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Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Kacser, renamed himself in Germany to Rudolph Katscher; 17 April 1904 – 7 June 1994) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

television director A television director is in charge of the activities involved in making a television program or section of a program. They are generally responsible for decisions about the editorial content and creative style of a program, and ensuring the prod ...

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the

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...

. He is best known for his 1950s collaborations with screenwriter

Nigel Kneale Thomas Nigel Kneale (28 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a Manx screenwriter who wrote professionally for more than 50 years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and was twice nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British S ...

, most notably the '' Quatermass'' serials and their 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's

dystopian novel Utopian and dystopian fiction are genres of speculative fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to ...

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...

''. After studying architecture and then drama, Cartier began his career as a screenwriter and then film director in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, working for UFA Studios. After a brief spell in the United States he moved to the United Kingdom in 1935. Initially failing to gain a foothold in the British film industry, he began working for BBC Television in the late 1930s (among other productions he was involved in the making of Rehearsal for a Drama, BBC 1939). The outbreak of war, however, meant that his contract was terminated; his television play ''The Dead Eye'' was stopped in the production stage. After the war, he occasionally worked for British films before he was again hired by the BBC in 1952. He soon became one of the public service broadcaster's leading directors and went on to produce and direct over 120 productions in the next 24 years, ending his television career with the play ''Loyalties'' in 1976. Active in both dramatic programming and

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

, Cartier won the equivalent of a BAFTA in 1957 for his work in the former, and one of his operatic productions was given an award at the 1962

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Ama ...

. The

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery (United Kingdom), National Lot ...

's "

Screenonline Screenonline is a website about the history of British film, television and social history as documented by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lo ...

" website describes him as "a true pioneer of television", while the critic Peter Black once wrote that: "Nobody was within a mile of Rudolph Cartier in the trick of making a picture on a TV screen seem as wide and as deep as CinemaScope."

Early life and career

Born in

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Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

(now Austria), Cartier initially studied to become an architect, before changing career paths and enrolling to study drama at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. There he was taught by Max Reinhardt, who proved a major influence on Cartier. Reinhardt thought of a script as being similar to a musical score, which should be interpreted by a director in the same way as a musician interpreting a piece of music—an approach with which Cartier agreed. Cartier became involved in the

film industry The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, p ...

in 1929, when he successfully submitted a script to a company based in

, Germany. He then became a staff scriptwriter for UFA Studios, the primary German film company of the era, for which he worked on crime films and

thrillers Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Suc ...

.Murray, p. 22. While at UFA, he worked with noted writers, directors and producers including

Ewald André Dupont Ewald André Dupont (25 December 1891 – 12 December 1956) was a German film director, one of the pioneers of the German film industry. He was often credited as E. A. Dupont. Early career A newspaper columnist in 1916, Dupont became a screenwri ...

and Erich Pommer. In 1933 he became a film director, overseeing the thriller ''

Invisible Opponent ''Invisible Opponent'' (German: ''Unsichtbare Gegner'') is a 1933 German-Austrian drama film directed by Rudolph Cartier and starring Gerda Maurus, Paul Hartmann, and Oskar Homolka. The film's sets were designed by the art director Erwin S ...

'' for producer

Sam Spiegel Samuel P. Spiegel (November 11, 1901December 31, 1985) was an American independent film producer born in the Galician area of Austria-Hungary. Financially responsible for some of the most critically acclaimed motion pictures of the 20th centur ...

. The same year as ''

'' was released, the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

came to power in Germany, and the

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish Cartier left the country. Several members of Cartier's family who had remained in Europe, including his mother, were murdered in

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Encouraged by a UFA colleague,

Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hol ...

, to come to Hollywood, Cartier changed his surname and moved to the United States. However, unlike Wilder, Cartier did not find success in America, and in 1935 he moved again, to the United Kingdom. Little further is recorded of Cartier's career until after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, when he began writing storylines for several minor British films. He also worked as a film producer, overseeing a 1951

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story '' The Man with the Twisted Lip''. Cartier returned for a time to the United States, where he studied production methods in the new medium of

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

. In 1952, Michael Barry, with whom Cartier had worked on an aborted project in 1948, became the new Head of Drama at BBC Television and interviewed Cartier for a post as a staff television producer in the drama department,Jacobs, p. 131. a job which also involved directing. At his interview, Cartier told Barry that he thought his department's output was "dreadful",Jacobs, p. 132. and that television drama needed "new scripts and a new approach". In a 1990 interview about his career, he told BBC Two's '' The Late Show'' that the BBC drama department had "needed me like water in the desert". Barry shared many of Cartier's views on the need to improve television drama, and he hired him for the producer's job.

