Miss Sadie Thompson
1954
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Curtis Bernhardt. Director: Kisses for My President. If Curtis Bernhardt is a relative unknown, it's because he didn't direct his first Hollywood feature until 1940 at the age of 41. Bernhardt worked for years in Germany until his Jewish heritage made living there impossible by 1933-- he was arrested by the Gestapo and made a harrowing ...
- January 1, 1
- Pacific Palisades, California, USA
- January 1, 1
- Director, Writer, Producer
Curtis Bernhardt (15 April 1899 – 22 February 1981) was a German film director born in Worms, Germany, under the name Kurt Bernhardt . Career. He trained as an actor in Germany, and performed on the stage, before starting as a film director in 1924, with Nameless Heroes. Other films include A Stolen Life (1946) and Sirocco (1951).
- German
- Pearl Argyle (1937–1947; her death)
Mini Bio. If Curtis Bernhardt is a relative unknown, it's because he didn't direct his first Hollywood feature until 1940 at the age of 41. Bernhardt worked for years in Germany until his Jewish heritage made living there impossible by 1933-- he was arrested by the Gestapo and made a harrowing underground escape to France.
- April 15, 1899
- February 22, 1981
- Overview
- Early years in Hollywood
- 1950s and ’60s
Curtis Bernhardt, (born April 15, 1899, Worms, Germany—died February 22, 1981, Pacific Palisades, California, U.S.), German-born film director who specialized in movies that were geared toward a female audience.
(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)
Bernhardt, who was Jewish, had already directed a dozen films in his native Germany when an arrest by the Gestapo in 1934 persuaded him to move to France. He made one film there before heading to England, where he directed The Beloved Vagabond (1936) and produced The Dictator (1935; also released as Loves of the Dictator). He returned to Paris for a few years before a contract with Warner Brothers took him to Hollywood in 1940. His first films featured the studio’s strongest female leads. My Love Came Back (1940) was a vehicle for Olivia de Havilland, and Lady with Red Hair (1940) was a biopic with Miriam Hopkins as famed actress Mrs. Leslie Carter, though it was Claude Rains as David Belasco who stole the film.
In 1941 Bernhardt directed Million Dollar Baby, a romance starring Ronald Reagan and Priscilla Lane. Reagan also appeared in Juke Girl (1942), playing, with Ann Sheridan, exploited fruit pickers charged unjustly with murder. On loan to Paramount, Bernhardt made Happy Go Lucky (1943), a pleasant though not very memorable musical featuring Dick Powell, Mary Martin, and Betty Hutton. Of more interest was the suspenseful Conflict (1945), which starred Humphrey Bogart in an overly contrived plot that nonetheless allowed Bernhardt to create moody visuals. My Reputation (1946) was arguably the best film of his career to that time, an elegant soap opera with Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent.
Devotion (1946), a fanciful account of the lives of the Brontë sisters—with de Havilland and Ida Lupino as Charlotte and Emily, respectively—had been filmed earlier than Conflict but was held back for nearly three years before being released. A Stolen Life (1946) is more convincing, with Bette Davis portraying twin sisters who both love Glenn Ford. In 1947 Bernhardt directed Possessed, featuring Joan Crawford in an Academy Award-nominated turn as a mentally unstable woman.
Bernhardt subsequently left Warner Brothers and signed with MGM, where his first film was the offbeat noir High Wall (1947), in which Audrey Totter is cast against type as a psychiatrist who tries to help amnesia victim Robert Taylor clear himself of a murder charge. He then directed The Doctor and the Girl (1949), with Ford and Gloria DeHaven.
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Payment on Demand (1951) was a well-mounted drama about the marital problems of a couple (played by Davis and Barry Sullivan), with elaborate flashbacks building suspense. Sirocco (1951), a solid period action film, featured Bogart as a gunrunner, while The Blue Veil (1951) was a soap opera of a high order, centring on a nurse (Jane Wyman) who sets aside her own desires to serve a variety of patients over a lifetime; this nearly forgotten role earned Wyman an Academy Award nomination. The Merry Widow (1952), with Lana Turner, was notable for its lavish production values.
Bernhardt got his chance to work with another strong female star with Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), a musical that featured Rita Hayworth as the prostitute from W. Somerset Maugham’s short story Rain. Although Hayworth was at less than her best, she held her own in this oft-filmed role. Beau Brummell (1954) offered Stewart Granger in the title role, with Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Morley, and Peter Ustinov on hand to lend colour to this lavish MGM costume drama. Interrupted Melody (1955) was a solid biopic about Australian Marjorie Lawrence, with Eleanor Parker in an Oscar-nominated performance as the polio-stricken opera star.
- Michael Barson
Active - 1926 - 2010 | Born - Apr 15, 1899 | Died - Feb 22, 1981 | Genres - Drama, Romance, Music. Overview. Filmography. Share on. facebook. twitter. Biography by AllMovie [+] Some praised the American films of German director Curtis Bernhardt as "women's pictures"; others derided them as "weepers."
- Di/Wr/Producer
- February 22, 1981
- April 15, 1899
Biography. Curtis Bernhardt (Kurt Bernhardt) (15 April 1899 – 22 February 1981) was a German film director born in Worms, Germany. Some of his American films were called "woman's films" including the Joan Crawford film Possessed (1947). Bernhardt trained as an actor in Germany, and performed on the stage, before starting as a film director in ...
Conflict: Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. With Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, Rose Hobart. An engineer trapped in an unhappy marriage murders his wife in the hope of marrying her younger sister.
