- Joe May
Joe May (
November 7 ,1880 inVienna -April 29 ,1954 inHollywood ), born "Julius Otto Mandl", was afilm director andfilm producer born inAustria , one of the pioneers of German cinema.After studying in Berlin and a variety of odd jobs, he began his career as a stage director of
operetta s inHamburg before starting to make films from 1912 inBerlin . In 1902 he had married the actressMia May (born Hermine Pfleger) and took his stage name from hers.In 1914 he founded his own film production company, [http://www.imdb.com/company/co0063330/ May-Film] , and began to produce a successful series of
crime film s, whose detective hero went by the name of Joe Deebs. Some of these were directed by May himself, others byHarry Piel . (Around the same time May also worked on the "Stuart Webbs" series of detective films for another company). In 1917 he gaveFritz Lang one of his earliest breaks in the film industry asscreenwriter on the film "Die Hochzeit im Excentricclub (Wedding in the Eccentric Club)" and Lang also worked on other May films at this time.After the end of
World War I in 1918 May's company built film studios in the Berlin suburb ofWeissensee and inWoltersdorf a village northeast of Berlin inBrandenburg . There he went on to produce and direct a series of popular and exotic adventure films, among them the monumental three hour long "Veritas vincit" (1919), the eight-part series "Die Herrin der Welt (Mistress of the World)" (1919-20) as well as the two-part adventure film "Das indische Grabmal (The Indian Tomb)" (1921) starringConrad Veidt and written byFritz Lang andThea von Harbou .These featured Mia May in leading roles and she regularly worked under her husband's direction in a number of melodramas like "Tragödie der Liebe" (1922/23) costarring
Emil Jannings . Their teenage daughterEva May (born 1902 in Vienna) tried to built her own career as an actress but committed suicide in 1924 after the end of her third marriage with the film directors Manfred Liebenau, Lothar Mendes and Manfred Noa.Towards the end of the 1920s, May moved away from adventure films and produced more realist works, notable among them the World War I love-triangle "Heimkehr (The Return Home)" (1928) and the contemporary thriller "Asphalt" (1929). During the early years of sound film he worked as a producer for
Erich Pommer atUfa then for different production companies in Germany, Austria and France directing a series of multilingual versions in German and French among those is "Ihre Majestät die Liebe / Son altesse l'amour" (1930) one of the best musical comedies of theWeimar Cinema .In 1933 he and Mia, along with many others in the German film industry, emigrated to the
United States where he was able to establish himself as director, mainly forUniversal Pictures , although his work was mainly on what would be regarded asB movies .His most notable works of this period were the Kay Francis vehicle "
Confession ", a remake of the 1935 German film "Mazurka ", "The House of the Seven Gables " and "The Invisible Man Returns " (1941). He also worked with the Dead End Kids during this period, helming two films, "You're Not So Tough " (1940) and "Hit the Road " (1941), despite constant friction with his juvenile delinquent cast members."
Confession " is especially interesting, in that May's film is an exact copy of German director Willi Forst's "Mazurka ", right down to the last fade and dissolve, with every shot timed to run exactly the same length, and using the same music as Forst's original film.May's last film was the early
Robert Mitchum vehicle "Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore ", made in 1944 for low budgetMonogram Pictures . After retiring in 1950 as a director, May managed the Blue Danube Restaurant in Los Angeles, and died on April 29, 1954 after a long illness.References
This article is based on the corresponding German Wikipedia article which quotes the following references: -
* Hans-Michael Bock, Claudia Lenssen (Red.): "Joe May. Regisseur und Produzent". München: edition text + kritik 1991 (Ein CineGraph Buch), 198 pages. ISBN 3-88377-394-8
* Gerald Ramm: "Das märkische Grabmal. Vergessene Filmlegenden zweier Drehorte." Woltersdorf, 1997. ISBN 3-930958-06-6
* Gerald Ramm: "Als Woltersdorf noch Hollywood war." Woltersdorf.External links
*imdb name|id=0562004|name=Joe May
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