BBC television

Cartier's first BBC television production was a play entitled ''

Arrow to the Heart "Arrow to the Heart" is a British television drama, broadcast live twice by BBC Television in 1952, four days apart, and again in 1956. It was adapted from the 1950 German novel ''Unruhige Nacht'' by Albrecht Goes. It was the first collaboration ...

'', transmitted on the evening of 20 July 1952. It was initially adapted by Cartier from

Albrecht Goes Albrecht Goes (22 March 1908 – 23 February 2000) was a German writer and Protestant theologian. Life Albrecht Goes was born in 1908 in the Protestant rectory in Langenbeutingen. He spent his childhood there, but his mother died in 1911 and in 1 ...

' novel ''Unruhige Nacht'', but Barry felt that the dialogue was "too Germanic" and assigned drama department staff scriptwriter

to edit the script.Murray, pp. 22–23. ''Arrow to the Heart'' was the first of many collaborations between the pair, who enjoyed during the next few years a highly productive working relationship, despite profound creative disagreements on occasion.Pixley, p. 4. Cartier and Kneale were an important presence in the British television drama of the era and were, according to television historian Lez Cooke, "responsible for introducing a completely new dimension to television drama in the early to mid-1950s".Cooke, p. 20.

Collaborations with Nigel Kneale

Cartier and Kneale's first major production was the six-part serial '' The Quatermass Experiment'', broadcast in the summer of 1953. A

science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

story, it relates the sending of the first humans into space by Professor Bernard Quatermass and the consequences when an alien presence invades the crew's rocket during its flight and returns to Earth in the body of the one remaining crewmember, having absorbed the consciousnesses and shredded the bodies of the other two. A critical and popular success, ''The Quatermass Experiment'' has been described by the

website as "one of the most influential series of the 1950s". Cartier's contribution to the serial's success was highlighted in his 1994 obituary in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' newspaper, which also called the serial "a landmark in British television drama as much for its visual imagination as for its ability to shock and disturb". The success of ''The Quatermass Experiment'' led to two sequels, ''

Quatermass II ''Quatermass II'' is a British science fiction serial, originally broadcast by BBC Television in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the ''Quatermass'' series by writer Nigel Kneale, and the oldest of those serials to survive in its entire ...

'' (1955) and '' Quatermass and the Pit'' (1958–59), both produced and directed by Cartier and written by Kneale. Both were successful and critically acclaimed, and Cartier's production work on them became increasingly ambitious. For ''Quatermass II'', he pre-filmed a significant amount of material on location, using 35 mm film, opening the drama out from a confined studio setting with the most ambitious location shooting yet attempted in British television.Pixley, p. 19. Cartier, with his previous experience as a film director, particularly enjoyed working on these cinema-style filmed scenes.Pixley, p. 20. The appeal of the ''Quatermass'' serials has been attributed by the

Museum of Broadcast Communications The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) is an American museum, the stated mission of which is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain through our archi ...

to the depiction of "A new range of gendered fears about Britain's postwar and post-colonial security. As a result, or perhaps simply because of Kneale and Cartier's effective combination of science fiction and poignant melodrama, audiences were captivated." The Screenonline website suggests that the visual impact of Cartier's interpretation of Kneale's scripts was a major factor in their success, which it attributes to their "originality, mass appeal and dynamism... ''The Quatermass Experiment'' became a landmark of science fiction and the cornerstone of the genre on British television." Aside from the ''Quatermass'' serials, Cartier and Kneale collaborated on several one-off dramas, including literary and theatrical adaptations of ''

Wuthering Heights ''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent re ...

