wise was born on March 17, 1874, in Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the son and grandson of rabbis and their wives. His grandfather, Joseph Hirsch Weiss, was rabbi of a small town near Budapest. His father, Aaron Wise, earned a PhD and ordination in Europe. Wise's maternal grandfather, Móric Fischer de Farkasházy, created the Herend Porcelain Company. When Wise's father sought to unionize the company, Moric gave the family one-way tickets to New York. Wise was an infant when they immigrated, and his father Aaron Wise became rabbi of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes in Brooklyn, N ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two pillars of modern physics. His mass–energy equivalence formula , which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming synonymous with "genius". In 1905, a year sometimes described as his ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies of World War II, Allies defeated Germany, End of World War II in Europe, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antisemitism has historically been manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred of or discrimination against individual Jews to organized pogroms by mobs, police forces, or genocide. Although the term did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of persecution include the Rhineland massacres preceding the First Crusade in 1096, the Edict of Expulsion from England in 1290, the 1348–1351 persecution of Jews during the Black Death, the massacres of Spanish Jews in 1391, the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Cossack massacres in Ukraine from 1648 to 1657, various anti-Jewish pogroms in th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |