Konstantin Kalser
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Konstantin Kalser (4 September 1920 30 July 1994) was a German-American film producer and advertising executive. He won the
Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film The Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film is an award presented at the annual Academy Awards ceremony. The award has existed, under numerous names, since 1957. From 1936 until 1956 there were two separate awards, ''Best Short Subject, On ...
(then entitled "Best Short Subject, One-reel") in 1957 with '' Crashing the Water Barrier''.


Early life

Kalser was born in
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
on 4 September 1920, the son of actor
Erwin Kalser Erwin Kalser (22 February 1883 – 26 March 1958) was a German-Jewish Siegbert Salomon Prawer, ''Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Presence in German and Austrian Film, 1910-1933'', Berghahn Books (2007), p. 213 stage and film actor, best remembered ...
and actress and screenwriter
Irma von Cube Irma von Cube (December 26, 1899, Hanover – July 25, 1977) was a German- American screenwriter. She began as an actress and a writer for films in Germany in the early 1930s, and continued when she arrived in the United States in 1938. Among her f ...
. He was educated in Switzerland and at the
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
. Kalser moved to the United States in 1937 to join his mother in the entertainment industry. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, he served in the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
; post-war, he became a photographer for ''Life'' magazine.


Career

In 1948, Kalser founded the film production company Marathon International Productions. At Marathon, Kalser produced some of the first
newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...
s intended for television and filmed the
1948 Winter Olympics The 1948 Winter Olympics, officially known as the V Olympic Winter Games (; ; ; ) and commonly known as St. Moritz 1948 (; ), were a winter multi-sport event held from 30 January to 8 February 1948 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The Games were the ...
for
DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being first overall in ...
, the first to be broadcast on American television. Marathon evolved over the course of the 1950s and 1960s from a newsreel company to an advertising company; Kalser posited it as a "documentary company" and himself as a documentarian, claiming the advertisement aspect of his films was subtle enough to not impugn on their artistic value. Kalser produced several short films through Marathon during the 1950s and 1960s, the most prominent of which was the Oscar-winning '' Crashing the Water Barrier''. ''Crashing the Water Barrier'' was a one-reeler documentary on British speedboat racer
Donald Campbell Donald Malcolm Campbell, (23 March 1921 – 4 January 1967) was a British speed record breaker who broke eight absolute world speed records on water and on land in the 1950s and 1960s. He remains the only person to set both world land a ...
's successful effort to break a speed record. The film won
Best Short Subject, One-reel The Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film is an award presented at the annual Academy Awards ceremony. The award has existed, under numerous names, since 1957. From 1936 until 1956 there were two separate awards, ''Best Short Subject, On ...
at the 1957 Academy Awards; the next year, the one- and two-reel awards (the latter held that year by ''
The Bespoke Overcoat ''The Bespoke Overcoat'' is a 1956 British black and white short film directed by Jack Clayton, based on a 1953 play of the same name by Wolf Mankowitz. The story is an adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's short story ''The Overcoat'' with the action ...
'') would be merged into a single short film award. In 1966, Kalser admitted that ''Crashing the Water Barrier'' was produced by Marathon as an advertisement for an oil company. After the success of ''Crashing the Water Barrier'', Kalser continued to produce short
native advertising Native advertising, also called sponsored content, partner content, and branded journalism, is a type of paid advertising that appears in the style and format of the content near the advertisement's placement. It manifests as a post, image, vide ...
films. In 1966, he produced ''The Way of a Ship'', a documentary on international
freight transport Freight transport, also referred to as freight forwarding, is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been exte ...
logistics, for
Volkswagen Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...
; the film focused on 64 ships that delivered Volkswagen cars. Kalser hoped the film would win another Academy Award. He additionally produced the Emmy-nominated ''For Years to Come'' for
Chrysler FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...
. Kalser and Marathon would also produce non-advertisement works, such as '' The Unknown War'', a syndicated
docuseries Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. * Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...
on the Eastern Front conflict between the
Axis powers The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...
and the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
during World War II.


Personal life and death

In 1957, Kalser was arrested and fined for
speeding Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed, expre ...
per hour in a per hour zone in New York. After paying the fine, he showed the judge a film he had produced not long before where his wife was driving the same speed; other cars were speeding past, with some pausing to berate her for driving too slowly. According to the Associated Press, "the judge complimented Kalser on his ingenuity". Kalser died of
kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as renal failure or end-stage renal disease (ESRD), is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney fa ...
at the age of 73 on 30 July 1994. He was survived by his wife, Martha Kalser, two children, and two stepchildren. At the time, he was living in
Amagansett, New York Amagansett is a census-designated place that roughly corresponds to the Hamlet (New York), hamlet by the same name in the Administrative divisions of New York#Town, Town of East Hampton (town), New York, East Hampton in Suffolk County, New Yor ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalser, Konstantin 1920 births 1994 deaths American film production company founders German film producers Producers who won the Live Action Short Film Academy Award American documentary film producers German documentary film producers American advertising executives Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II