'' (6 December 1953) and ''The Moment of Truth'' (10 March 1955), as well as Kneale's own ''The Creature'' (30 January 1955).Pixley, p. 16. Of particular note was their collaboration on an adaptation of George Orwell's novel ''

'', originally broadcast on 12 December 1954, regarded as Cartier's most famous work. ''The Timess review the day after its broadcast noted its "vividness... the two minutes' hate was, for instance, a wonderfully riotious orgy of vindictiveness." The production also attracted considerable controversy. There were questions asked in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

concerning some of the graphic scenes of horror in the play, and the BBC received several telephone calls threatening Cartier's life if the second live performance, scheduled for 16 December, went ahead.Cooke, p. 27. The BBC took these threats seriously enough to assign him bodyguards. Cartier appeared live on television himself to defend the production in a studio debate, and eventually the

Board of Governors of the BBC The Board of Governors of the BBC was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It consisted of twelve people who together regulated the BBC and represented the interests of the public. It existed from 1927 until it was replace ...

voted that the second performance should go ahead as planned.Murray, p. 39. The production had by this time received the backing of the Duke of Edinburgh, who commented during a speech to the Royal Society of Arts that he and

the Queen In the English-speaking world, The Queen most commonly refers to: * Elizabeth II (1926–2022), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 1952 until her death The Queen may also refer to: * Camilla, Queen Consort (born 1947), ...

had watched and enjoyed the first performance.Murray, pp. 38–39. ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' had been a success, but it was also one of the most expensive television dramas ever made in the UK. Cartier often spent large amounts of money on his productions. Earlier in 1954, Michael Barry had heavily criticised him for the money and resources he had expended in an adaptation of '' Rebecca''. In a memo written after that production's transmission, Barry admonished Cartier for his over-ambitious production:

The performance of ''Rebecca'' seems to me to have taken us further into the danger area instead of showing any improvement. I am unable to defend at a time when departmental costs and scene loads are in an acute state the load imposed by ''Rebecca'' on Design and Supply and the expenditure upon extras and costumes... the vast area of the hall and the stairway never justified the great expenditure of effort required in building and one is left with a very clear impression of reaching a point where the department must be accused of not knowing what it is doing.Jacobs, p. 134.

Later life and work

Despite Barry's concerns, Cartier continued to work successfully in television, and at the 1957 Guild of Television Producers and Directors Awards (later known as the British Academy Television Awards, or BAFTAs) he was the winner of the Drama category. He made a brief return to filmmaking in 1958 when he directed the feature '' Passionate Summer'', but he saw himself primarily as a television director, and it remained his favourite medium. "The essence of television is that you can control the viewer's response to a much greater extent than other media permit," he told ''The Times'' in 1958. Cartier also directed several operas for the BBC, a genre for which he had a great passion. He oversaw adaptations of established operas such as '' Salome'' (1957) and '' Carmen'' (1962) as well as original productions written especially for television. ''Tobias and the Angel'', written for the BBC by Sir Arthur Bliss and Christopher Hassall and produced by Cartier in 1960, won the Merit Award in the Salzburg Opera Prize at the 1962

. Cartier continued to direct television dramas during the 1960s, although after Barry stepped down as Head of Drama in 1961, he lost much of his creative independence. Barry's successor,

Sydney Newman Sydney Cecil Newman (April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, Newman w ...

, abolished the BBC's traditional producer-director role and split the responsibilities into separate posts, leaving directors such as Cartier with less control over their productions. Cartier also found himself assigned to direct episodes of regular drama series, as such as ''

Maigret Jules Maigret (), or simply Maigret, is a fictional French police detective, a '' commissaire'' ("commissioner") of the Paris ''Brigade Criminelle'' ('' Direction Régionale de la Police Judiciaire de Paris:36, Quai des Orfèvres''), created b ...

'' and '' Z-Cars''. Cartier was still able to direct several notable productions during the decade, including a number which explored the Nazi era in Germany from which he had escaped in 1933. These included the World War II dramas ''Cross of Iron'' (1961, dealing with the

court martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

of a

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare ro ...

captain in a British

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

camp) and ''The July Plot'' (1964, about the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler), as well as ''Firebrand'' (1967, about the 1933 Reichstag fire, an event Cartier had personally witnessed). He also began, for the first time, to direct pieces which dealt with the Holocaust, such as ''Doctor Korczak and the Children'' (''

Studio 4 Studio 4 was an acting and filmmaking school located in New York City and Los Angeles, founded by James Franco in 2014. Franco opened the school after studying at Playhouse West in Los Angeles. In 2017, multiple female students of the school c ...

