Cast Details

Newsletter SMS Alerts Version française Facebook Twitter SMS Mobile
Theatres FIND A MOVIE MOVIES AT HOME

Site Navigation

  1. Theatres
  2. Movies
  3. Events
  4. Buy Tickets
  5. Video
  6. Blog
  7. Contests
  8. Corporate Sales
  9. SCENE
  10. Buy/Rent Movies
  11. Gift Cards
 
Find Cast Members | Find Movies
Please enter a name.
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Cast Archive: Curt Siodmak
Curt Siodmak
Birthday: August 10, 1902
Birth Place: Germany
Death Place: Three Rivers, California, USA
Resides: Germany
Professions: screenwriter, director, novelist, producer, reporter
German-born scenarist Curt Siodmak, who also directed several minor movies, distinguished himself writing scripts for imaginative horror pics, as well as visionary science fiction films. The young man from Dresden, with a doctorate in mathematics, came to Berlin, found work as a reporter and, as an extra, became the only journalist with access to Fritz Lang's closed of "Metropolis" (1927). His story (expanded by friend Billy Wilder) was the inspiration for "People on Sunday" (1929), one of the last notable German silents. The film, directed by brother Robert (in association with Edgar Ulmer), became a landmark in the development of the docudrama, using a neo-realistic documentary technique, authentic locations and amateur actors to tell a simple story about a day in the life of two German couples. The hand-held camerawork of cinematographer Eugene Schuftan (assisted by Fred Zinnemann) prefigured both the Italian neorealism of the 1940s and the French New Wave of the 50s.

The success of "People on Sunday" led to contracts with UFA studio-head Erich Pommer (producer of "The Blue Angel") for the Siodmaks and their collaborators, and Curt worked alone and with his brother at UFA until 1933 when he fled Germany to escape fascism. Landing in Hollywood's emigre community in 1938, he found it easy to find work, despite English being his second language, and scored his first success as co-screenwriter of "The Invisible Man Returns" (1939). Siodmak's script for "The Wolf Man" (1941) introduced the legendary creature to the horror genre, and he also penned (alone or in tandem) such literate and engrossing delights as Jacques Tourneur's "I Walked with a Zombie", his brother's "Son of Dracula" (both 1943) and Robert Florey's "The Beast with Five Fingers" (1947), not to mention the post-war spy thriller, "Berlin Express" (1948). As a novelist in exile, unlike many of his fellow countrymen who continued writing in German, Siodmak made the difficult transition to English prose, publishing the seminal sci-fi novel "Donovan's Brain" in 1942. This tale of the first brain transplant spawned a radio adaptation by Orson Welles and four film versions, the best one arguably being "Donovan's Brain" (1953), starring Lew Ayres.

Siodmak made his directorial debut with "The Bride of the Gorilla" (1951) and followed with perhaps his best effort, "The Magnetic Monster" (1953), lifting special effects for its stunning climax from the 1930s German film, "Gold", but his efforts at the helm were decidedly lackluster. It is as a screenwriter that he made his mark on film, combining elements of Gothic tales with German Expressionism, the style of his generation. Many of his stories centered on the concept of Harmatia, the Greek idea that humans must endure the whims of the gods. "We all have Harmatia in us," he wrote in his 1991 introduction to the publication of "The Wolf Man". "Life itself contains the curse of the Wolf Man: suffering without having been guilty." For his contributions to the cinema, the 1998 Berlin Film Festival honored Siodmak (along with his late brother Robert) with a retrospective and presented him with the Berlinale Camera, an award founded in 1986 to express the Festival's gratitude and appreciation for a celebrity to whom it feels particularly indebted.

My Favourites

My Favourite Theatres

My Favourite Movies

Latest From the Blog

Efron leaves his comfort zone in The Paperboy
Brad Pitt, the effortless mega movie star
Young Hollywood stars strike out on own at Cannes
G.I. Joe pushed back to 2013
More...

What's Hot


The Great Gatsby

Anchorman 2



The Hobbit

Browse By Category

About us

Cineplex Inc. ("Cineplex") is the largest motion picture exhibitor in Canada and owns, leases or has a joint-venture interest in 130 theatres with 1,359 screens serving approximately 70 million guests annually. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Cineplex operates theatres from British Columbia to Quebec and is the exclusive provider of UltraAVX™ and the largest exhibitor of digital, 3D and IMAX projection technologies in the country. Proudly Canadian and with a workforce of approximately 10,000 employees, the company operates the following top tier brands: Cineplex Odeon, Galaxy, Famous Players, Colossus, Coliseum, SilverCity, Cinema City and Scotiabank Theatres. Cineplex shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol "CGX".