'', 1962), concerning the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

orphanage, and ''The Joel Brand Story'' (1965, about Adolf Eichmann's 1944 offer to the Allies of the lives of 1 million Jews in exchange for 10,000 trucks). Other significant 1960s productions included adaptations of ''

Anna Karenina ''Anna Karenina'' ( rus, «Анна Каренина», p=ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever writt ...

'' (1961, starring Sean Connery and

Claire Bloom Patricia Claire Bloom (born 15 February 1931) is an English actress. She is known for leading roles in plays such as ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' ''A Doll's House'', and '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', and has starred in nearly sixty film ...

) and ''Wuthering Heights'' (1962, a new version of Kneale's 1953 script, starring Bloom and

Keith Michell Keith Joseph Michell (1 December 1926 – 20 November 2015) was an Australian actor who worked primarily in the United Kingdom, and was best known for his television and film portrayals of King Henry VIII. He appeared extensively in Shakespeare ...

). ''Lee Oswald — Assassin'' (1966) was a drama-documentary telling the story of

Lee Harvey Oswald Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was a U.S. Marine veteran who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, on November 22, 1963. Oswald was placed in juvenile detention at the age of 12 fo ...

, based on the Warren Commission's findings, while ''Conversation at Night'' (1969) saw the first television acting appearance of Alec Guinness. Cartier's career continued into the 1970s. In 1974, he directed episodes of ''

Fall of Eagles ''Fall of Eagles'' is a 13-part British television drama aired by the BBC in 1974. The series was created by John Elliot and produced by Stuart Burge. The series portrays historical events from 1848 to 1918, dealing with the ruling dynasties of ...

''; and his final credit came with the play ''Loyalties'', screened in 1976. By this time, he had worked on over 120 productions for the BBC. Subsequently, he worked for a time for the BBC's "purchased drama" department, advising on which plays and series might be bought-in from European broadcasters. Throughout his career, Cartier refused to work for

commercial television Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship. It was the United States′ first model of radio (a ...

: "I hate the idea of my creative work being constantly interrupted for commercial reasons, " he once commented. "I am an artist, not a salesman." Cartier was married three times, lastly to Margaret Pepper from 1949 until his death. He had one daughter, Corinne, with Pepper, and another from a previous marriage. Cartier died on 7 June 1994, at the age of 90; his death was overshadowed in the media by that of

Dennis Potter Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC television serials '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1978), ''The Singing Detective'' (198 ...

, another important figure in the history of British television drama, who died on the same day.Murray, p. 175.

Legacy

Nearly all of Cartier's 1950s television productions were performed live, and the majority of them were not recorded—he once described them as being "gone with the speed of light". Several of those which do survive have been highly regarded by later reviewers. In 2000, the

(BFI) compiled a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century. Voted on by a group of industry professionals, the list featured both ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' and ''Quatermass and the Pit''. In the accompanying analysis of each entry to the list, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' was described as "An early example of the power of television drama... Even now, the torture sequences retain their power to shock and disturb." Nigel Kneale, scriptwriter of both of the Cartier dramas acclaimed by the BFI, felt that the productions would not have been as successful as they were had they been handled by any other director. "I don't think any of the things I wrote then would have come to anything much in other hands. In his they worked." Television historian Jason Jacobs, a lecturer in film and television studies at the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (2020� ...

, wrote in 2000 that Kneale and Cartier together created an entirely new, more expansive vision for British television drama in the 1950s.

It was the arrival of Nigel Kneale... and Rudolph Cartier... that challenged the intimate drama directly. Cartier is rightly recognised as a major influence on the visual development of British television drama... Cartier and Kneale had the ambition for their productions to affect a mass audience, and the scope of their attention was not confined to the 'cosy' aesthetics of intimacy. Cartier uses the close-up both to reveal emotions and as a shock device: a more threatening—and perhaps exhilarating—method than was used before. 'Intimacy' is reformulated by Cartier in terms of his power and control over the viewer—no longer a part of the family, but isolated in his home.Jacobs, pp. 130–131 and p. 137.

Cartier's pioneering use of an increased number of pre-filmed sequences to open out the studio-bound, live television drama productions of the 1950s is also praised by Lez Cooke. "While film inserts were being used in television drama from the early 1950s, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' represented the most extensive use of them in a TV play up to that time, and signalled Cartier's determination to extend the boundaries of TV drama."Cooke, p. 25. Similarly, his ''Times'' obituary stated that: "At a time when studio productions were usually as static as the conventional theatre, he was widely respected for a creative contribution to British television drama which gave it a new dimension." In addition to his 1950s productions, several of Cartier's later works have also been regarded as influential. His 1962 production of ''Wuthering Heights'' was praised by Dennis Potter, then a television critic, who wrote in the '' Daily Herald'' newspaper that the production "was like a thunderstorm on the flat, dreary plains of the week's television... The howl of the wind against the windows, the muted pain of Claire Bloom as the wretched Cathy, and the hunted misery of Keith Mitchell as Heathcliff, made this a more than adequate offering of a great work." While ''Screenonline'' states that ''Lee Oswald—Assassin'' (1966) "could be argued o beof historical interest only", due to its basis in the flawed Warren Commission report, ''The Times'' praised it as being "possibly the first drama-documentary". Not all of Cartier's work was so well regarded; in particular, his cinematic efforts have not achieved the level of praise of his television work. In the book ''America's Best, Britain's Finest: A Survey of Mixed Movies'', critic John Howard Reid says of Cartier's 1958 film '' Passionate Summer'': "It's hard to believe that... anyone could make such a dull movie. Yet this is precisely what director Rudolph Cartier has done. I've never heard of Mr Cartier before or since but presumably he made this brief foray into films from that synthetic world of ugly close-ups—TV." Speaking to ''The Times'' in 1958, Cartier explained that television was still developing as a medium, and that part of his work was to help create the next generation of those who would produce television drama. "The BBC is producing producers as well as plays. They are feeling their way towards what television drama will one day be, and we are trying to create a generation of writers who study the medium." His 1994 obituary in the same newspaper judged that he had been successful in creating a lasting influence on later producers, describing his 1962 production of the opera ''Carmen'' as "an example and inspiration to a younger generation of television producers". In 1990, the BBC Two

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

magazine programme '' The Late Show'' produced an edition which featured a retrospective of Cartier's work, including a new interview with the director discussing his career.Pixley, p. 40. A revised version of this feature was screened on BBC Two under the title ''Rudolph Cartier: A Television Pioneer'' on 1 July 1994, followed by a tribute screening of the surviving telerecording copy of the second performance of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''.Cooke, p. 199.

Selected filmography

Screenwriter

* '' The Game of Love'' (dir.

Victor Janson Victor Arthur Eduard Janson ( lv, Viktors Artūrs Eduards Jansons; 25 September 1884 – 29 June 1960) was a German stage and film actor and film director of Latvian ethnicity. Selected filmography Actor * ''Your Dearest Enemy'' (1916) * '' When ...

, 1928) * '' Tales from the Vienna Woods'' (dir. Jaap Speyer, 1928) * ''

Mascots A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fic ...

'' (dir. Felix Basch, 1929) — based on an operetta by Georg Okonkowski and * '' The Smuggler's Bride of Mallorca'' (dir. Hans Behrendt, 1929) * ''Im Prater blühen wieder die Bäume'' (dir. E. W. Emo, 1929) * '' The Tiger Murder Case'' (dir. Johannes Meyer, 1930) * ' (dir.

Alfred Zeisler Alfred Zeisler (September 26, 1892 – March 1, 1985) was an American-born German film producer, director, actor and screenwriter. He produced 29 films between 1927 and 1936. He also directed 16 films between 1924 and 1949. Selected filmogr ...

, 1930) — based on a novel by Curt Siodmak * '' The Copper'' (dir.

Richard Eichberg Richard Eichberg (27 October 1888 – 8 May 1952) was a German film director and producer. He directed 87 films between 1915 and 1949. He also produced 77 films between 1915 and 1950. He was born in Berlin, Germany and died in Munich, Germ ...

, 1930) * '' Täter gesucht'' (dir.

Carl Heinz Wolff Carl Heinz Wolff (1884–1942) was a German screenwriter, producer and film director.Grange p.256 Selected filmography Director *''The Mexican'' (1918) * ''The Prisoner'' (1920) * ''Lord of the Night'' (1927) * ''The Customs Judge'' (1929) * ''Yo ...

, 1931) — based on a novel by Frank Arnau * ' (dir.

Karl Grune Karl Grune (22 January 1890 – 2 October 1962) was an Austrian film director and writer who made many silent films in the 1920s. Grune was born into a Jewish familySiegbert Salomon Prawer, ''Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Presence in German ...

, 1931) — based on a play by Josef Matthäus Velter ** ' (dir.

, Robert Péguy, 1931) — based on a play by Josef Matthäus Velter * '' Express 13'' (dir.

, 1931) * '' Tropical Nights'' (dir.

Leo Mittler Leo Mittler (18 December 1893 – 16 May 1958) was an Austrian playwright, screenwriter and film director. Mittler was born in Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a Jewish family. He attended the University of Music and Pe ...

, 1931) — based on ''

Victory The term victory (from Latin ''victoria'') originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitutes ...

'' by Joseph Conrad * '' The Squeaker'' (dir. Karel Lamač,

Martin Frič Martin Frič (29 March 1902 – 26 August 1968) was a Czech film director, screenwriter and actor. He had more than 100 directing credits between 1929 and 1968, including feature films, shorts and documentary films. Throughout his life, F ...

, 1931) — based on '' The Squeaker'' by

Edgar Wallace Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during th ...

* '' Salto Mortale'' (dir. E. A. Dupont, 1931) — based on a novel by * '' The Paw'' (dir.

Hans Steinhoff Hans Steinhoff (10 March 1882 – 20 April 1945) was a German film director, best known for the propaganda films he made in the Nazi era. Life and career Steinhoff started his career as a stage actor in the 1900s and later worked as a stag ...

, 1931) ** ''

The Man with the Claw ''The Man with the Claw'' (Italian: ''L'uomo dall'artiglio'') is a 1931 Italian mystery film directed by Nunzio Malasomma and starring Dria Paola, Carlo Fontana (actor), Carlo Fontana, and Elio Steiner. It was made at the Cines Studios in Rome wi ...

'' (dir. Nunzio Malasomma, 1931) * '' A Shot at Dawn'' (dir.

, 1932) — based on a play by Harry Jenkins ** ' (dir. Serge de Poligny, 1932) — based on a play by Harry Jenkins * '' The Star of Valencia'' (dir. Serge de Poligny, 1933) ** '' The Star of Valencia'' (dir.

, 1933) * '' The Man from Morocco'' (dir. Mutz Greenbaum, 1945) * ''

Corridor of Mirrors ''Corridor of Mirrors'' is Prometheus's (Benji Vaughan Benjamin Vaughan, better known as Benji Vaughan, is a British psychedelic trance musician and tech entrepreneur. He has released music under many names, of which most well known is his sol ...

'' (dir. Terence Young, 1948) — based on a novel by Chris Massie * '' The Avenger'' (dir. Karl Anton, 1960) — based on '' The Avenger'' by

Director

* '' Teilnehmer antwortet nicht'' (co-director: Marc Sorkin, 1932) * ''

'' (1933) ** '' The Oil Sharks'' (co-director: Henri Decoin, 1933) * ''

'' (1952, TV film) — based on the novel ''Unruhige Nacht'' by

* '' The Quatermass Experiment'' (1953, TV miniseries) * ''

'' (1953, TV film) — based on the novel ''

'' by Emily Brontë * ''

'' (1954, TV film) — based on the novel ''

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

'' by George Orwell * ''

'' (1955, TV miniseries) * '' Passionate Summer'' (1958) — based on the novel ''The Shadow and the Peak'' by Richard Mason * '' Quatermass and the Pit'' (1958–1959, TV miniseries) * '' Adventure Story'' (1961, TV film) — based on the play '' Adventure Story'' by

Terence Rattigan Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...

* ''

'' (1961–1963, TV series, 3 episodes) — based on ''

'' novels by

Georges Simenon Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (; 13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer. He published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, and was the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret. Early life and education ...

Footnotes

References

* * * * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cartier, Rudolph 1904 births 1994 deaths Austrian film directors Austrian Jews British television directors Mass media people from Vienna Jews who immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism